Chapter Three.
Olaf and his News.
When M. Kollsen appeared the next morning, the household had so much of its usual air that no stranger would have imagined how it had been occupied the day before. The large room was fresh strewn with evergreen sprigs; the breakfast-table stood at one end, where each took breakfast, standing, immediately on coming downstairs. At the bottom of the room was a busy group. The shoemaker, who travelled this way twice a year, had appeared this morning, and was already engaged upon the skins which had been tanned on the farm, and kept in readiness for him. He was instructing Oddo in the making of the tall boots of the country; and Oddo was so eager to have a pair in which he might walk knee-deep in the snow when the frosts should be over, that he gave all his attention to the work. Peder was twisting strips of leather, thin and narrow, into whips. Rolf and Hund were silently intent upon a sort of work which the Norwegian peasant delights in,—carving wood. They spoke only to answer Peder’s questions about the progress of the work. Peder loved to hear about their carving, and to feel it; for he had been remarkable for his skill in the art, as long as his sight lasted.
Erlingsen was reading the newspaper, which must go away in the pastor’s pocket. Madame was spinning; and her daughters sat busily plying their needles with Erica, in a corner of the apartment. The three were putting the last stitches to the piece of work which the pastor was also to carry away with him, as his fee for his services of yesterday. It was an eider-down coverlid, of which Rolf had procured the down, from the islets in the fiord frequented by the eider-duck, and Erica had woven the cover and quilted it, with the assistance of her young ladies, in an elegant pattern. The other house-maiden was in the chambers, hanging out the bedding in an upper gallery to air, as she did on all days of fair weather.
The whole party rose when M. Kollsen entered the room, but presently resumed their employments, except Madame Erlingsen, who conducted the pastor to the breakfast-table, and helped him plentifully to reindeer ham, bread-and-butter, and corn-brandy,—the usual breakfast. M. Kollsen carried his plate and ate, as he went round to converse with each group. First, he talked politics a little with his host, by the fire-side; in the midst of which conversation Erlingsen managed to intimate that nothing would be heard of Nipen to-day, if the subject was let alone by themselves: a hint which the clergyman was willing to take, as he supposed it meant in deference to his views. Then he complimented Madame Erlingsen on the excellence of her ham, and helped himself again; and next drew near the girls.
Erica blushed, and was thinking how she should explain that she wished his acceptance of her work, when Frolich saved her the awkwardness by saying—
“We hope you will like this coverlid, for we have made an entirely new pattern on purpose for it. Orga, you have the pattern. Do show M. Kollsen how pretty it looks on paper.”
M. Kollsen did not know much about such things; but he admired as much as he could.
“That lily of the valley, see, is mamma’s idea; and the barberry, answering to it, is mine. That tree in the middle is all Erica’s work—entirely; but the squirrel upon it, we never should have thought of. It was papa who put that in our heads; and it is the most original thing in the whole pattern. Erica has worked it beautifully, to be sure.”
“I think we have said quite enough about it,” observed Erica, smiling and blushing. “I hope M. Kollsen will accept it. The down is Rolfs present.”
Rolf rose, and made his bow, and said he had had pleasure in preparing his small offering.
“And I think,” said Erlingsen, “it is pretty plain that my little girls have had pleasure in their part of the work. It is my belief that they are sorry it is so nearly done.”
M. Kollsen graciously accepted the gift,—took up the coverlid and weighed it in his hand, in order to admire its lightness, compared with its handsome size; and then bent over the carvers, to see what work was under their hands.
“A bell-collar, sir,” said Hund, showing his piece of wood. “I am making a complete set for our cows, against they go to the mountain, come summer.”
“A pulpit, sir,” explained Rolf, showing his work in his turn.
“A pulpit! Really! And who is to preach in it?”
“You, sir, of course,” replied Erlingsen. “Long before you came,—from the time the new church was begun, we meant it should have a handsome pulpit. Six of us, within a round of twenty miles, undertook the six sides; and Rolf has great hopes of having the basement allotted to him afterwards. The best workman is to do the basement, and I think Rolf bids fair to be the one. This is good work, sir.”
“Exquisite,” said the pastor. “I question whether our native carvers may not be found to be equal to any whose works we hear so much of in Popish churches, in other countries. And there is no doubt of the superiority of their subjects. Look at these elegant twining flowers, and that fine brooding eagle! How much better to copy the beautiful works of God that are before our eyes, than to make durable pictures of the Popish idolatries and superstitions, which should all have been forgotten as soon as possible! I hope that none of the impious idolatries which, I am ashamed to say, still linger among us, will find their way into the arts by which future generations will judge us.”
The pastor stopped, on seeing that his hearers looked at one another, as if conscious. A few words, he judged, would be better than more; and he went on to Peder, passing by Oddo without a word of notice. The party had indeed glanced consciously at each other; for it so happened that the very prettiest piece Rolf had ever carved was a bowl on which he had shown the water-sprite’s hand (and never was hand so delicate as the water-sprite’s) beckoning the heron to come and fish when the river begins to flow.
When Erica heard M. Kollsen inquiring of Peder about his old wife, she started up from her work, and said she must run and prepare Ulla for the pastor’s visit. Poor Ulla would think herself forgotten this morning, it was growing so late, and nobody had been over to see her.
Ulla, however, was far from having any such thoughts. There sat the old woman, propped up in bed, knitting as fast as fingers could move, and singing, with her soul in her song, though her voice was weak and unsteady. She was covered with an eider-down quilt, like the first lady in the land; but this luxury was a consequence of her being old and ill, and having friends who cared for her infirmities. There was no other luxury. Her window was glazed with thick flaky glass, through which nothing could be seen distinctly. The shelf, the table, the clothes-chest, were all of rough fir-wood; and the walls of the house were of logs, well stuffed with moss in all the crevices, to keep out the cold. There are no dwellings so warm in winter and cool in summer as well-built log-houses; and this house had everything essential to health and comfort: but there was nothing more, unless it was the green sprinkling of the floor, and the clean appearance of everything the room contained, from Ulla’s cap to the wooden platters on the shelf.
“I thought you would come,” said Ulla. “I knew you would come, and take my blessing on your betrothment, and my wishes that you may soon be seen with the golden crown (Note 1). I must not say that I hope to see you crowned, for we all know,—and nobody so well as I,—that it is I that stand between you and your crown. I often think of it, my dear—”
“Then I wish you would not, Ulla: you know that.”
“I do know it, my dear, and I would not be for hastening God’s appointments. Let all be in His own time. And I know, by myself, how happy you may be,—you and Rolf,—while Peder and I are failing and dying. I only say that none wish for your crowning more than we. O, Erica! you have a fine lot in having Rolf.”
“Indeed, I know it, Ulla.”
“Do but look about you, dear, and see how he keeps the house. And if you were to see him give me my cup of coffee, and watch over Peder, you would consider what he is likely to be to a pretty young thing like you, when he is what he is to two worn-out old creatures like us.”
Erica did not need convincing about these things, but she liked to hear them.
“Where is he now?” asked Ulla. “I always ask where everybody is, at this season; people go about staring at the snow, as if they had no eyes to lose. That is the way my husband did. Do make Rolf take care of his precious eyes, Erica. Is he abroad to-day, my dear?”
“By this time he is,” replied Erica, “I left him at work at the pulpit—”
“Ay! trying his eyes with fine carving, as Peder did!”
“But,” continued Erica, “there was news this morning of a lodgment of logs at the top of the foss (Note 2); and they were all going, except Peder, to slide them down the gully to the fiord. The gully is frozen so slippery, that the work will not take long. They will make a raft of the logs in the fiord, and either Rolf or Hund will carry them out to the islands when the tide ebbs.”
“Will it be Rolf, do you think, or Hund, dear?”
“I wish it may be Hund. If it be Rolf, I shall go with him. O, Ulla! I cannot lose sight of him, after what happened last night. Did you hear? I do wish Oddo would grow wiser.”
Ulla shook her head, and then nodded, to intimate that they would not talk of Nipen; and she began to speak of something else.
“How did Hund conduct himself yesterday? I heard my husband’s account: but you know Peder could say nothing of his looks. Did you mark his countenance, dear?”
“Indeed, there was no helping it, any more than one can help watching a storm-cloud as it comes up.”
“So it was dark and wrathful, was it,—that ugly face of his? Well it might be, dear; well it might be!”
“The worst was,—worse than all his dark looks together,—O, Ulla! the worst was his leap and cry of joy when he heard what Oddo had done, and that Nipen was made our enemy. He looked like an evil spirit when he fixed his eyes on me, and snapped his fingers.”
Ulla shook her head mournfully, and then asked Erica to put another peat on the fire.
“I really should like to know,” said Erica, in a low voice, when she resumed her seat on the bed, “I am sure you can tell me if you would, what is the real truth about Hund, what it is that weighs upon his heart.”
“I will tell you,” replied Ulla. “You are not one that will go babbling it, so that Hund shall meet with taunts, and have his sore heart made sorer. I will tell you, my dear, though there is no one else but our mistress that I would tell, and she, no doubt, knows it already. Hund was born and reared a good way to the south, not far from Bergen. In mid-winter four years since, his master sent him on an errand of twenty miles, to carry some provisions to a village in the upper country. He did his errand, and so far all was well. The village people asked him for charity to carry three orphan children on his sledge some miles on the way to Bergen, and to leave them at a house he had to pass on his road, where they would be taken care of till they could be fetched from Bergen. Hund was an obliging young fellow then, and he made no objection. He took the little things, and saw that the two elder were well wrapped up from the cold. The third he took within his arms and on his knee as he drove, clasping it warm against his breast. So those say who saw them set off; and it is confirmed by one who met the sledge on the road, and heard the children prattling to Hund, and Hund laughing merrily at their little talk. Before they had got half-way, however, a pack of hungry wolves burst out upon them from a hollow to the right of the road. The brutes followed close at the back of the sledge, and—”
“O, stop!” cried Erica; “I know that story. Is it possible that Hund is the man? No need to go on, Ulla.”
But Ulla thought there was always need to finish a story that she had begun, and she proceeded.
“Closer and closer the wolves pressed, and it is thought Hund saw one about to spring at his throat. It was impossible for the horse to go faster than it did, for it went like the wind; but so did the beasts. Hund snatched up one of the children behind him, and threw it over the back of the sledge, and this stopped the pack for a little. On galloped the horse, but the wolves were soon crowding round again, with the blood freezing on their muzzles. It was easier to throw the second child than the first, and Hund did it. It was harder to give up the third—the dumb infant that nestled to his breast, but Hund was in mortal terror; and a man beside himself with terror has all the cruelty of a pack of wolves. Hund flung away the infant, and just saved himself. Nobody at home questioned him, for nobody knew about the orphans, and he did not tell. But he was unsettled and looked wild; and his talk, whenever he did speak, night or day, was of wolves, for the three days that he remained after his return. Then there was a questioning along the road about the orphan children; and Hund heard of it, and started off into the woods. By putting things together—what Hund had dropped in his agony of mind, and what had been seen and heard on the road, the whole was made out, and the country rose to find Hund. He was hunted like a bear in the forest and on the mountain; but he had got to the coast in time, and was taken in a boat, it is thought, to Hammerfest. At any rate, he came here as from the north, and wishes to pass for a northern man.”
“And does Erlingsen know all this?”
“Yes. The same person who told me told him. Erlingsen thinks he must meet with mercy, for that none need mercy so much as the weak; and Hund’s act was an act of weakness.”
“Weakness!” cried Erica, with disgust.
“He is a coward, my dear; and death stared him in the face.”
“I have often wondered,” said Erica, “where on the face of the earth that wretch was wandering: and it is Hund! And he wanted to live in this very house,” she continued, looking round the room.
“And to marry you, dear. Erlingsen would never have allowed that. But the thought has plunged the poor fellow deeper, instead of saving him, as he hoped. He now has envy and jealousy at his heart, besides the remorse which he will carry to his grave.”
“And revenge!” said Erica, shuddering. “I tell you he leaped for joy that Nipen was offended. Here is some one coming,” she exclaimed, starting from her seat, as a shadow flitted over the thick window-pane, and a hasty knock was heard at the door.
“You are a coward, if ever there was one,” said Ulla, smiling. “Hund never comes here, so you need not look so frightened. What is to be done if you look so at dinner, or the next time you meet him? It will be the ruin of some of us. Go,—open the door, and do not keep the pastor waiting.”
There was another knock before Erica could reach the door, and Frolich burst in.
“Such news!” she cried; “you never heard such news.”
“I wish there never was any news,” exclaimed Erica, almost pettishly.
“Good or bad?” inquired Ulla.
“O, bad,—very bad,” declared Frolich, who yet looked as if she would rather have it than none. “Here is company. Olaf, the drug-merchant, is come. Father did not expect him these three weeks.”
“This is not bad news, but good,” said Ulla. “Who knows but he may bring me a cure?”
“We will all beg him to cure you, dear Ulla,” said Frolich, stroking the old woman’s white hair smooth upon her forehead. “But he tells us shocking things. There is a pirate-vessel among the islands. She was seen off Soroe, some time ago; but she is much nearer to us now. There was a farm-house seen burning on Alten fiord, last week; and as the family are all gone, and nothing but ruins left, there is little doubt the pirates lit the torch that did it. And the cod has been carried off from the beach, in the few places where any has been caught yet.”
“They have not found out our fiord yet?” inquired Ulla.
“O, dear! I hope not. But they may, any day. And father says, the coast must be raised, from Hammerfest to Tronyem, and a watch set till this wicked vessel can be taken or driven away. He was going to send a running message both ways; but here is something else to be done first.”
“Another misfortune?” asked Erica, faintly.
“No: they say it is a piece of very good fortune;—at least, for those who like bears’ feet for dinner. Somebody or other has lighted upon the great bear that got away in the summer, and poked her out of her den, on the fjelde. She is certainly abroad, with her two last year’s cubs; and their traces have been found just above, near the foss. Olaf had heard of her being roused; and Rolf and Hund have found her traces. Oddo has come running home to tell us: and father says he must get up a hunt before more snow falls, and we lose the tracks, or the family may establish themselves among us, and make away with our first calves.”
“Does he expect to kill them all?”
“I tell you, we are all to grow stout on bears’ feet. For my part, I like bears’ feet best on the other side of Tronyem.”
“You will change your mind, Miss Frolich, when you see them on the table,” observed Ulla.
“That is just what father said. And he asked how I thought Erica and Stiorna would like to have a den in their neighbourhood when they go up to the mountain for the summer. O, it will be all right when the hunt is well over, and all the bears dead. Meantime, I thought they were at my heels as I crossed the yard.”
“And that made you burst in as you did. Did Olaf say anything about coming to see me? Has he plenty of medicines with him?”
“O, certainly. That was the thing I came to say. He is laying out his medicines, while he warms himself; and then he is coming over, to see what he can do for your poor head. He asked about you, directly; and he is frowning over his drugs, as if he meant to let them know that they must not trifle with you.”
Ulla was highly pleased, and gave her directions very briskly about the arrangement of the room. If it had been the grandest apartment of a palace, she could not have been more particular as to where everything should stand. When all was to her mind, she begged Erica to step over, and inform Olaf that she was ready.
When Erica opened the door, she instantly drew back, and shut it again.
“What now?” asked Frolich. “Are all the bears in the porch?”
“Olaf is there,” replied Erica, in a whisper, “talking with Hund.”
“Hund wants a cure for the head-ache,” Frolich whispered in return; “or a charm to make some girl betroth herself to him;—a thing which no girl will do, but under a charm: for I don’t believe Stiorna would when it came to the point, though she likes to be attended to.”
When Olaf entered, and Hund walked away, Frolich ran home, and Erica stood by the window, ready to receive the travelling doctor’s opinion and directions if he should vouchsafe any.
“So I am not the first to consult you to-day,” said Ulla. “It is rather hard that I should not have the best chance of luck, having been so long ill.”
Olaf assured her that he would hear no complaints from another till he had given her the first-fruits of his wisdom in this district of his rounds. Hund was only inquiring of him where the pirate-schooner was, having slid down from the height, as fast as his snow-skaits would carry him, on hearing the news from Oddo. He was also eager to know whence these pirates came,—what nation they were of, or whether a crew gathered from many nations. Olaf had advised Hund to go and ask the pirates themselves all that he wanted to know; for there was no one else who could satisfy him. Whereupon Hund had smiled grimly, and gone back to his work.
Erica observed that she had heard her master say that it was foolish to boast that Norway need not mind when Denmark went to war, because it would be carried on far out of sight and hearing. So far from this, Erlingsen had said, that Denmark never went to war but pirates came to ravage the coast, from the North Cape to the Naze. Was not this the case now? Denmark had gone to war; and here were the pirates come to make her poor partner suffer.
Olaf said this explained the matter: and he feared the business of the coast would suffer till a time of peace. Meanwhile, he must mind his business. When he had heard all Ulla’s complaints, and ordered exactly what she wished—large doses of camphor and corn-brandy to keep off the night-fever and daily cough, he was ready to hear whatever else Erica had to ask, for Ulla had hinted that Erica wanted advice.
“I do not mind Ulla hearing my words,” said Erica. “She knows my trouble.”
“It is of the mind,” observed Olaf, solemnly, on discovering that Erica did not desire to have her pulse felt.
“Yesterday was— I was—” Erica began.
“She was betrothed yesterday,” said Ulla, “to the man of her heart. Rolf is such a young man—”
“Olaf knows Rolf,” observed Erica. “An unfortunate thing happened at the end of the day, Olaf. Nipen was insulted.” And she told the story of Oddo’s prank, and implored the doctor to say if anything could be done to avert bad consequences.
“No doubt,” replied Olaf. “Look here! This will preserve you from any particular evil that you dread.” And he took from the box he carried under his arm a round piece of white paper, with a hole in the middle, through which a string was to be passed, to tie the charm round the neck. Erica shook her head. Such a charm would be of no use, as she did not know under what particular shape of misfortune Nipen’s displeasure would show itself. Besides, she was certain that nothing would make Rolf wear a charm; and she disdained to use any security which he might not share. Olaf could not help her in any other way; but inquired with sympathy when the next festival would take place. Then, all might be repaired by handsome treatment of Nipen. Till then, he advised Erica to wear his charm, as her lover could not be the worse for her being so far safe. Erica blushed: she knew, but did not say, that harm would be done which no charm could repair if her lover saw her trying to save herself from dangers to which he remained exposed: and she did not know what their betrothment was worth, if it did not give them the privilege of suffering together. So she put back the charm into its place in the box, and, with a sigh, rose to return to the house.
In the porch she found Oddo, eating something which caused him to make faces. Though it was in the open air, there was a strong smell of camphor, and of something else less pleasant.
“What are you doing, Oddo?” asked Erica: the question which Oddo was asked every day of his life.
Oddo had observed Olaf’s practice among his patients of the household, and perceived that, for all complaints, of body or mind, he gave the two things camphor and asafoetida,—sometimes together, and sometimes separately; and always in corn-brandy. Oddo could not refrain from trying what these drugs were like; so he helped himself to some of each; and, as he could get no corn-brandy till dinner-time, he was eating the medicines without. Such was the cause of his wry faces. If he had been anything but a Norway boy, he would have been the invalid of the house to-day, from the quantity of rich cake he had eaten: but Oddo seemed to share the privilege, common to Norwegians, of being able to eat anything, in any quantity, without injury. His wry faces were from no indigestion, but from the savour of asafoetida, unrelieved by brandy.
Wooden dwellings resound so much as to be inconvenient for those who have secrets to tell. In the porch of Peder’s house, Oddo had heard all that passed within. It was good for him to have done so. He became more sensible of the pain he had given, and more anxious to repair it. “Dear Erica,” said he, “I want you to do a very kind thing for me. Do get leave for me to go with Rolf after the bears. If I get one stroke at them,—if I can but wound one of them, I shall have a paw for my share; and I will lay it out for Nipen. You will, will you not?”
“It must be as Erlingsen chooses, Oddo: but I fancy you will not be allowed to go just now. The bears will think the doctor’s physic-sledge is coming through the woods, and they will be shy. Do stand a little further off. I cannot think how it is that you are not choked.”
“Suppose you go for an airing,” said the doctor, who now joined them. “If you must not go in the way of the bears, there is a reindeer,—”
“O, where?” cried Oddo.
“I saw one,—all alone,—on the Salten heights. If you run that way, with the wind behind you, the deer will give you a good run;—up Sulitelma, if you like, and you will have got rid of the camphor before you come back. And be sure you bring me some Iceland moss, to pay me for what you have been helping yourself to.”
When Oddo had convinced himself that Olaf really had seen a reindeer on the heights, three miles off, he said to himself, that if deer do not like camphor, they are fond of salt; and he was presently at the salt-box, and then quickly on his way to the hills with his bait. He considered his chance of training home the deer much more probable than that Erlingsen and his grandfather would allow him to hunt the bears: And he doubtless judged rightly.
Note 1. Peasant brides in Norway wear, on their wedding-day, a coronet of pasteboard, covered with gilt paper.
Note 2. Waterfall. Pine-trunks felled in the forest are drawn over the frozen snow to the banks of a river, or to the top of a waterfall, whence they may be either slid down over the ice, or left to be carried down by the floods, at the melting of the snows in the spring.
Chapter Four.
Roving here and Roving there.
The establishment was now in a great hurry and bustle for an hour, after which time it promised to be unusually quiet.
M. Kollsen began to be anxious to be on the other side of the fiord. It was rather inconvenient, as the two men were wanted to go in different directions, while their master took a third, to rouse the farmers for the bear-hunt. The hunters were all to arrive before night within a certain distance of the thickets where the bears were now believed to be. On calm nights it was no great hardship to spend the dark hours in the bivouac of the country. Each party was to shelter itself under a bank of snow, or in a pit dug out of it, an enormous fire blazing in the midst, and brandy and tobacco being plentifully distributed on such occasions. Early in the morning the director of the hunt was to go his rounds, and arrange the hunters in a ring enclosing the hiding-place of the bears, so that all might be prepared, and no waste made of the few hours of daylight which the season afforded. As soon as it was light enough to see distinctly among the trees, or bushes, or holes of the rocks where the bears might be couched, they were to be driven from their retreat, and disposed of as quickly as possible. Such was the plan, well understood, in such cases throughout the country. On the present occasion it might be expected that the peasantry would be ready at the first summons, as Olaf had told his story of the bears all along the road. Yet, the more messengers and helpers the better; and Erlingsen was rather vexed to see Hund go with alacrity to unmoor the boat, and offer officiously to row the pastor across the fiord. His daughters knew what he was thinking about, and after a moment’s consultation, Frolich asked whether she and the maid Stiorna might not be the rowers.
Nobody would have objected if Hund had not. The girls could row, though they could not hunt bears; and the weather was fair enough; but Hund shook his head, and went on preparing the boat. His master spoke to him, but Hund was not remarkable for giving up his own way. He would only say that there would be plenty of time for both affairs, and that he could follow the hunt when he returned, and across the lake he went.
Erlingsen and Rolf presently departed, accompanied by Olaf, who was glad of an escort for a few miles, though nothing was further from his intention than going near the bears. The women and Peder were thus left behind.
They occupied themselves to keep away anxious thoughts. One began some new nets, for the approaching fishing season; another sat in the loom, and the girls appealed to their mother very frequently, about the beauties of a new quilting pattern they were drawing. Old Peder sang to them too; but Peder’s songs were rather melancholy, and they had not the effect of cheering the party. Hour after hour they looked for Hund. His news of his voyage, and the sending him after his master, would be something to do and to think of; but Hund did not come. Stiorna at last let fall that she did not think he would come yet, for that he meant to catch some cod before his return; he had taken tackle with him for that purpose, she knew, and she should not wonder if he did not appear till the morning.
Every one was surprised, and Madame Erlingsen highly displeased. At the time when her husband would be wanting every strong arm that could be mustered, his servant chose to be out fishing, instead of obeying orders. The girls pronounced him a coward, and Peder observed that to a coward, as well as a sluggard, there was ever a lion in the path. Erica doubted whether this act of disobedience arose from cowardice, for there were dangers in the fiord, for such as went out as far as the cod. She supposed Hund had heard—
She stopped short, as a sudden flash of suspicion crossed her mind. She had seen Hund inquiring of Olaf about the pirates, and his strange obstinacy about this day’s boating looked much as if he meant to learn more.
“Danger in the fiord!” repeated Orga. “O, you mean the pirates; they are far enough from our fiord, I suppose. If ever they do come, I wish they would catch Hund, and carry him off. I am sure we could spare them nothing they would be so welcome to.”
Madame Erlingsen saw that Erica was turning red and white, and resolved to ask, on the first good opportunity, what was in her mind about Hund, for no one was more disposed to distrust and watch him than the lady herself.
The first piece of amusement that occurred was the return of Oddo, who passed the windows, followed at a short distance by a wistful-looking deer, which seemed afraid to come quite up to him, but kept its branched head outstretched towards the salt which Oddo displayed, dropping a few grains from time to time. At the sight all crowded to the windows but Frolich, who left the room on the instant. Before the animal had passed the servants’ house (a separate dwelling in the yard), she appeared in the gallery which ran round the outside of it, and showed to Oddo a cord which she held; he nodded, and threw down some salt on the snow immediately below where she stood. The reindeer stooped its head, instead of looking out for enemies above, and thus gave Frolich a good opportunity to throw her cord over its antlers. She had previously wound one end round the balustrade of the gallery, so that she had not with her single strength to sustain the animal’s struggles.
The poor animal struggled violently when it found its head no longer at liberty, and, by throwing out its legs, gave Oddo an opportunity to catch and fasten it by the hind leg, so as to decide its fate completely. It could now only start from side to side, and threaten with its head when the household gathered round to congratulate Oddo and Frolich on the success of their hunting. The women durst only hastily stroke the palpitating sides of the poor beast; but, Peder, who had handled many scores in his lifetime, boldly seized its head, and felt its horns and the bones from whence they grew, to ascertain its age.
“Do you fancy you have made a prize of a wild deer, boy?” he asked of his grandson.
“To be sure,” said Oddo.
“I thought you had had more curiosity than to take such a thing for granted, Oddo. See here! Is not this ear slit?”
“Why, yes,” Oddo admitted; “but it is not a slit of this year or last. It may have belonged to the Lapps once upon a time; but it has been wild for so long that it is all the same as if it had never been in a fold. It will never be claimed.”
“I am of your opinion there, boy. I wish you joy of your sport.”
“You may: for I doubt whether anybody will do better to-day. Hund will not, for one, if it is he who has gone out with the boat; and I think I cannot be mistaken in the handling of his oar.”
“Have you seen him? Where? What is he doing?” asked one and another.
Before Oddo could answer, Madame Erlingsen desired that he would go home with his grandfather, and tell Ulla about the deer, while he warmed himself. She did not wish her daughters to hear what he might have to tell of Hund. Stiorna too was better out of the way. Oddo had not half told the story of the deer to his grandmother, when his mistress and Erica entered.
“Did you not see M. Kollsen in the boat with Hund?” she inquired.
“No. Hund was quite alone, pulling with all his might down the fiord. The tide was with him, so that he shot along like a fish.”
“How do you know that it was Hund you saw?”
“Don’t I know our boat? And don’t I know his pull? It is no more like Rolf’s than Rolf’s is like master’s.”
“Perhaps he was making for the best fishing-ground as fast as he could.”
“We shall see that by the fish he brings home.”
“True. By supper-time we shall know.”
“Hund will not be home by supper-time,” said Oddo, decidedly.
“Why not? Come, say out what you mean.”
“Well, I will tell you what I saw. I watched him rowing as fast as his arm and the tide would carry him. It was so plain that there was a plan in his head, that I forgot the deer in watching him; and I followed on from point to point, catching a sight now and then, till I had gone a good stretch beyond Salten heights. I was just going to turn back when I took one more look, and he was then pulling in for the land.”
“On the north shore or south?” asked Peder.
“The north—just at the narrow part of the fiord, where one can see into the holes of the rocks opposite.”
“The fiord takes a wide sweep below there,” observed Peder.
“Yes; and that was why he landed,” replied Oddo. “He was then but a little way from the fishing-ground, if he had wanted fish. But he drove up the boat into a little cove, a narrow dark creek, where it will lie safe enough, I have no doubt, till he comes back: if he means to come back.”
“Why, where should he go? What should he do but come back?” asked Madame Erlingsen.
“He is now gone over the ridge to the north. I saw him moor the boat, and begin to climb; and I watched his dark figure on the white snow, higher and higher, till it was a speck, and I could not make it out.”
“That is the way you will lose your eyes,” exclaimed Ulla. “How often have I warned you,—and many others as giddy as you! When you have lost your eyes, you will think you had better have minded my advice, and not have stared at the snow after a runaway that is better there than here.”
“What do you think of this story, Peder?” asked his mistress.
“I think Hund has taken the short cut over the promontory, on business of his own at the islands. He is not on any business of yours, depend upon it, madam.”
“And what business can he have among the islands?”
“I could say that with more certainty if I knew exactly where the pirate-vessel is.”
“That is your idea, Erica,” said her mistress. “I saw what your thoughts were, an hour ago, before we knew all this.”
“I was thinking then, madam, that if Hund was gone to join the pirates, Nipen would be very ready to give them a wind just now. A baffling wind would be our only defence; and we cannot expect that much from Nipen to-day.”
“I will do anything in the world,” cried Oddo, eagerly. “Send me anywhere. Do think of something that I can do.”
“What must be done, Peder?” asked his mistress. “There is quite enough to fear, Erica, without a word of Nipen. Pirates on the coast, and one farm-house seen burning already!”
“I will tell you what you must let me do, madam,” said Erica. “Indeed you must not oppose me. My mind is quite set upon going for the boat,—immediately—this very minute. That will give us time—it will give us safety for this night. Hund might bring seven or eight men upon us over the promontory: but if they find no boat, I think they can hardly work up the windings of the fiord in their own vessel to-night;—unless, indeed,” she added, with a sigh, “they have a most favourable wind.”
“All this is true enough,” said her mistress; “but how will you go? Will you swim?”
“The raft, madam.”
“And there is the old skiff on Thor islet,” said Oddo. “It is a rickety little thing, hardly big enough for two; but it will carry down Erica and me, if we go before the tide turns.”
“But how will you get to Thor islet?” inquired Madame Erlingsen. “I wish the scheme were not such a wild one.”
“A wild one must serve at such a time, madam,” replied Erica. “Rolf had lashed several logs before he went. I am sure we can get over to the islet. See, madam, the fiord is as smooth as a pond.”
“Let her go,” said Peder. “She will never repent.”
“Then come back, I charge you, if you find the least danger,” said her mistress. “No one is safer at the oar than you; but if there is a ripple in the water, or a gust on the heights, or a cloud in the sky, come back. Such is my command, Erica.”
“Wife,” said Peder, “give her your pelisse; that will save her seeing the girls before she goes. And she shall have my cap, and then there is not an eye along the fiord that can tell whether she is man or woman.”
Ulla lent her deerskin pelisse willingly enough; but she entreated that Oddo might be kept at home. She folded her arms about the boy with tears; but Peder decided the matter with the words, “Let him go; it is the least he can do to make up for last night. Equip, Oddo.”
Oddo equipped willingly enough. In two minutes he and his companion looked like two walking bundles of fur. Oddo carried a frail-basket, containing rye-bread, salt-fish, and a flask of corn-brandy; for in Norway no one goes on the shortest expedition without carrying provisions.
“Surely it must be dusk by this time,” said Peder.
It was dusk; and this was well, as the pair could steal down to the shore without being perceived from the house. Madame Erlingsen gave them her blessing, saying that if the enterprise saved them from nothing worse than Hund’s company this night, it would be a great good. There could be no more comfort in having Hund for an inmate; for some improper secret he certainly had. Her hope was that, finding the boat gone, he would never show himself again.
“One would think,” continued the lady, when she returned from watching Erica and Oddo disappear in the dusk—“one would think Erica had never known fear. Her step is as firm and her eye as clear as if she had never trembled in the course of her life.”
“She knows how to act to-night,” said Peder; “and she is going into danger for her lover, instead of waiting at home while her lover goes into danger for her. A hundred pirates in the fiord would not make her tremble as she trembled last night. Rather a hundred pirates than Nipen angry, she would say.”
“There is her weakness,” observed her mistress.
“Can we speak of weakness after what we have just seen—if I may say so, madam?”
“I think so,” replied Madame Erlingsen. “I think it a weakness in those who believe that a just and tender Providence watches over us all, to fear what any power in the universe can do to them.”
“M. Kollsen does not make progress in teaching the people what you say, madam. He only gets distrusted by it.”
“When M. Kollsen has had more experience, he will find that this is not a matter for displeasure. He will not succeed while he is displeased at what his people think sacred. When he is an older man, he will pity the innocent for what they suffer from superstition; and this pity will teach him how to speak of Providence to such as our Erica. But here are my girls coming to seek me. I must meet them, to prevent their missing Erica.”
“Get them to rest early, madam.”
“Certainly; and you will watch in this house, Peder, and I at home.”
“Trust me for hearing the oar at a furlong off, madam.”
“That is more than I can promise,” said the lady; “but the owl shall not be more awake than I.”
Chapter Five.
The Water-Sprites’ Doings.
Erica now profited by her lover’s industry in the morning. He had so far advanced with the raft that, though no one would have thought of taking it in its present state to the mouth of the fiord for shipment, it would serve as a conveyance in still water for a short distance safely enough.
And still, indeed, the waters were. As Erica and Oddo were busily and silently employed in tying moss round their oars to muffle their sound, the ripple of the tide upon the white sand could scarcely be heard, and it appeared to the eye as if the lingering remains of the daylight brooded on the fiord, unwilling to depart. The stars had, however, been showing themselves for some time; and they might now be seen twinkling below almost as clearly and steadily as overhead. As Erica and Oddo put their little raft off from the shore, and then waited, with their oars suspended, to observe whether the tide carried them towards the islet they must reach, it seemed as if some invisible hand was pushing them forth to shiver the bright pavement of constellations as it lay. Star after star was shivered, and its bright fragments danced in their wake; and those fragments reunited and became a star again as the waters closed over the path of the raft, and subsided into perfect stillness.
The tide favoured Erica’s object. A few strokes of the oar brought the raft to the right point for landing on the islet. They stepped ashore, and towed the raft along till they came to the skiff, and then they fastened the raft with the boat-hook which had been fixed there for the skiff. This done, Oddo ran to turn over the little boat, and examine its condition: but he found he could not move it. It was frozen fast to the ground. It was scarcely possible to get a firm hold of it, it was so slippery with ice; and all pulling and pushing of the two together was in vain, though the boat was so light that either of them could have lifted and carried it in a time of thaw.
This circumstance caused a good deal of delay: and, what was worse, it obliged them to make some noise. They struck at the ice with sharp stones; but it was long before they could make any visible impression; and Erica proposed, again and again, that they should proceed on the raft. Oddo was unwilling. The skiff would go so incomparably faster, that it was worth spending some time upon it: and the fears he had had of its leaking were removed, now that he found what a sheet of ice it was covered with,—ice which would not melt to admit a drop of water while they were in it. So he knocked and knocked away, wishing that the echoes would be quiet for once, and then laughing as he imagined the ghost-stories that would spring up all round the fiord to-morrow, from the noise he was then making.
Erica worked hard too; and one advantage of their labour was that they were well warmed before they put off again. The boat’s icy fastenings were all broken at last: and it was launched: but all was not ready yet. The skiff had lain in a direction east and west; and its north side had so much thicker a coating of ice than the other, that its balance was destroyed. It hung so low on one side as to promise to upset with a touch.
“We must clear off more of the ice,” said Erica. “But how late it is growing!”
“No more knocking, I say,” replied Oddo. “There is a quieter way of trimming the boat.”
He fastened a few stones to the gunwale on the lighter side, and took in a few more for the purpose of shifting the weight, if necessary, while they were on their way.
They did not leave quiet behind them, when they departed. They had roused the multitude of eider-ducks, and other sea-fowl, which thronged the islet, and which now, being roused, began their night-feeding and flying, though at an earlier hour than usual. When their discordant cries were left so far behind as to be softened by distance, the flapping of wings and swash of water, as the fowl plunged in, still made the air busy all round.
The rowers were so occupied with the management of their dangerous craft, that they had not spoken since they left the islet. The skiff would have been unmanageable by any maiden and boy in our country; but, on the coast of Norway, it is as natural to persons of all ages and degrees to guide a boat as to walk. Swiftly but cautiously they shot through the water, till, at length, Oddo uttered a most hideous croak.
“What do you mean?” asked Erica, hastily glancing round her.
Oddo laughed, and looked upwards as he croaked again. He was answered by a similar croak, and a large raven was seen flying homewards over the fiord for the night. Then the echoes all croaked, till the whole region seemed to be full of ravens.
“Are you sure you know the cove?” asked Erica, who wished to put an end to this sound, unwelcome to the superstitious. “Do not make that bird croak so; it will be quiet if you let it alone. Are you sure you can find the cove again?”
“Quite sure. I wish I was as sure that Hund would not find it again before me. Pull away.”
“How much farther is it?”
“Farther than I like to think of. I doubt your arm holding out. I wish Rolf was here.”
Erica did not wish the same thing. She thought that Rolf was, on the whole, safer waging war with bears than with pirates; especially if Hund was among them. She pulled her oar cheerfully, observing that there was no fatigue at present; and that when they were once afloat in the heavier boat, and had cleared the cove, there need be no hurry,—unless, indeed, they should see something of the pirate-schooner on the way: and of this she had no expectation, as the booty that might be had where the fishery was beginning was worth more than anything that could be found higher up the fiords:—to say nothing of the danger of running up into the country, so far as that getting away again depended upon one particular wind.
Yet Erica looked behind her after every few strokes of her oar; and once, when she saw something, her start was felt like a start of the skiff itself. There was a fire glancing and gleaming and quivering over the water, some way down the fiord.
“Some people night-fishing,” observed Oddo. “What sport they will have! I wish I was with them. How fast we go! How you can row when you choose! I can see the man that is holding the torch. Cannot you see his black figure? And the spearman,—see how he stands at the bow,—now going to cast his spear! I wish I was there.”
“We must get farther away,—into the shadow somewhere,—or wait,” observed Erica. “I had rather not wait,—it is growing so late. We might creep along under that promontory, in the shadow, if you would be quiet. I wonder whether you can be silent in the sight of night-fishing.”
“To be sure,” said Oddo, disposed to be angry, and only kept from it by the thought of last night. He helped to bring the skiff into the shadow of the overhanging rocks, and only spoke once more, to whisper that the fishing-boat was drifting down with the tide, and that he thought their cove lay between them and the fishing-party.
It was so. As the skiff rounded the point of the promontory, Oddo pointed out what appeared like a mere dark chasm in the high perpendicular wall of rock that bounded the waters. This chasm still looked so narrow, on approaching it, that Erica hesitated to push her skiff into it, till certain that there was no one there. Oddo, however, was so clear, that she might safely do this, so noiseless was their rowing, and it was so plain that there was no footing on the rocks by which he might enter to explore, that in a sort of desperation, and seeing nothing else to be done, Erica agreed. She wished it had been summer, when either of them might have learned what they wanted by swimming. This was now out of the question; and stealthily therefore she pulled her little craft into the deepest shadow, and crept into the cove.
At a little distance from the entrance it widened; but it was a wonder to Erica that even Oddo’s eyes should have seen Hund moor his boat here from the other side of the fiord; though the fiord was not more than a gunshot over in this part. Oddo himself wondered, till he recalled how the sun was shining down into the chasm at the time. By starlight the outline of all that the cove contained might be seen; the outline of the boat, among other things. There she lay! But there was something about her which was unpleasant enough. There were three men in her.
What was to be done bow? Here was the very worst danger that Erica had feared—worse than finding the boat gone—worse than meeting it in the wide fiord. What was to be done?
There was nothing for it but to do nothing—to lie perfectly still in the shadow, ready, however, to push out on the first movement of the boat to leave the cove; for, though the canoe might remain unnoticed at present, it was impossible that anybody could pass out of the cove without seeing her. In such a case, there would be nothing for it but a race—a race for which Erica and Oddo held themselves prepared, without any mutual explanation; for they dared not speak. The faintest whisper would have crept over the smooth water to the ears in the larger boat.
One thing was certain—that something must happen presently. It is impossible for the hardiest men to sit inactive in a boat for any length of time in a January night in Norway. In the calmest nights the cold is only to be sustained by means of the glow from strong exercise. It was certain that these three men could not have been long in their places, and that they would not sit many moments more without some change in their arrangements.
They did not seem to be talking; for Oddo, who was the best listener in the world, could not discover that a sound issued from their boat. He fancied they were drowsy; and, being aware what were the consequences of yielding to drowsiness in severe cold, the boy began to entertain high hopes of taking these three men prisoners. The whole country would ring with such a feat, performed by Erica and himself.
The men were, however, too much awake to be made prisoners of at present. One was seen to drink from a flask, and the hoarse voice of another was heard grumbling, as far as the listeners could make out, at being kept waiting. The third then rose to look about him, and Erica trembled from head to foot. He only looked upon the land, however, declared he saw nothing of those he was expecting, and began to warm himself as he stood, by repeatedly clapping his arms across his breast, in the way that hackney-coachmen and porters do in England. This was Hund. He could not have been known by his figure, for all persons look alike in wolf-skin pelisses; but the voice and the action were his. Oddo saw how Erica shuddered. He put his finger on his lips, but Erica needed no reminding of the necessity of quietness.
The other two men then rose; and, after a consultation, the words of which could not be heard, all stepped ashore one after another, and climbed a rocky pathway.
“Now, now!” whispered Erica. “Now we can get away!”
“Not without the boat,” said Oddo. “You would not leave them the boat!”
“No—not if—but they will be back in a moment. They are only gone to hasten their companions.”
“I know it,” said Oddo. “Now two strokes forward.”
While she gave these two strokes, which brought the skiff to the stern of the boat, Erica saw that Oddo had taken out a knife, which gleamed in the starlight. It was for cutting the thong by which the boat was fastened to a birch pole, the other end of which was hooked on shore. This was to save his going ashore to unhook the pole. It was well for him that boat-chains were not in use, owing to the scarcity of metal in that region. The clink of a chain would certainly have been heard.
Quickly and silently he entered the boat and tied the skiff to its stern, and he and Erica took their places where the men had sat one minute before. They used their own muffled oars to turn the boat round, till Oddo observed that the boat oars were muffled too. Then voices were heard again. The men were returning. Strongly did the two companions draw their strokes till a good breadth of water lay between them and the shore, and then till they had again entered the deep shadow which shrouded the mouth of the cove. There they paused.
“In with you!” some loud voice said, as man after man was seen in outline coming down the pathway; “in with you! We have lost time enough already.”
“Where is she? I can’t see the boat,” answered the foremost man.
“You can’t miss her,” said one behind, “unless the brandy has got into your eyes.”
“So I should have said; but I do miss her. It is very incomprehensible to me.”
Oddo shook with stifled laughter as he partly saw and partly overheard the perplexity of these men. At last one gave a deep groan, and another declared that the spirits of the fiord were against them, and there was no doubt that their boat was now lying twenty fathoms deep at the bottom of the creek, drawn down by the strong hand of an angry water-spirit. Oddo squeezed Erica’s little hand as he heard this. If it had been light enough, he would have seen that even she was smiling.
One of the men mourned their having no other boat, so that they must give up their plan. Another said that if they had a dozen boats, he would not set foot in one after what had happened. He should go straight back, the way he came, to their own vessel. Another said he would not go till he had looked abroad over the fiord for some chance of seeing the boat. This he persisted in, though told by the rest that it was absurd to suppose that the boat had loosed itself, and gone out into the fiord, in the course of the two minutes that they had been absent. He showed the fragment of the cut thong in proof of the boat not having loosed itself, and set off for a point on the heights which he said overlooked the fiord. One or two went with him, the rest returning up the narrow pathway at some speed—such speed that Erica thought they were afraid of the hindmost being caught by the same enemy that had taken their boat. Oddo observed this too, and he quickened their pace by setting up very loud the mournful cry with which he was accustomed to call out the plovers on the mountain side on sporting days. No sound can be more melancholy; and now, as it rang from the rocks, it was so unsuitable to the place, and so terrible to the already frightened men, that they ran on as fast as the slipperiness of the rocks would allow, till they were all out of sight over the ridge.
“Now for it, before the other two come out above us there!” said Oddo; and in another minute they were again in the fiord, keeping as much in the shadow as they could, however, till they must strike over to the islet.
“Thank God that we came!” exclaimed Erica. “We shall never forget what we owe you, Oddo. You shall see, by the care we take of your grandfather and Ulla, that we do not forget what you have done this night. If Nipen will only forgive, for the sake of this—”
“We were just in the nick of time,” observed Oddo. “It was better than if we had been earlier.”
“I do not know,” said Erica. “Here are their brandy-bottles, and many things besides. I had rather not have had to bring these away.”
“But if we had been earlier, they would not have had their fright. That is the best part of it. Depend upon it, some that have not said their prayers for long will say them to-night.”
“That will be good. But I do not like carrying home these things that are not ours. If they are seen at Erlingsen’s, they may bring the pirates down upon us. I would leave them on the islet, but that the skiff has to be left there too, and that would explain our trick.”
Erica would not consent to throw the property overboard. This would be robbing those who had not actually injured her, whatever their intentions might have been. She thought that if the goods were left upon some barren, uninhabited part of the shore, the pirates would probably be the first to find them; and that, if not, the rumour of such an extraordinary fact, spread by the simple country-people, would be sure to reach them. So Oddo carried on shore, at the first stretch of white beach they came to, the brandy-flasks, the bearskins, the tobacco-pouch, the muskets and powder-horns, and the tinder-box. He scattered these about just above high-water mark, laughing to think how report would tell of the sprite’s care in placing all these articles out of reach of injury from the water.
Oddo did not want for light while doing this. When he returned, he found Erica gazing up over the towering precipices, at the Northern lights, which had now unfurled their broad yellow blaze. She was glad that they had not appeared sooner, to spoil the adventure of the night; but she was thankful to have the way home thus illumined, now that the business was done. She answered with so much alacrity to Oddo’s question whether she was not very weary, that he ventured to say two things which had before been upon his tongue, without his having courage to utter them.
“You will not be so afraid of Nipen any more,” observed he, glancing at her face, of which he could see every feature by the quivering light. “You see how well everything has turned out.”
“O, hush! It is too soon yet to speak so. It is never right to speak so. There is no knowing till next Christmas, nor even then, that Nipen forgives; and the first twenty-four hours are not over yet. Pray do not speak any more, Oddo.”
“Well, not about that. But what was it exactly that you thought Hund would do with this boat and those people? Did you think,” he continued, after a short pause, “that they would come up to Erlingsen’s to rob the place?”
“Not for the object of robbing the place, because there is very little that is worth their taking, far less than at the fishing-grounds; not but they might have robbed us, if they took a fancy to anything we have. No! I thought, and I still think, that they would have carried off Rolf, led on by Hund—”
“O, ho! carried off Rolf! So here is the secret of your wonderful courage to-night—you who durst not look round at your own shadow last night! This is the secret of your not being tired—you who are out of breath with rowing a mile sometimes!”
“That is in summer,” pleaded Erica; “however, you have my secret, as you say, a thing which is no secret at home. We all think that Hund bears such a grudge against Rolf, for having got the houseman’s place—”
“And for nothing else?”
“That,” continued Erica, “he would be glad to—to—”
“To get rid of Rolf, and be a houseman, and get betrothed instead of him. Well: Hund is balked for this time. Rolf must look to himself after to-day.”
Erica sighed deeply. She did not believe that Rolf would attend to his own safety, and the future looked very dark,—all shrouded by her fears.
By the time the skiff was deposited where it had been found, both the rowers were so weary that they gave up the idea of taking the raft in tow, as for full security they ought to do. They doubted whether they could get home, if they had more weight to draw than their own boat. It was well that they left this incumbrance behind, for there was quite peril and difficulty enough without it, and Erica’s strength and spirits failed the more the further the enemy was left behind.
A breath of wind seemed to bring a sudden darkening of the friendly lights which had blazed up higher and brighter, from their first appearance till now. Both rowers looked down the fiord, and uttered an exclamation at the same moment.
“See the fog!” cried Oddo, putting fresh strength into his oar.
“O Nipen! Nipen!” mournfully exclaimed Erica. “Here it is, Oddo,—the west wind!”
The west wind is, in winter, the great foe of the fishermen of the fiords: it brings in the fog from the sea, and the fogs of the Arctic Circle are no trifling enemy. If Nipen really had the charge of the winds, he could not more emphatically show his displeasure towards any unhappy boatman than by overtaking him with the west wind and fog.
“The wind must have just changed,” said Oddo, pulling exhausting strokes, as the fog marched towards them over the water, like a solid and immeasurably lofty wall. “The wind must have gone right round in a minute.”
“To be sure,—since you said what you did of Nipen,” replied Erica, bitterly.
Oddo made no answer, but he did what he could. Erica had to tell him not to wear himself out too quickly, as there was no saying how long they should be on the water.
How long they had been on the water, how far they had deviated from their right course, they could not at all tell, when, at last, more by accident than skill, they touched the shore near home, and heard friendly voices, and saw the light of torches through the thick air. The fog had wrapped them round so that they could not even see the water, or each other. They had rowed mechanically, sometimes touching the rock, sometimes grazing upon the sand, but never knowing where they were till the ringing of a bell, which they recognised as the farm bell, roused hope in their hearts, and strengthened them to throw off the fatal drowsiness caused by cold and fatigue. They made towards the bell, and then heard Peder’s shouts, and next saw the dull light of two torches which looked as if they could not burn in the fog. The old man lent a strong hand to pull up the boat upon the beach, and to lift out the benumbed rowers, and they were presently revived by having their limbs chafed, and by a strong dose of the universal medicine—corn-brandy and camphor—which in Norway, neither man nor woman, young nor old, sick nor well, thinks of refusing upon occasion.
When Erica was in bed, warm beneath an eider-down coverlid, her mistress bent over her and whispered, “You saw and heard Hund himself?”
“Hund himself, madame.”
“What shall we do if he comes back before my husband is home from the bear-hunt?”
“If he comes, it will be in fear and penitence, thinking that all the powers are against him. But O, madame, let him never know how it really was!”
“He must not know. Leave that to me, and go to sleep now, Erica. You ought to rest well, for there is no saying what you and Oddo have saved us from. I could not have asked such a service. My husband and I must see how we can reward it.” And her kind and grateful mistress kissed Erica’s cheek, though Erica tried to explain that she was thinking most of some one else, when she undertook this expedition.
“Then let him thank you in his own way,” replied Madame Erlingsen. “Meantime, why should not I thank you in mine?”
Stiorna here opened her eyes for an instant. When she next did so, her mistress was gone; and she told in the morning what an odd dream she had had of her mistress being in her room, and kissing Erica. It was so distinct a dream that, if the thing had not been so ridiculous, she could almost have declared that she had seen it.