High over the heathery wastes flew a wise old raven.
He was bound many miles westward, right out to the sea-coast, to unearth
a sow’s ear which he had buried in the good times.
It was now late autumn, and food was scarce.
When you see one raven, says Father Brehm, you need only look round to
discover a second.
But you might have looked long enough where this wise old raven came
flying; he was, and remained, alone. And without troubling about
anything or uttering a sound, he sped on his strong coal-black wings
through the dense rain-mist, steering due west.
But as he flew, evenly and meditatively, his sharp eyes searched the
landscape beneath, and the old bird was full of chagrin.
Year by year the little green and yellow patches down there increased
in number and size; rood after rood was cut out of the heathery waste,
little houses sprang up with red-tiled roofs and low chimneys breathing
oily peat-reek. Men and their meddling everywhere!
He remembered how, in the days of his youth--several winters ago, of
course--this was the very place for a wide-awake raven with a family:
long, interminable stretches of heather, swarms of leverets and little
birds, eider-ducks on the shore with delicious big eggs, and tidbits of
all sorts abundant as heart could desire.
Now he saw house upon house, patches of yellow corn-land and green
meadows; and food was so scarce that a gentlemanly old raven had to fly
miles and miles for a paltry sow’s ear.
Oh, those men! those men! The old bird knew them.
He had grown up among men, and, what was more, among the aristocracy. He
had passed his childhood and youth at the great house close to the town.
But now, whenever he passed over the house, he soared high into the air,
so as not to be recognized. For when he saw a female figure down in the
garden, he thought it was the young lady of the house, wearing powdered
hair and a white head-dress; whereas it was in reality her daughter,
with snow-white curls and a widow’s cap.
Had he enjoyed his life among the aristocracy? Oh, that’s as you please
to look at it. There was plenty to eat and plenty to learn; but, after
all, it was captivity. During the first years his left wing was clipped,
and afterwards, as his old master used to say, he was upon _parole
d’honneur_.
This parole he had broken one spring when a glossy-black young she-raven
happened to fly over the garden.
Some time afterwards--a few winters had slipped away--he came back to
the house. But some strange boys threw stones at him; the old master and
the young lady were not at home.
“No doubt they are in town,” thought the old raven; and he came again
some time later. But he met with just the same reception.
Then the gentlemenly old bird--for in the meantime he had grown
old--felt hurt, and now he flew high over the house. He would have
nothing more to do with men, and the old master and the young lady might
look for him as long as they pleased. That they did so he never doubted.
And he forgot all that he had learned, both the difficult French
words which the young lady taught him in the drawing-room, and the
incomparably easier expletives which he had picked up on his own account
in the servants’ hall.
Only two human sounds clung to his memory, the last relics of his
vanished learning. When he was in a thoroughly good humor, he would
often say, “Bonjour, madame!” But when he was angry, he shrieked, “Go to
the devil!”
Through the dense rain-mist he sped swiftly and unswervingly; already he
saw the white wreath of surf along the coast. Then he descried a great
black waste stretching out beneath him. It was a peat moor.
It was encircled with farms on the heights around; but on the low
plain--it must have been over a mile [Note: One Norwegian mile is equal
to seven English miles.] long--there was no trace of human meddling;
only a few stacks of peat on the outskirts, with black hummocks and
gleaming water-holes between them.
“Bonjour, madame!” cried the old raven, and began to wheel in great
circles over the moor. It looked so inviting that he settled downward,
slowly and warily, and alighted upon a tree-root in the midst of it.
Here it was just as in the old days-a silent wilderness. On some
scattered patches of drier soil there grew a little short heather and a
few clumps of rushes. They were withered; but on their stiff stems there
still hung one or two tufts--black, and sodden by the autumn rain. For
the most part the soil was fine, black, and crumbling--wet and full of
water-holes. Gray and twisted tree-roots stuck up above the surface,
interlaced like a gnarled net-work.
The old raven well understood all that he saw. There had been trees here
in the old times, before even his day.
The wood had disappeared; branches, leaves, everything was gone. Only
the tangled roots remained, deep down in the soft mass of black fibres
and water.
But further than this, change could not possibly go; so it must endure,
and here, at any rate, men would have to stint their meddling.
The old bird held himself erect. The farms lay so far away that he
felt securely at home, here in the middle of the bottomless morass. One
relic, at least, of antiquity must remain undisturbed. He smoothed his
glossy black feathers, and said several times, “Bonjour, madame!”
But down from the nearest farm came a couple of men with a horse and
cart; two small boys ran behind. They took a crooked course among the
hummocks, but made as though to cross the morass.
“They must soon stop,” thought the raven.
But they drew nearer and nearer; the old bird turned his head uneasily
from side to side; it was strange that they should venture so far out.
At last they stopped, and the men set to work with spades and axes. The
raven could see that they were struggling with a huge root which they
wanted to loosen.
“They will soon tire of that,” thought the raven.
But they did not tire, they hacked with their axes--the sharpest the
raven had ever seen--they dug and hauled, and at last they actually got
the huge stem turned over on its side, so that the whole tough net-work
of roots stood straight up in the air.
The small boys wearied of digging canals between the water-holes. “Look
at that great big crow over there,” said one of them.
They armed themselves with a stone in each hand, and came sneaking
forward behind the hummocks.
The raven saw them quite well. But that was not the worst thing it saw.
Not even out on the morass was antiquity to be left in peace. He had
now seen that even the gray tree-roots, older than the oldest raven, and
firmly inwoven into the deep, bottomless morass--that even they had to
yield before the sharp axes.
And when the boys had got so near that they were on the point of opening
fire, he raised his heavy wings and soared aloft.
But as he rose into the air and looked down upon the toiling men and the
stupid boys, who stood gaping at him with a stone in each hand, a great
wrath seized the old bird.
He swooped down upon the boys like an eagle, and while his great wings
flounced about their ears, he shrieked in a terrible voice, “Go to the
devil!”
The boys gave a yell and threw themselves down upon the ground. When
they presently ventured to look up again, all was still and deserted as
before. Far away, a solitary blackbird winged to the westward.
But till they grew to be men--aye, even to their dying day--they were
firmly convinced that the Evil One himself had appeared to them out on
the black morass, in the form of a monstrous black bird with eyes of
fire.
But it was only an old raven, flying westward to unearth a sow’s ear
which it had buried.
“HOPE’S CLAD IN APRIL GREEN.”
“You’re kicking up the dust!” cried Cousin Hans.
Ola did not hear.
“He’s quite as deaf as Aunt Maren,” thought Hans. “You’re kicking up the
dust!” he shouted, louder.
“Oh, I beg your pardon!” said Cousin Ola, and lifted his feet high in
air at every step. Not for all the world would he do anything to annoy
his brother; he had too much on his conscience already.
Was he not at this very moment thinking of her whom he knew that his
brother loved? And was it not sinful of him to be unable to conquer a
passion which, besides being a wrong towards his own brother, was so
utterly hopeless?
Cousin Ola took himself sternly to task, and while he kept to the other
side of the way, so as not to make a dust, he tried with all his might
to think of the most indifferent things. But however far away his
thoughts might start, they always returned by the strangest short-cuts
to the forbidden point, and began once more to flutter around it, like
moths around a candle.
The brothers, who were paying a holiday visit to their uncle, the
Pastor, were now on their way to the Sheriff’s house, where there was
to be a dancing-party for young people. There were many students
paying visits in the neighborhood, so that these parties passed like an
epidemic from house to house.
Cousin Hans was thus in his very element; he sang, he danced, he was
entertaining from morning to night; and if his tone had been a little
sharp when he declared that Ola was kicking up the dust, it was really
because of his annoyance at being unable, by any means, to screw his
brother up to the same pitch of hilarity.
We already know what was oppressing Ola. But even under ordinary
circumstances he was more quiet and retiring than his brother. He danced
“like a pair of nut-crackers,” said Hans; he could not sing at all
(Cousin Hans even declared that his speaking voice was monotonous and
unsympathetic); and, in addition to all this, he was rather absent and
ill-at-ease in the society of ladies.
As they approached the Sheriff’s house, they heard a carriage behind
them.
“That’s the Doctor’s people,” said Hans, placing himself in position for
bowing; for the beloved one was the daughter of the district physician.
“Oh, how lovely she is--in light pink!” said Cousin Hans.
Cousin Ola saw at once that the beloved one was in light green; but he
dared not say a word lest he should betray himself by his voice, for his
heart was in his throat.
The carriage passed at full speed; the young men bowed, and the old
Doctor cried out, “Come along!”
“Why, I declare, that was she in light green!” said Cousin Hans; he had
barely had time to transfer his burning glance from the light-pink frock
to the light-green. “But wasn’t she lovely, Ola?”
“Oh yes,” answered Ola with an effort.
“What a cross-grained being you are!” exclaimed Hans, indignantly. “But
even if you’re devoid of all sense for female beauty, I think you might
at least show more interest in--in your brother’s future wife.”
“If you only knew how she interests me,” thought the nefarious Ola,
hanging his head.
But meanwhile this delightful meeting had thrown Hans into an ecstatic
mood of amorous bliss; he swung his stick, snapped his fingers, and sang
at the pitch of his voice.
As he thought of the fair one in the light-green frock--fresh as spring,
airy as a butterfly, he called it--the refrain of an old ditty rose to
his lips, and he sang it with great enjoyment:
“Hope’s clad in April green--
Trommelommelom, trommelommelom,
Tender it’s vernal sheen--
Trommelommelom, trommelommelom.”
This verse seemed to him eminently suited to the situation, and he
repeated it over and over again--now in the waltz-time of the old
melody, now as a march, and again as a serenade--now in loud, jubilant
tones, and then half whispering, as if he were confiding his love and
his hope to the moon and the silent groves.
Cousin Ola was almost sick; for, great as was his respect for his
brother’s singing, he became at last so dog-tired of this April-green
hope and this eternal “Trommelommelom” that it was a great relief to him
when they at last arrived at the Sheriff’s.
The afternoon passed as it always does on such occasions; they all
enjoyed themselves mightily. For most of them were in love, and those
who were not found almost a greater pleasure in keeping an eye upon
those who were.
Some one proposed a game of “La Grace” in the garden. Cousin Hans
rushed nimbly about and played a thousand pranks, threw the game into
confusion, and paid his partner all sorts of attentions.
Cousin Ola stood at his post and gave his whole mind to his task; he
caught the ring and sent it off again with never failing precision.
Ola would have enjoyed himself, too, if only his conscience had not so
bitterly upbraided him for his nefarious love for his brother’s “future
wife.”
When the evening began to grow cool the party went in-doors, and the
dancing began.
Ola did not dance much at any time, but to-day he was not at all in
the humor. He occupied himself in observing Hans, who spent the whole
evening in worshipping his lady-love. A spasm shot through Ola’s heart
when he saw the light-green frock whirl away in his brother’s arms, and
it seemed to him that they danced every dance together.
At last came the time for breaking up. Most of the older folks had
already taken their departure in their respective carriages, the
young people having resolved to see each other home in the delicious
moonlight.
But when the last galop was over, the hostess would not hear of the
young ladies going right out into the evening air, while they were still
warm with dancing. She therefore decreed half an hour for cooling down,
and, to occupy this time in the pleasantest manner, she begged Cousin
Hans to sing a little song.
He was ready at once, he was not one of those foolish people who require
pressing; he knew quite well the value of his talent.
There was, however, this peculiarity about Hans’s singing, or rather
about its reception, that opinion was more than usually divided as to
its merits. By three persons in the world his execution was admired as
something incomparable. These three persons were, first, Cousin Ola,
then Aunt Maren, and lastly Cousin Hans himself. Then there was a large
party which thought it great fun to hear Cousin Hans sing. “He always
makes something out of it.” But lastly there came a few evil-disposed
people who asserted that he could neither sing nor play.
It was with respect to the latter point, the accompaniment, that Cousin
Ola always cherished a secret reproach against his brother--the only
shadow upon his admiration for him.
He knew how much labor it had cost both Hans himself and his sisters to
get him drilled in these accompaniments, especially in the three
minor chords with which he always finished up, and which he practised
beforehand every time he went to a party.
So, when he saw his brother seated at the piano, letting his fingers run
lightly and carelessly over the key-board, and then looking up to
the ceiling and muttering, “What key is it in again?” as if he were
searching for the right one, a shiver always ran through Cousin Ola. For
he knew that Hans had mastered three accompaniments, and no more--one
minor and two major.
And when the singer, before rising from the piano, threw in these three
carefully-practised minor chords so lightly, and with such an impromptu
air, as if his fingers had instinctively chanced upon them, then Ola
shook his head and said to himself, “This is not quite straightforward
of Hans.”
In the mean time his brother sang away at his rich repertory. Schumann
and Kierulf were his favorites, so he performed _“Du bist die Ruh,” “My
loved one, I am prison’d” “Ich grolle nicht,” “Die alten bösen Lieder,”
“I lay my all, love, at thy feet,” “Aus meiren grossen Schmerzen mach’
ich die kleinen Lieder”_--all with the same calm superiority, and that
light, half-sportive accompaniment. The only thing that gave him a
little trouble was that fatal point, _“Ich legt’ auch meine Liebe, Und
meinen Schmerz hinein;”_ but even of this he made something.
Then Ola, who knew to a nicety the limits of his brother’s musical
accomplishment, noticed that he was leaving the beaten track, and
beginning to wander among the keys; and presently he was horrified to
find that Hans was groping after that unhappy “Hope’s clad in April
green.” But fortunately he could not hit upon it, so he confined himself
to humming the song half aloud, while he threw in the three famous minor
chords.
“Now we’re quite cool again,” cried the fair one in light green,
hastily.
There was a general burst of laughter at her eagerness to get away, and
she was quite crimson when she said good-night.
Cousin Ola, who was standing near the hostess, also took his leave.
Cousin Hans, on the other hand, was detained by the Sheriff, who was
anxious to learn under what teachers he had studied music; and that took
time.
Thus it happened that Ola and the fair one in the light green passed out
into the passage at the same time. There the young folks were crowding
round the hat-pegs, some to find their own wraps, some to take down
other people’s.
“I suppose it’s no good trying to push our way forward,” said the fair
one.
Ola’s windpipe contracted in such a vexatious way that he only succeeded
in uttering a meaningless sound. They stood close to each other in
the crush, and Ola would gladly have given a finger to be able to say
something pleasant to her, or at least something rational; but he found
it quite impossible.
“Of course you’ve enjoyed the evening?” said she, in a friendly tone.
Cousin Ola thought of the pitiful part he had been playing all evening;
his unsociableness weighed so much upon his mind that he answered--the
very stupidest thing he could have answered, he thought, the moment the
words were out of his lips--“I’m so sorry that I can’t sing.”
“I suppose it’s a family failing,” answered the fair one, with a rapid
glance.
“N-n-no,” said Ola, exceedingly put out, “my brother sings capitally.”
“Do you think so?” she said, drily.
This was the most astounding thing that had ever happened to Ola: that
there could be more than one opinion about his brother’s singing, and
that she, his “future wife,” did not seem to admire it! And yet it was
not quite unpleasant to him to hear it.
Again there was a silence, which Ola sought in vain to break.
“Don’t you care for dancing?” she asked.
“Not with every one,” he blurted out.
She laughed: “No, no; but gentlemen have the right to choose.”
Now Ola began to lose his footing. He felt like a man who is walking,
lost in thought, through the streets on a winter evening, and who
suddenly discovers that he has got upon a patch of slippery ice. There
was nothing for it but to keep up and go ahead; so, with the courage
of despair, he said “If I knew--or dared to hope--that one of the
ladies--no--that the lady I wanted to dance with--that she would care
to--hm--that she would dance with me, then--then--” he could get no
further, and after saying “then” two or three times over, he came to a
stand-still.
“You could ask her,” said the fair one.
Her bracelet had come unfastened, and its clasp was so stiff that she
had to bend right forward and pinch it so hard that she became quite red
in the face, in order to fasten it again.
“Would you, for example, dance with me?” Ola’s brain was swimming.
“Why not?” she answered. She stood pressing the point of her shoe into a
crack in the floor.
“We’re to have a party at the Parsonage on Friday--would you give me a
dance then?”
“With pleasure; which would you like?” she answered, trying her best to
assume a “society” manner.
“A quadrille?” said Ola; thinking: “Quadrilles are so long.”
“The second quadrille is disengaged,” answered the lady.
“And a galop?”
“Yes, thank you; the first galop,” she replied, with a little
hesitation.
“And a polka?”
“No, no! no more,” cried the fair one, looking at Ola with alarm.
At the same moment, Hans came rushing along at full speed. “Oh, how
lucky I am to find you!--but in what company!”
Thereupon he took possession of the fair one in his amiable fashion, and
drew her away with him to find her wraps and join the others.
“A quadrille and a galop; but no more--so so! so so!” repeated Cousin
Ola. He stood as though rooted to the spot. At last he became aware
that he was alone. He hastily seized a hat, slunk out by the back way,
sneaked through the garden, and clambered with great difficulty over the
garden fence, not far from the gate which stood ajar.
He struck into the first foot-path through the fields, fixing his
eyes upon the Parsonage chimneys. He was vaguely conscious that he was
getting wet up to the knees in the long grass; but on the other hand, he
was not in the least aware that the Sheriff’s old uniform cap, which he
had had the luck to snatch up in his haste, was waggling about upon his
head, until at last it came to rest when the long peak slipped down over
his ear.
“A quadrille and a galop; but no more--so so! so so!--“--It was pretty
well on in the night when Hans approached the Parsonage. He had seen the
ladies of the Doctor’s party home, and was now making up the accounts of
the day as he went along.
“She’s a little shy; but on the whole I don’t dislike that.”
When he left the road at the Parsonage garden, he said, “She’s
dreadfully shy--almost more than I care for.”
But as he crossed the farm-yard, he vowed that coy and capricious girls
were the most intolerable creatures he knew. The thing was that he did
not feel at all satisfied with the upshot of the day. Not that he for a
moment doubted that she loved him; but, just on that account, he thought
her coldness and reserve doubly annoying. She had never once thrown the
ring to him; she had never once singled him out in the cotillion; and on
the way home she had talked to every one but him. But he would adopt a
different policy the next time; she should soon come to repent that day.
He slipped quietly into the house, so that his uncle might not hear how
late he was. In order to reach his own and his brother’s bedroom he had
to pass through a long attic. A window in this attic was used by the
young men as a door through which to reach a sort of balcony, formed by
the canopy over the steps leading into the garden.
Cousin Hans noticed that this window was standing open; and out upon the
balcony, in the clear moonlight, he saw his brother’s figure.
Ola still wore his white dancing-gloves; he held on to the railing with
both hands, and stared the moon straight in the face.
Cousin Hans could not understand what his brother was doing out there
at that time of night; and least of all could he understand what had
induced him to put a flower-pot on his head.
“He must be drunk,” thought Hans, approaching him warily.
Then he heard his brother muttering something about a quadrille and a
galop; after which he began to make some strange motions with his hands.
Cousin Hans received the impression that he was trying to snap his
fingers; and presently Ola said, slowly, and clearly, in his
monotonous and unsympathetic speaking voice: “Hope’s clad in April
green--trommelommelom, trommelommelom;” you see, poor fellow, he could
not sing.