“I cannot leave her,” he said; but when I urged him he rose silently and
returned with me.
I remained with him for a while after that, and each day he went and sat
by the grave. At last I had to leave. I urged him to come with me, but
he replied always, “No, I must watch over Elsket.”
It was late in the evening when we set off to cross the mountain. We
came by the same path by which I had gone, Olaf leading me as carefully
and holding me as steadily as when I went over before. I stopped at the
church to lay a few wild flowers on the little gray mound where Elsket
slept so quietly. Olaf said not a word; he simply waited till I was done
and then followed me dumbly. I was so filled with sorrow for him that
I did not, except in one place, think much of the fearful cliffs along
which we made our way. At the Devil’s Seat, indeed, my nerves for a
moment seemed shaken and almost gave way as I thought of the false young
lord whose faithlessness had caused all the misery to these simple,
kindly folk, and of the fierce young Norseman who had there found so
sweet a revenge. But we came on and passed the ledge, and descending
struck the broader path just after the day broke, where it was no longer
perilous but only painful.
There Olaf paused. “I will go back if you don’t want me,” he said. I
did not need his services, but I urged him to come on with me--to pay a
visit to his friends. “I have none,” he said, simply. Then to come home
with me and live with me in old Virginia. He said, “No,” he “must watch
over Elsket.” So finally I had to give in, and with a clasp of the hand
and a message to “her friend” Doctor John, to “remember Elsket,” he went
back and was soon lost amid the rocks.
I was half-way down when I reached a cleared place an hour or so later,
and turned to look back. The sharp angle of the Devil’s Ledge was the
highest point visible, the very pinnacle of the mountain, and there,
clear against the burnished steel of the morning sky, on the very edge,
clear in the rare atmosphere was a small figure. It stood for a second,
a black point distinctly outlined, and then disappeared.
It was Olaf of the Mountain, gone back to keep watch over Elsket.