Magnhild; Dust

The door stood open. One of the girls sat at the piano, the other stood at its side. Magnhild sat facing them, leaning against the piano.

Peace radiated from the little hymn, because they who sang it were at peace. The small, yellow-haired heads above the stiff collars did not make a single movement, the piano almost whispered. But the sunshine, playing on the embroidered furniture and the embroidered covers, blended with the music a harmony from afar.

When they had finished singing, one of the girls told that a lady traveling that way had taught them the hymn, and the other, that her part had been arranged by the Fröken. Without uttering a word, without even changing her position, Magnhild held out her hand, which was clasped by the young lady nearest her.

At this moment voices were heard out of doors. The priest was approaching, accompanied by several men. As they stopped at the door-steps, Rönnaug entered the sitting-room. Soon a tramping of many feet was heard on the steps; the group at the piano rose, Magnhild crossed the floor to where Rönnaug stood. First the dog, then the priest, entered in solemn procession, and slowly following them came dropping in, one by one, six or seven of the farmers of the little mountain parish, heavy, toil-worn men, all of them. Magnhild pressed close up to Rönnaug, who also drew back a little, so that they two stood in front of the gauze-covered mirror. The priest said good-morning, first to Mrs. Randon, then to Magnhild, and asked how they were. Then the men went round the room, one by one, and shook hands with every one present.

"Call mother," said the priest to one of his daughters, and cleared his throat.

The mistress of the house soon appeared, and again man after man stepped forward, shook hands, and returned to his place. The priest wiped his face, stationed himself in front of the frightened Magnhild, bowed, and said:—

"Dear Magnhild, there is no cause for alarm! The representatives of our little parish chanced to assemble to-day in the school-house, and as I happened to mention that you were making a journey and had stopped at the parsonage on your way, some one said: 'It is due to her exertions that the poor-rates of this parish are so small.' Several others expressed the same sentiments. And then I told them that this should be said to your face; they all agreed with me. I do not suppose thanks have ever been offered to you, my dear child, either here or down at the Point, where the results of your work are even greater than here and have spread to the parishes on both sides of the fjord.

"Dear child, God's ways are inscrutable. As long as we can discern them in our own little destinies we are happy, but when we fail to see them we become very unhappy." (Here Magnhild burst into tears.)

"When you were carried downward by the landslide, with your sled in your little hand, you were saved in order that you might become a blessing to many.

"Do not scorn the gratitude of this humble parish: it is a prayer for you to the Almighty. You know what He has said: 'Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.' May you realize this!"

The priest now turned toward his wife, and in the same solemn tone said,—

"Have refreshments handed to these men!"

He strode round among the latter with playful remarks, but the whole house seemed to shake beneath his tread. The more deeply Magnhild seemed moved the happier the priest was.

Magnhild felt a strong impulse to say something to him; for had she not found a refuge in his house, none of the results for which she had just received such unmerited thanks would have been accomplished. But the priest's impetuosity restrained her.

Refreshments were handed round; then the men once more shook hands with every one and withdrew, led by the priest, whose voice could be heard almost all the way to the school-house.

CHAPTER XIII.

Dear Magnhild,—I was obliged to go up to your house to-day to ask for the pattern you had promised to explain to us. But I found only Skarlie at home, and he was not exactly—ah! what shall I call it? for I have never before seen so unhappy a person. He said you had gone on a journey.

I heard later that you were traveling with Mrs. Randon, and thinking it most likely that you are at the parsonage in the mountains I address you there. For you must not leave us, Magnhild, or if you do go away, you must come back to us again!

We have all of us plainly seen that you were unhappy; but as you said nothing, we did not like to say anything either. But can you not stay with us?

How shall we make progress with the new work which has just been introduced? We cannot understand it without some one to explain it to us. And there is the singing, too! Dear Magnhild, so many people thank me and Marie; she and I take the lead now, it is true, but we all know to whom we owe our excellent means of support, the good times we have together, and our opportunities for helping one another. Now that you have left us it seems very dreadful to think that we never did anything to give you pleasure, and that you do not really know us.

I can assure you we could do much for you in return for your kindness to us if you would only let us. Do not leave us! Or if you must, come back to us when your journey is over!

Your devoted, heartily grateful

Louise.

There was added to the letter an extremely neat postscript from Marie.

I was so grieved when Louise told me you had gone. She has more energy than I, poor hunchback. She has written and said what we all, yes, all of us, think of the matter.

But I have the greatest cause to write to you. What in the world would have become of me if you had not come to the school and made me skillful in work that is just suited to me. Without you I should have been a burden to others, or at least I should never have learned to take pleasure in work. Now I feel that I am engaged in something which is continually growing. Yes, now I am happy.

I have told you this at last. How often have I wished to open my heart to you, yet did not quite dare, because you were so reserved!

What delightful times we might have had together! But can we not have them yet?

Your

Marie.

Postscript.—You may think I mean that you took no interest in us. No: I did not mean that. You were too patient with us for me to have any such thought. But it seemed as if you were indifferent to everything about you, people as well as all else; that is what I had in mind.

Cannot you, as Louise says, come to us? We will gather about you, as bees about their queen, dear Magnhild.

There is no better way to express what now happened to Magnhild, than to say that a new life-spring welled up within her. This help from what she had never thought of as anything but a pastime and a monotonous routine worked wonders. She felt that she must endeavor to deserve this devotion; she knew now what it was her duty to do.

She was walking and talking with Rönnaug in the court-yard. Evening was drawing nigh; the fowls had already sought shelter and were settling themselves cackling on the roost; the cows were being driven home from the pasture, and slowly passed by. The perfume of hay was wafted toward the ladies, ever and anon, for loads were being hauled into the barn.

Rönnaug was so sure of what she was doing that she did not hesitate to tell Magnhild what the same mail had brought her: it was a newspaper containing a telegram from Munich announcing the death of Tande. These tidings produced no further effect upon Magnhild than to make both her and Rönnaug pause for an instant and then walk on in silence. Tande had always been thought of as one very far away, and now he seemed nearer. What he had recently sent her for her guidance became more profoundly true than ever.

The first words she uttered were not about Tande but about Skarlie. Perhaps it would be best to send for him that they might have an explanation before she started on her journey. Rönnaug was not disinclined to agree to this; but she thought that she, not Magnhild, should attend to the explanation. In fact, there was nothing to say except to announce what Magnhild had resolved upon doing.

The conversation was spasmodic like their walk. All the people of the house were out making hay. Miss Roland and the child had also gone to the field. Magnhild and Rönnaug were about going there themselves when a boy came walking into the yard whistling, with his hands in his pockets. Seeing the ladies he stood still and stopped whistling. Then he took a stand on his right foot; the left heel he planted in the ground, and moved his leg in such a way that the sole of the foot stood erect and fanned the air.

Presently he drew nearer.

"Is it you they call Magnhild?" he asked, in the ringing dialect of the parish.

He addressed the question to the right one, who replied in the affirmative.

"I was sent to ask you to come down to our place, Synstevold; for there is a fellow there waiting to see you."

"What is his name?" asked Rönnaug.

"I was told not to tell," said the boy, as he planted his left heel in the ground again, fanned the air with his foot, and stared at the barn.

Rönnaug broke into the dialect as she asked whether the "fellow" was not lame.

"That is very possible," answered the boy, with a grin, and an oath.

Here Rönnaug ran to meet old Andreas who was just coming out of the barn with an empty hay wagon to go after another load; the rumbling of the wheels prevented him from hearing her call; but she overtook him.

"Was it you who took one of the fore-wheels from my carriage?" asked she.

"Fore-wheel of the carriage," repeated old Andreas. "Is it off? Stand still, you fool there?" he cried, giving the reins such a jerk that one of the horses started to move backward instead of forward, for it was a young horse.

But in the mean time Rönnaug had gained light on the question, and left Andreas. In slow English she told Magnhild what she believed she had discovered; she did not want the boy who was standing by to understand. Andreas drove on.

Magnhild laughed: "Yes, Skarlie has come. It is undoubtedly he!" and turning to the boy she said that she would accompany him at once.

Rönnaug tried to persuade Magnhild to remain where she was and let her go. No, Magnhild preferred to go herself. She was already on her way when Rönnaug called after her that she would soon follow herself to see how things were going. Magnhild looked back with a smile, and said,—

"You may if you like!"

So after a time Rönnaug set forth for Synstevold. She knew very well that Skarlie could offer nothing that would tempt Magnhild, but he might be annoying, perhaps rough. The fore-wheel was a warning.

There was perhaps no one to whom Skarlie was so repulsive as to Rönnaug. She knew him well. No one besides Rönnaug could surmise how he had striven, dastard as he was, to taint the purity of Magnhild's imagination, to deaden her high sense of honor. Magnhild's frequent blushes had their history.

What was it that so bound him to her? At the outset, of course, the hope that failed. But since then? The evening before, when the conversation had turned on the Catholic cloisters, the priest had remarked that Skarlie—who was a man that had traveled and thought considerably—had said that in the cloisters the monks prayed night and day to make amends for the neglected prayers of the rest of the people. That was the reason why people were willing to give their money so freely to the cloisters: it was like making a cash payment on the debt of sin.

Rönnaug had sat and pondered. Had not Skarlie hereby explained his own relations with Magnhild? It was his way of making payments on his debt of sin.

And so, of course, he grudged giving her up.

Had he but been harsh and impatient, Magnhild would immediately have left him. That was just the misfortune; he was a coward, and he could not bear to renounce her. He was very humble whenever he failed in his attempts to win her, and when he had been especially malicious he forthwith made amends by being as friendly and interesting as possible. And this was what had kept the ball rolling.

Amid these and similar reflections, Rönnaug took the way across the fields in order not to be seen from the place. The grass where she walked had not been mown; she trampled it mercilessly under foot, but she paused before a patch of flowers whose varied hues and leaves she could not help contemplating. Suddenly she heard voices. In front of her there were several willow copses through whose branches she espied the pair she was seeking.

There sat Skarlie and Magnhild in the grass, he in his shirt-sleeves and without a hat.

Half-frightened for Magnhild and utterly without respect for him, Rönnaug immediately stood guard. Concealing herself from view she took her post between two copses. Skarlie and Magnhild could be seen quite distinctly, for the space behind them was open.

"Then I shall certainly close up down at the Point, and I will follow you."

"You may if you choose. But spare me further threats. For the last time: I have resolved to go. I wish to travel in order to see and to learn. Some day I hope to return and teach others."

"Do you intend to come back to me?"

"That I do not know."

"Oh, you do know very well."

"Perhaps I do, for if you should lead a better life I presume I would come back to you; but I do not believe you capable of changing, and so I might just as well say at once that I shall not return to you."

"You do not know all I mean to do for you."

"What, your last will and testament again? Suppose we drop this subject now."

She sat twirling a flower, upon which she was intently gazing. Skarlie had placed his shorter leg under him; his face was all puckered up and his eyes stung.

"You have never appreciated me."

"No—that is true. I have much to thank you for which I have taken without thanks. Please God, I shall one day show my gratitude."

"Cannot we make it right now? What is it you want? To travel? We can travel; we have means enough."

"As I said before, let us drop this subject now."

He sighed, and taking up his cutty, he laid his forefinger over it. It was already filled; he produced a match-box.

"If you can smoke there is hope for you," said Magnhild.

"Oh! I am not smoking; it is nothing but habit,"—he drew a long sigh. "No, Magnhild, it is impossible for things to go well with me if you leave me. For that is about equal to closing up my house and driving me out into the world. The gossip of the people would be more than I could bear."

He looked now positively unhappy. Magnhild plucked several flowers; but if he expected an answer from her it was in vain.

"It is hard for those who have strong natures," said he; "the devil gains the upper-hand over them in many ways. I thought you would have helped me. One thing I must say: if we two could have had a right cozy home together, and a child"—

But here she sprang up quickly, and the flowers fell from her lap.

"Let us have no more of this! He who means to do right does not begin as you did. But in spite of the beginning you might perhaps still have—Yet how did you act? I say: let us have no more of this!"

She moved away a few paces and came back again with: "No, I was not to blame when I gave myself to you, for you promised that I should do and live precisely as I pleased. And I was such an inexperienced child that I did not in the least understand how you were outwitting me. But I did wrong when I heard how matters really were and did not at once leave you. Also when I failed to do so later. However, this is connected with many things about which we will not talk at present. All we can do now is to make amends, as far as we can, for the past. Give me up, and try to do your duty toward others."

"What do you mean by that?" His eyes blinked and his face grew sharp.

"I mean that you have outwitted others, so I have heard, for your own selfish ends. Try to make amends for your evil deeds, if you really desire improvement."

"That is not true. If it was, it is nothing to you."

"Alas! alas! There is little hope of improvement, I fear, in this as in other things. Aye, then, farewell! It shall be as I have said."

He looked up and distorted his face to a grin, making the eyes almost wholly disappear beneath the bushy brows.

"You cannot leave here without my consent."

"Oh!"

"Moreover, have you considered what you are doing? Are you right in the eyes of God?"

"You know very well what I think upon this subject."

"Pshaw! If you mean that talk about unholy marriages, it is sheer nonsense. There is not a word in the Bible about it. I have looked."

She stroked the hair from her brow. "Then it is written here," said she, and turned to go.

Skarlie began to get up. He was very angry.

Rönnaug felt the necessity of making haste, for now she was in danger of being seen.

Suddenly the three stood face to face.

Rönnaug went right up to Skarlie, in the sweetest, most amiable manner, heartily shook his hand, and said in English that she was delighted to see him, he had often been so extremely kind to her. Then she began to jest; she was at once insinuating and daring. Skarlie could not help laughing and offering some remarks, also in English; then Rönnaug said something witty to which Skarlie could retaliate; soon they were both laughing heartily. The impression made on him by this handsome, finely developed woman, transported him, as it were, before he was aware, to other scenes and spread a new train of thoughts over his spirit. The jesting became livelier. English alone was spoken, which particularly pleased Skarlie; and it put him in a good humor, too, to have a chance of displaying his ready wit, of which he possessed an abundance. Finally, Rönnaug held him completely bound by the spell of her witchery, and thus made no unalloyed good impression on Magnhild, who was alarmed at this display of the powers Rönnaug had at her command. She wound her spell about him, with her look, her words, her challenging figure; but her eyes flashed fire, while she was laughing: she would have liked, above all things, to give him a good box on the ear! Women become wonderfully united when they have occasion to defend or avenge one another.

Amid the stream of conversation she gradually led the limping Skarlie round the willow copse, and when they stood on the other side she turned toward the copse which had concealed her while she was eavesdropping. Thrusting aside some of the branches, she asked Skarlie, with a laugh, if he would not be "gallant enough" to aid them in rolling home the wheel that lay concealed here. He could not possibly allow the ladies to do it alone, she said.

Skarlie heartily joined in her laughter, but showed no readiness to give her any assistance. He was in his shirt sleeves, he said; he must go after his coat if he was to accompany them to the parsonage.

Rönnaug assured him that his coat could be sent after him, and that he would find it far easier to roll the wheel without it. She went to work to raise the wheel unaided, shouting "Ahoy!" No sooner had she, with great effort, succeeded in getting it up, than it fell over again.

"It requires two to do this!" said she.

She once more stooped to take hold of the wheel, and while bending over it flashed her roguish eyes on Skarlie. His were irresistibly attracted to her face and superb form. The wheel was raised. Rönnaug and Skarlie rolled it forward between them, she skipping along on one side, he limping on the other, amid merry words and much laughter. Magnhild slowly followed. Rönnaug cast back a look at her, over the top of Skarlie's bald head; it sparkled with mirth and victory. But ere it was withdrawn, its fire was scorching enough to have left two deeply seared brown stripes on his neck and shoulders.

The distance was not very short. Skarlie groaned. Soon Rönnaug felt great drops of sweat rolling down from his face upon her hands. All the more swiftly did she roll. His sentences became words, his words syllables; he made a vigorous effort to conceal his exhaustion with a laugh. At last he could neither roll himself nor the wheel; he dropped down on the grass, red as a cluster of rowan berries, his eyes fixed in their sockets, his mouth wide open. He gasped to recover his breath and his senses.

Rönnaug called to old Andreas, who at this moment appeared on the road with a load of hay, to come and take the wheel. Then she drew her arm through Magnhild's, bowed and thanked Skarlie—still in English—"many thousand times for his admirable assistance." Now they could start the next morning early—and so, "farewell!"

From the road they looked back. The attitude of Andreas indicated that he was asking Skarlie how the wheel had come there. Skarlie made a wrathful movement of the hand, as though he would like to sweep away both the wheel and Andreas; or perhaps he was consigning them to a place where the inhabitants of Norway are very apt to consign their least highly-prized friends. The ladies now saw him turn his face toward them; Rönnaug promptly waved her handkerchief and cried back to him, "Farewell!" The word was echoed through the evening air.

The two friends had not proceeded many steps before Rönnaug paused to give vent to the residue of her wrath. She poured out a stream of words, in a half whisper. Magnhild could only distinguish a few of these words, but those she did make out were from the vocabulary of the old days of service on the road; they compared with Rönnaug's present vocabulary as the hippopotamus compares with the fly.

Magnhild recoiled from her. Rönnaug stared wildly at Magnhild, then composed herself and said in English, "You are right!" but immediately gave way to a new outburst of wrath and horror; for she was so forcibly reminded of the time when she herself crept along as best she could down among the slimy dwellers of the human abyss where darkness reigns, and where such as he down on yonder hill sat on the brink and fished. She thrust her hand into her pocket to draw forth Charles Randon's last letter, which she always carried about her until the next one came; she pressed it to her lips and burst into tears. Her emotion was so violent that she was forced to sit down.

It was the first time Magnhild had ever seen Rönnaug weep. Even upon the deck of the vessel on which she had set sail for America she had not wept. Oh, no, quite the contrary!

CHAPTER XIV.

The lady was thin. She wore a mourning suit of the latest style. Jet beads, strewed all over the costume, sparkled with every movement; from the jaunty hat, with waving plume, flowed a black veil which was wound about the neck. As from out the depths of night she gazed, with her glowing eyes, which acquired, in this setting, an especially fascinating radiance. Melancholy resignation seemed to command, as it were, the countenance, to hold sway over every nerve, to control the smile about the mouth, to languish in these eyes.

"Yes, I am changed," said she, languidly.

Magnhild turned from the lady to the stout officer. The lady's eyes followed.

"Do you not recognize Bang? Or did you not see him?"

His size had increased tenfold, the flesh resembling heavy layers of padding; he occupied at least two thirds of the carriage, crowding his wife, for one shoulder and arm covered hers. He looked good-natured and quite contented. But when one looked from his plump, heavy face and body back to the lady, she appeared spiritualized—aye, to the very finger-tips of the hand from which she was now drawing the glove.

Steadfastly following Magnhild's eyes, she stroked back from Magnhild's brow a lock of hair which had crept forward, and then let her hand pass slowly, softly over her cheek.

"You are in mourning?" asked Magnhild.

"The whole land should be in mourning, my child!" And after a pause, came a whispered, "He is dead!"

"You must remember that there is no time to lose if we would reach the steamer," said Bang.

The lady did not look up at her husband's words; she was busy with the lock she had just stroked back. Bang gave the coachman a sign, the carriage was set in motion.

"I am going to America," whispered Magnhild, as she descended from the carriage step.

The lady gazed after her a moment, then she seemed to grasp in its full extent what it implied that Skarlie's wife was going far, far away—what suppositions might be therewith connected and what consequences. For her face resumed somewhat of its old brightness, her frame regained its elasticity: at once she was on her feet, had turned completely round, and was waving her handkerchief. With what charming grace she did it!

Her husband would not permit the carriage to halt again. He contented himself with following his wife's example by waving one hand. The movement must have been accompanied by an admonition to sit down, for the lady disappeared forthwith.

The plume in her hat waved over his shoulder. More could not be seen; she must have let herself glide back into her place.

DUST.

CHAPTER I.

The drive from the town to Skogstad, the large gard belonging to the Atlung family, with its manufacturing establishment on the margin of the woodland stream, at the usual steady pace, might possibly occupy two hours; but in the fine sleighing we had been having it could scarcely take an hour and a half. The road was a chaussée running along the fjord. All the way from town I had the fjord on the right-hand side, and on the left broad fields, gently sloping down from the heights and dotted with villas and gards, surrounded by hedges of trees and having avenues leading to them.

Farther on, the heights became mountains, and rose more abruptly from the shore; here, too, they became more and more rugged, and at last had no other growth than the pine forest, from the uppermost ridge all the way down to the fjord, forest, forest, far as the eye could reach. This belonged to Skogstad; the factory on the Skogstad River prepared the raw material.

The Atlungs were of French descent, having settled here in the times of the Huguenots, and were people of plain origin who had bettered their condition by marrying into the once wealthy and influential Atlung family, taking its name, which sounded not unlike their own.

I thoroughly enjoyed the drive. It had recently been snowing, and the snow still lay on the trees; not a breath of wind had left its traces in the wood. On the other hand, it had been thawing a little, which the deciduous trees that here began to press forward farther down toward the road could not tolerate; the sole covering they wore was the new-fallen snow of the morning.

Between both the white landscape and the snow-laden air, the fjord appeared black. It was not far to the opposite side, and there still loftier mountains loomed up, now also white, but of that subdued tint imparted by the atmosphere.

Where I was driving the sea lay close up to the edge of the snow, only a few sea-weeds, some pebbles, and in some places not so much as these, separated the two forms and hues of the same element—reality and poetry, where the poetry is just as real as the reality, simply not so enduring.

As soon as I had advanced as far as the forest, this attracted my undivided attention. The fir-trees held great armfuls of snow; in some places it had been showered around; nevertheless there was still so much uncovered that a shimmer of dark green overspread the whiteness of the entire forest. On a nearer view it could be seen that the single uncovered branches were thrust forth, as it were, defiantly, and that the red-tinted lower boughs had pierced the snow-drifts.

Higher up mighty trunks were visible, most of them dark, although some of the younger ones were brighter: taken all together an assemblage of well-laden giants, and this gave an air of solemnity to the thicket. The foremost trees, which were low enough not to impede the view, and which while growing had been disfigured either by man or beast, perhaps too by the storms (for they had borne the brunt of these), had not the regular shapes of the others; they were more gnarled, affording the snow an opportunity to commit what ravages it chose among them. Their lowest branches were in some places quite bowed to the ground, often making the tree appear like an unbroken mass of white; others were fantastically transformed into clumsy dwarfs, with only upper parts to their bodies, or into sundry human forms, each with a white sack drawn over the head, or a shirt that was not put on right.

Alongside of these awkward figures I noticed small clusters of deciduous trees, over which but the faintest suspicion of snow was spread; a single one, which stood apart from the rest, looked as though its outmost white branches, as they grew finer and finer, gradually flowed into the air; then there were young spruce trees which formed pyramid upon pyramid of regular layers of snow. Close down by the sea, where there were more stones, might now and then be seen a bramble bush. The snow had spread itself on every thorn, so that the bush looked as if it were strewed over with white berries.

I rounded a naze with a crag upon it, and here is where Skogstad proper begins. The ridge recedes and is broken by the river. Again we see gently sloping fields, and here lies the gard. The river flows farther away; the red roof and a row of buildings alongside become visible. On either side of the gard lie the housemen's places with their surrounding grounds, but they are separated from the gard by fields on the one side and by a wood or park on the other.

At the sight of the park I forgot all that had gone before. Originally it was intended to slope down to the sea; but the stony ground had evidently rendered this impossible, and so the trees on the lower square had been felled; but in the course of years, instead of pine woods a vigorous growth of deciduous trees had shot up. These, being of the same year's growth, were of an equal height, and extended all the way up to the venerable pine trees in the park. The effect of the delicate encircling the ponderous, the light opposed to the heavy, the low and perpetually level at the foot of the upward-soaring and powerful, was very fine.

The eye reveled in this, searching for forms; I would combine a hundred branches in one survey, because they ran parallel in the same curve, at about the same height; or I would single out one solitary bough from the rest and follow it from its first ramification through the branches of its branches to the most delicate twig,—a distended, transparent white wing, or a monstrous fern leaf strewed all over with white down. Then I was compelled once more to cease following the forms and turn to the colors; the unequal coating presented an infinite variety.

I turned my back on my traveling companion, the fjord, and wound my way up to the gard. Where the park ended, the garden began, and the road followed this in a gradual ascent. Once there had been a wood here also, and the road had passed through it; but of the wood there was left but a few yards, on either side, thus forming the avenue. Large, old trees were about being replaced by young ones, whose growth was so dense that in some places I could not see the gard I was driving toward. But the snow-romance followed, decking the sinking giants with white flags, powdering the young and fresh ones, and playing Christmas masquerade with the deformed ones.

CHAPTER II.

She was not clad in white, to be sure, the last time I saw her, the bright attractive being whom I was now to meet again. On her wedding journey, and in Dresden, some nine years previous to this time, we had last been together. True, she was dressed in gala attire every day—a whim of the young bridegroom, in his blissful intoxication; but most frequently she wore blue, not once did she appear in white; nor would it have been becoming to her.

I remember them especially as they sang at the piano, he sitting, because he was playing the accompaniment, she standing and usually with her hand on his shoulder; but what they sang was indeed white, at least it was always of the character of a more or less jubilant anthem. She was the daughter of a sectarian priest, and they had just come from the parsonage and from the wedding feast. Since then I had heard of them from time to time at the parsonage, and from that source I had received repeatedly renewed urgent entreaties to visit them the next time I was in their vicinity. I was now on my way to them.

I had heard the dwelling-house spoken of as one of the largest frame buildings in Norway. It was gray and immensely long. No Atlung had ever been satisfied with what his predecessor had built, and so the house had had an addition made to it by every generation and a partial remodeling of the old portions, so far as it was necessary to make these correspond with the new. I had heard that many and long passages (concerning which at festal gatherings rhymes without end were said to have been made) endeavor to unite the interior in the same successful or unsuccessful manner as the out-buildings, sloping roof, balconies, and verandas attempt to keep up the style of the exterior. I have heard how many rooms there are in the house, but I have forgotten it.

The last addition was made by the present owner, and is in a sort of modernized gothic style.

Behind the dwelling the other buildings of the gard form a crescent, which, however, protrudes in rather an unsightly manner on one side. Between these and the dwelling I now drove in order to alight, according to the post-boy's advice, at a porch in the gothic wing. I did not see a living being about the gard, not even a dog. I waited a little but in vain, then walked through the porch into a passage, where I took off my wraps, and then passed on into a large bright front room to the right. Neither did I see any one here; but I heard either two children's voices and a woman's voice, or two female voices and one child's voice, and I recognized the song, for it was one that was just then floating about the country, the lament of a little girl that she was everywhere in the way except in heaven with God, who was so glad to have unhappy children with Him. It sounded rather strange to hear such a lament in this bright, lively room, filled with guns and other sporting implements, reindeer horns, fox skins, lynx skins, and similar substantial objects, arranged with the most exquisite taste.

I knocked at the door and entered one of the most charming sitting-rooms I have seen in this country, so bright its outlook on the fjord, so large it was, so elegant. The brightly polished wooden panels of the wall were relieved by carved wooden brackets, each bearing a bust or a small statue; the stylish furniture was in every direction gracefully distributed about on the Brussels carpet. Moody and Sankey's dreamy melody flowed out over this like a white or yellow sheet. This hymn belongs to a collection of Christian songs which are among the most beautiful that I know; but it made the same impression here as if beneath this modern room there was a crypt from the Middle Ages where immured nuns were taking part in ceremonies for the dead, amidst smoking lamps, and whence incense and low chanting, inseparably blended, stole up into the bright conceptions and cheerful art of the nineteenth century.

The singing proceeded from one woman and two boys, the elder of the latter seven years old or a little more, and the younger about six. The woman turned her face toward the door, and paused quite astonished at my entrance; the boys were gazing out of the window, and did not look at her; they were wholly absorbed in their singing, and therefore they continued a while after she had ceased.

Of these two boys the one resembled the father's family, the other the mother's; only the mother's eyes had been bestowed on them both. The elder of the boys had a long face, with high brow and sandy hair, and he was freckled like his father. The younger one had his mother's figure, and stooped slightly because the head was set forward on the shoulders. But in consequence of this his head was usually thrown somewhat backward in order to recover its equilibrium. The result of this again was that the lips were habitually parted, and then the large, questioning eyes and the bright curly hair encircling the fine arched brow were exactly like the mother's. The elder one was tall and thin, and had his father's lounging gait and small, outward turned feet. I observed all this at a glance, while the boys walked across the room to the table by the sofa, as their companion left them. She had advanced, after a moment's hesitation, to meet me; she was evidently not sure whether she knew me or not. On hearing my name, she discovered with a smile that it was only my portrait she had seen, the portrait in the album, a souvenir of the wedding journey of the heads of the house. She informed me that Atlung was at the factories, and would be home to dinner, that is to say in about an hour, and that the mistress of the house was at one of the housemen's places I had seen from the road; it seemed that there was an old man lying at the point of death there.

She made this announcement in a melodious, although rather feeble voice, and with a pair of searching eyes fastened on me. She had heard something about me. I had never thought that I should see one of Carlo Dolci's madonnas step down from a frame to stand in a modern sitting-room and talk with me, and therefore my eyes were certainly not less searching than hers. The way the head was poised on the shoulders, its inclination to one side, the profile of the face, and beyond all else the eyes and the eyebrows, indeed, the bluish green head kerchief, which was drawn far forward, imparting to the pale face something of its own hue—altogether a genuine Carlo Dolci!

She walked noiselessly away, and left me alone with the boys, whom I at once attacked. The elder one was named Anton, and he could walk on his hands, at least, almost; and the younger one informed me that his name was Storm, and told me a great deal more about his brother, whom he regarded with unqualified admiration. The elder, on the other hand, assured me that his brother Storm was a very bad boy sometimes; he had recently been caught at some of his naughty tricks, and so papa had given him a flogging that same day; Stina had told papa about it. Stina was the name of her who had just left us.

After this not very diplomatic introduction to an acquaintance, they stood one on each side of me and prattled away about what at present was working in their minds, with most extraordinary force. They both now told me, the elder one taking the lead and the younger following with supplementary details, that yonder at one of the houseman's places, past which I had driven, lived Hans, little Hans; that is he had lived there, for the real, true little Hans was with God. He had come to the gard to play with the boys almost every day; though sometimes they too had been over at the housemen's places, which I soon perceived were to the boys the promised land of this earth. Then one evening, about a fortnight since, Hans had started to go home at dusk; it was before the snow came, and in the park, through which he had to pass, the fish pond lay spread before him so smooth and black. Hans thought he would like to slide on it and he climbed up from the path on to the pond, for the path ran right along it. But that same day there had been a hole cut in the ice for the people to fish, and they had forgotten to put a signal there, and so little Hans slid right into the hole. A child's cry of distress had reached the gard; the milkmaid had heard it, but only once, and she had not thought very much about it, for all the boys were in the habit of playing in the park. So little Hans had disappeared and no one could say where he was. Then the ice was cut away from the pond and they found him; but the boys were not allowed to see him. They had, however, been permitted to be present at the funeral with all the little boys and girls of the factory school. But Hans was not buried in the chapel where grandfather and grandmother lie; he was buried in the churchyard. Oh, what beautiful singing they had had! The school-master had sung bass with them, and the old brown horse had drawn Hans, who was in a white painted coffin that papa had bought in town, and there were garlands of flowers on it. Mamma and Stina had arranged them. All the children got cakes before they started and currant wine. And the song was the one the boys had just been singing; Stina had taught it to them. Hans had been very poor; but now he had all he wanted; he was with God; it was only the coffin that was put in the ground. What was in the coffin? Why, it was not the real Hans that was there, for Hans was quite new now. Angels had come down to the pond with everything that the new Hans was to wear, so that he did not feel cold in the pond; he was not there. All children who died went to God, and that together with a hundred thousand million very small angels. The angels were all round about us here too; but we could not see them because they were invisible, and Hans was now with them. The angels could see us, and they were so kind to us, especially to children, and they always wanted to have very unhappy little children with them; that was the reason why they took them. It is ever and ever and ever so much nicer to be with the angels than to be here. Yes, indeed, it is, for Stina said so. Stina too would rather be with the angels than here; it was only for mamma's sake that Stina did not go to them, for mamma would be so lonely without her. All angels had wings, and now Hans's father was lying ill, and he would soon be with Hans. He also would have wings and be a little angel and fly about here and wherever he himself chose—right up to the stars. For the stars were not only stars, they were as large, as large, when we got up to them, as large as the whole earth, and that was enormously large, larger than the largest mountain. And there were people on the stars, and there were many things that were not here. And that same afternoon Hans's father was to go right to God, for God was up in heaven. They would like so much to see Hans's father get his wings; but mamma would not let them go with her. And Hans's father had already become so beautiful, as he lay in his bed, that he almost looked like an angel. Mamma had said so; but they were not allowed to see him.

Stina made her appearance as they came to the last words; she bade them come with her and they obeyed.

A door stood open to the left; I could see book-shelves in the room to which it led, so that I presumed the library must be there. I felt a desire to know what the father of these boys was reading just then—provided that he read at all. The first thing I found open on the desk, by the side of letters, account-books, and factory samples, was Bain. And Bain's English friends were the first books my eyes beheld on the nearest shelves. I took out one, and saw that it had been much read. This accorded with what I had heard of Atlung.

Just then bells were heard outside. I thought it must be the mistress of the house returning, and put back the books in the same order I had found them. In so doing I disarranged some behind them (for the books stood in two rows), and I felt a desire to examine also these that were hidden from view, which took time. I did not leave the library until just as the lady was entering the front door.

CHAPTER III.

Fru[4] Atlung was evidently glad to see me. She had a singular walk; it seemed as though she never fully bent her knees; but with this peculiar gait she advanced hastily toward me, grasped my hands with both of hers, and looked long into my eyes, until her own filled with tears. It was, of course, the wedding journey this look concerned, the most beautiful days of her life;—but the tears?