A very common belief in Norway, as in many other lands, is that the
seventh child of the seventh child can heal the sick by the laying on
of hands. Such a child is therefore called a wonder child. Little Carina
Holt was the seventh in a family of eight brothers and sisters, but she
grew to be six years old before it became generally known that she was a
wonder child. Then people came from afar to see her, bringing their sick
with them; and morning after morning, as Mrs. Holt rolled up the shades,
she found invalids, seated or standing in the snow, gazing with devout
faith and anxious longing toward Carina’s window.
It seemed a pity to send them away uncomforted, when the look and the
touch cost Carina so little. But there was another fear that arose in
the mother’s breast, and that was lest her child should be harmed by the
veneration with which she was regarded, and perhaps come to believe that
she was something more than a common mortal. What was more natural than
that a child who was told by grown-up people that there was healing in
her touch, should at last come to believe that she was something apart
and extraordinary?
It would have been a marvel, indeed, if the constant attention she
attracted, and the pilgrimages that were made to her, had failed to make
any impression upon her sensitive mind. Vain she was not, and it would
have been unjust to say that she was spoiled. She had a tender nature,
full of sympathy for sorrow and suffering. She was constantly giving
away her shoes, her stockings, nay, even her hood and cloak, to poor
little invalids, whose misery appealed to her merciful heart. It was
of no use to scold her; you could no more prevent a stream from flowing
than Carina from giving. It was a spontaneous yielding to an impulse
that was too strong to be resisted.
But to her father there was something unnatural in it; he would have
preferred to have her frankly selfish, as most children are, not because
he thought it lovely, but because it was childish and natural. Her
unusual goodness gave him a pang more painful than ever the bad behavior
of her brothers had occasioned. On the other hand, it delighted him to
see her do anything that ordinary children did. He was charmed if she
could be induced to take part in a noisy romp, play tag, or dress her
dolls. But there followed usually after each outbreak of natural mirth a
shy withdrawal into herself, a resolute and quiet retirement, as if she,
were a trifle ashamed of her gayety. There was nothing morbid in these
moods, no brooding sadness or repentance, but a touching solemnity, a
serene, almost cheerful seriousness, which in one of her years seemed
strange.
Mr. Holt had many a struggle with himself as to how he should treat
Carina’s delusion; and he made up his mind, at last, that it was his
duty to do everything in his power to dispel and counteract it. When he
happened to overhear her talking to her dolls one day, laying her hands
upon them, and curing them of imaginary diseases, he concluded it was
high time for him to act.
He called Carina to him, remonstrated kindly with her, and forbade her
henceforth to see the people who came to her for the purpose of
being cured. But it distressed him greatly to see how reluctantly she
consented to obey him.
When Carina awoke the morning after this promise had been extorted from
her, she heard the dogs barking furiously in the yard below. Her elder
sister, Agnes, was standing half dressed before the mirror, holding the
end of one blond braid between her teeth, while tying the other with
a pink ribbon. Seeing that Carina was awake, she gave her a nod in the
glass, and, removing her braid, observed that there evidently were sick
pilgrims under the window. She could sympathize with Sultan and Hector,
she averred, in their dislike of pilgrims.
“Oh, I wish they would not come!” sighed Carina. “It will be so hard for
me to send them away.”
“I thought you liked curing people,” exclaimed Agnes.
“I do, sister, but papa has made me promise never to do it again.”
She arose and began to dress, her sister assisting her, chatting all the
while like a gay little chirruping bird that neither gets nor expects an
answer. She was too accustomed to Carina’s moods to be either annoyed
or astonished; but she loved her all the same, and knew that her little
ears were wide open, even though she gave no sign of listening.
Carina had just completed her simple toilet when Guro, the chamber-maid,
entered, and announced that there were some sick folk below who wished
to see the wonder child.
“Tell them I cannot see them,” answered Carina, with a tremulous voice;
“papa does not permit me.”
“But this man, Atle Pilot, has come from so far away in this dreadful
cold,” pleaded Guro, “and his son is so very bad, poor thing; he’s lying
down in the boat, and he sighs and groans fit to move a stone.”
“Don’t! Don’t tell her that,” interposed Agnes, motioning to the girl to
begone. “Don’t you see it is hard enough for her already?”
There was something in the air, as the two sisters descended the stairs
hand in hand, which foreboded calamity. The pastor had given out from
the pulpit last Sunday that he would positively receive no invalids
at his house; and he had solemnly charged every one to refrain from
bringing their sick to his daughter. He had repeated this announcement
again and again, and he was now very much annoyed at his apparent
powerlessness to protect his child from further imposition. Loud and
angry speech was heard in his office, and a noise as if the furniture
were being knocked about. The two little girls remained standing on the
stairs, each gazing at the other’s frightened face. Then there was a
great bang, and a stalwart, elderly sailor came tumbling head foremost
out into the hall. His cap was flung after him through the crack of the
door. Agnes saw for an instant her father’s face, red and excited;
and in his bearing there was something wild and strange, which was so
different from his usual gentle and dignified appearance. The sailor
stood for a while bewildered, leaning against the wall; then he stooped
slowly and picked up his cap. But the moment he caught sight of Carina
his embarrassment vanished, and his rough features were illuminated with
an intense emotion.
“Come, little miss, and help me,” he cried, in a hoarse, imploring
whisper. “Halvor, my son--he is the only one God gave me--he is sick; he
is going to die, miss, unless you take pity on him.”
“Where is he?” asked Carina.
“He’s down in the boat, miss, at the pier. But I’ll carry him up to you,
if you like. We have been rowing half the night in the cold, and he is
very low.”
“No, no; you mustn’t bring him here,” said Agnes, seeing by Carina’s
face that she was on the point of yielding. “Father would be so angry.”
“He may kill me if he likes,” exclaimed the sailor, wildly. “It doesn’t
matter to me. But Halvor he’s the only one I have, miss, and his mother
died when he was born, and he is young, miss, and he will have many
years to live, if you’ll only have mercy on him.”
“But, you know, I shouldn’t dare, on papa’s account, to have you bring
him here,” began Carina, struggling with her tears.
“Ah, yes! Then you will go to him. God bless you for that!” cried the
poor man, with agonized eagerness. And interpreting the assent he read
in Carina’s eye, he caught her up in his arms, snatched a coat from a
peg in the wall, and wrapping her in it, tore open the door. Carina made
no outcry, and was not in the least afraid. She felt herself resting in
two strong arms, warmly wrapped and borne away at a great speed over the
snow. But Agnes, seeing her sister vanish in that sudden fashion, gave a
scream which called her father to the door.
“What has happened?” he asked. “Where is Carina?”
“That dreadful Atle Pilot took her and ran away with her.”
“Ran away with her?” cried the pastor in alarm. “How? Where?”
“Down to the pier.”
It was a few moments’ work for the terrified father to burst open the
door, and with his velvet skull-cap on his head, and the skirts of his
dressing-gown flying wildly about him, rush down toward the beach. He
saw Atle Pilot scarcely fifty feet in advance of him, and shouted to him
at the top of his voice. But the sailor only redoubled his speed, and
darted out upon the pier, hugging tightly to his breast the precious
burden he carried. So blindly did he rush ahead that the pastor expected
to see him plunge headlong into the icy waves. But, as by a miracle,
he suddenly checked himself, and grasping with one hand the flag-pole,
swung around it, a foot or two above the black water, and regained his
foothold upon the planks. He stood for an instant irresolute, staring
down into a boat which lay moored to the end of the pier. What he saw
resembled a big bundle, consisting of a sheepskin coat and a couple of
horse blankets.
“Halvor,” he cried, with a voice that shook with emotion, “I have
brought her.”
There was presently a vague movement under the horse-blankets, and after
a minute’s struggle a pale yellowish face became visible. It was a young
face--the face of a boy of fifteen or sixteen. But, oh, what suffering
was depicted in those sunken eyes, those bloodless, cracked lips, and
the shrunken yellow skin which clung in premature wrinkles about the
emaciated features! An old and worn fur cap was pulled down over his
ears, but from under its rim a few strands of blond hair were hanging
upon his forehead.
Atle had just disentangled Carina from her wrappings, and was about
to descend the stairs to the water when a heavy hand seized him by the
shoulder, and a panting voice shouted in his ear:
“Give me back my child.”
He paused, and turned his pathetically bewildered face toward the
pastor. “You wouldn’t take him from me, parson,” he stammered,
helplessly; “no, you wouldn’t. He’s the only one I’ve got.”
“I don’t take him from you,” the parson thundered, wrathfully. “But what
right have you to come and steal my child, because yours is ill?”
“When life is at stake, parson,” said the pilot, imploringly, “one gets
muddled about right and wrong. I’ll do your little girl no harm. Only
let her lay her blessed hands upon my poor boy’s head, and he will be
well.”
“I have told you no, man, and I must put a stop to this stupid idolatry,
which will ruin my child, and do you no good. Give her back to me, I
say, at once.”
The pastor held out his hand to receive Carina, who stared at him with
large pleading eyes out of the grizzly wolf-skin coat.
“Be good to him, papa,” she begged. “Only this once.”
“No, child; no parleying now; come instantly.”
And he seized her by main force, and tore her out of the pilot’s arms.
But to his dying day he remembered the figure of the heart-broken man,
as he stood outlined against the dark horizon, shaking his clinched
fists against the sky, and crying out, in a voice of despair:
“May God show you the same mercy on the Judgment Day as you have shown
to me!”