smouldering wood in the stove.
"Suspicion actually fell upon your father, you remember, and because he
had been drinking and was such an ungovernable man when he was
drunk----"
"Oh, for the Lord's sake let's have done with this," cried Magnus.
"Magnus Stephenson," protested the Pastor, "if we are in trouble let us
behave like God's rational creatures----"
"Rational hell!" growled Magnus, whereupon the Sheriff, to avoid further
friction, closed his book with a bang, saying he had finished and was
ready to go.
Magnus sat quiet while the Sheriff--a sharp-featured man with the eyes
of a ferret--put on his snow-shoes and cloak, and then with a tremor in
his voice and a somber fire in his eyes he turned and said:
"Is it all over, sir?"
"Yes; it was a long job, but it's over at last," said the Sheriff.
"I mean," said Magnus, "is it certain that the auction must take place?"
"Quite certain. There has never been any doubt of it that I know of."
"Look here, sir," said Magnus, heaving up to his feet. "A Sheriff can
do a good deal if he cares to use his influence. Give me another chance,
and you shall have everything I owe. I've had five bad years in
succession--no wonder I fell into arrears. Last spring I lost forty
lambs in a single night, and next morning two heifers and a calf. The
floods came in the autumn, too. And half my hay was swept into the
lake. But weather like that can't last forever. We are sure to have a
run of good years next. Give me four years more, sir--and you shall see
what I can do."
"The thing is past praying for," said the Sheriff.
"Don't say that, sir. Listen! My people have farmed this place for a
hundred and fifty years, and a man doesn't like to be the one to lose
it. My own flesh and blood are in the land too--the strength of my
muscles and the sweat of my brow. Give me three years more, sir--just
three."
"Impossible!" said the Sheriff.
"Sheriff, come this way," said Magnus, drawing the man aside by the arm
and speaking in a low voice, so that the women might not hear. "I don't
care a straw about myself I'll get along somehow, and if I don't it
doesn't matter--but there's the child. She ought to inherit the farm,
and she's an orphan, but she'll get nothing. Give me a chance for the
child's sake, Sheriff. Don't be hard on me. Sell up half my stock to
pay part of the interest and let me have two years more--only two."
"You know quite well that the mortgage is on the loose property as well
as the land," said the Sheriff. "How can I sap away the security? As
for the girl, she's young and strong; let her go into service."
Magnus bit his lip in an effort to control himself, and then he said,
"You are quite right, sir; the girl and I can take care of ourselves,
but there's the old mother. She was born in this house and she expected
to die here. I shouldn't so much mind if she were gone, and to tell you
the truth she's not well now, sir. Give me one more year, Sheriff--one
single year."
"It's no use wasting words," said the Sheriff. "Matters have gone too
far. The only thing I can do now is----"
"What, sir?"
"If you can pay me the whole of the interest before nine o'clock
to-morrow morning I can stop the sale on my own responsibility."
"Eight thousand crowns!" said Magnus, raising his voice to a cry of
derision; "you ask me to find you eight thousand crowns before nine
o'clock to-morrow morning? You might as well ask me to find you the
moon!"
"Then let us say no more on the subject. The Bank has been very
patient, very indulgent----"
"The Bank!" cried Magnus, in the wild defiance of his despair. "Has the
Bank got a mother? Has the Bank got a child? No! The Bank is a great,
grinding monster without bowels of compassion for anybody. God damn the
Bank and all its fools and flunkeys!"
"Magnus Stephenson," said the Pastor, raising his little fat hand, "I
will ask you to remember that a clergyman is in your company, and if you
take God's name in vain----"
"Take God's name in vain! You do that often enough--you do it every
Sunday."
"I'll not pretend to misunderstand you, Magnus Stephenson, for I know
you are deeply tainted with skepticism, and since you ceased to come to
church----"
"Church! You pray to God in your churches, and what does He do for you?
What does He do for any one? What has He done for me?"
"If your life had been straight and pure God would have watched over
you."
"And hasn't it? Haven't I tried to do what was right? And yet God is
seeing me sold up and turned out, and my dear ones left to die in a
ditch."
"God chastises His own, and if we only have faith in Him----"
"Faith in Him? Where is He? Is He in the Northlands? I have never
heard of it. Is He in the Southlands? I've never seen Him here, though
I've seen the devil often enough. He's in the clouds if He's anywhere,
and that's no use to me."
"Magnus Stephenson----"
"If God is on the earth let Him do something. Here's His chance. You
call the poor His people, don't you? Well, I've fed and sheltered His
people for fifteen years, and now I want feeding and sheltering myself.
I want eight thousand crowns before nine o'clock to-morrow morning, and
if God can do anything in the world let him find me the money and save
my mother and my child from starvation. But He can't do it! He can do
nothing!"
"Magnus Stephenson," said the little clergyman, raising his little fat
hand again, "when you come to stand before the great white throne God
will have something to forgive you."
"Pastor Peter, when I come to stand before the great white throne I
shall have something to forgive God, it seems to me."
"Blasphemy! Blasphemy!" cried the Pastor, and as he followed the
Sheriff out of the house Magnus sent a ringing laugh of contempt after
him into the darkness of the night. At the same moment two sheep-dogs
that had been lying at the door with their snouts on their paws, as if
anxious to join the uproar, began to growl and bark, whereupon Magnus
(who had always been a lover of animals) kicked them savagely and then
reeled back to his seat by the stove.
The strangers being gone and the little family alone, Elin, who had been
standing by the dresser, went over to Magnus and slid into her seat on
his knee and said:
"You must not think about me, Uncle Magnus. Wherever you have to go I
will go too, and what is good enough for you is good enough for Elin.
And then, who knows what may happen before the Sheriff comes back in the
morning? This is New Year's Eve, you know. All good things come at New
Year--miracles come at New Year, Uncle."
But the sweet buoyancy of her girlish spirits, which had been the
sunshine of his life for so many years, was failing him at last, and
putting her aside with petulant expressions he got up and went out to
the back.
Then Anna, who had been sitting in silence by the table, took the Bible
and four hymn-books from the corner cupboard and rang the bell for
prayers.
"I wonder why I did that?" she said. "I forgot that Eric was gone. I
hope he found shelter somewhere, poor boy--I should pity a dog that had
to be out of doors on a night like this."
And then Elin, in default of Magnus, read the lesson which Anna had
marked for her. It was the psalm beginning, "The Lord is my Shepherd, I
shall not want." And when the short chapter was finished the two women
stood up and sang a hymn--Elin in the silvery treble of youth and Anna
in the husky tones of age, they two only in the lonely house among the
solitary hills, with nothing about them but the darkness and the
snow--nothing but that and the immeasurable wings of God.
"Happy the man whose tender care
Relieves the poor distressed;
When he by trouble's compassed round
The Lord will give him rest."
Anna sat down when the hymn was ended, but Elin continued to stand by
the table, and closing her eyes with her innocent face uplifted, she
said a little prayer for herself.
"O Father," she said, "bless Uncle Magnus, so that he may fear no evil.
Show me how to help him, so that I may not be a burden and a care. Dear
Jesus, send the miracle that will save Uncle Magnus and grandma and me.
It will be such a little thing to you, but such a great, great thing to
us, and we shall all be so happy and dwell in the house of the Lord
forever. For Christ's sake. Amen."
Then she opened her trustful eyes and said, "I'm sure He will, grandma,"
and kissing Anna she said "Good night" in a cheery voice and went off to
bed.
Prayers being over, Magnus returned to the hall and began to rake out
the stove for the night. The clouds hung heavier on him than ever, and
thinking to banish them Anna talked of Elin.
"She grows more and more like her mother, and sometimes I think it can
only be a dream that our dear Thora is dead. If you had heard her
praying for the miracle it would have filled your heart brimful. She
has gone to bed quite certain that the miracle will come before
morning."
"It would _have_ to be a miracle to help us now, mother," said Magnus.
"And miracles don't happen--except such of them as we make for
ourselves."
"What do you mean by that, Magnus?" said Anna, lighting the candles.
"I mean--if I had to live my life over again, I shouldn't try to do what
is right, mother."
"You wouldn't do what is wrong, would you?"
"There is no wrong and no right, mother; there is only what is best, and
if I had to begin over again, I should do what was best--best for myself
and for the people about me."
"You don't know what you are saying, Magnus. There are moments when it
might _seem_ to be best to rob, even to kill----"
"And why not?" said Magnus--he was bolting the door. "If a man came to
this house to-night with eight thousand crowns in his pocket, do you
think I should hesitate to take them?"
"My son, you don't mean it."
"I do!"
"You are driven to despair, Magnus, and a despairing man's words belong
to the wind. If I thought you meant it I should die--I should die this
very minute."
She was crying and there was silence for a moment, and then Magnus said:
"Never mind, mother. It doesn't matter whether I meant it or not, the
temptation isn't likely to come to me. Give me the candle and let us go
to bed."
"You have borne a terrible burden, Magnus, and if I could only have
helped you to bear it----"
"You have, mother. If it had not been for you and Elin I should have
gone under ten years ago."
"Your father knew he had robbed you of your inheritance, and perhaps
that helped to kill him in the end."
"It wasn't father's fault altogether. _He_ tried to do what was right,
too. But the poor wretch who comes after the prodigal gleans in a
barren field, you know."
With their candles in hand they were turning to go--Anna to the badstofa
above, and Magnus to the guest-room off the hall--when the dogs, who had
risen again, and were snuffling at the bottom of the door, began to
growl and bark.
"There's somebody coming," said Magnus.
A moment later there was a sharp knock at the window, as with a metal
end of a riding-whip, and a tremulous, high-pitched voice outside,
making the customary Icelandic salutation, "God be with you!"
They looked at each other in blank surprise, while backward thoughts
galloped through their minds, and then Magnus, forgetting to give the
customary reply, walked back to the door, and threw it open.
There was a dull thud of heavy feet on the outside steps, and at the
next moment a man stood on the threshold. He seemed to be an old man,
for his eyebrows, beard, and mustache, and as much as could be seen of
his hair under the peaked hood of his ulster, were white with snow. One
moment he stood there as if breathless after his journey, looking from
Magnus to the mother, and from the mother to Magnus. Then he said, in
the same tremulous voice as before:
"Can I have a bed here to-night, and shelter for my horse?"
It seemed to Anna that he spoke to her, but instead of answering
immediately, she looked across at Magnus with helpless eyes that were
full of inexpressible fears. Magnus looked back at his mother and
hesitated for an instant, while he held the door open with his hand.
Then:
"Come in, sir," he said, and the stranger stepped into the house.
*PART VII*
"_The ball no question makes of ayes and noes,_
_But right or left, as strikes the player goes;_
_And He who tossed you down into the field,_
_He knows about it all--He knows--HE knows._"
*I*
"The little mare is hot--she'll want a rub down and a rest before you
give her a feed."
"I'll see to that, sir," said Magnus, and he went out and pulled the
door after him.
Christian Christiansson had taken two paces into the hall, and was
standing there like a man who is dazed. His heart was thumping against
his ribs, and his pulse was beating violently, and he felt that he would
fall if he took another step forward. So often had he pictured himself
in that place that he could not at first believe in the reality. Coming
out of the darkness, the light of the candles dazzled him, but he looked
round the room, trying to remember. At one glance he took in
everything--the old portraits on the wall, the old Bornholme clock in
the corner, the stove and the armchair in front of it--and, fresh from
the warm comfort of Government House, the Inn-farm seemed bare and
bleak. This sent a chill pang of remorse to his mind, and the pain of
conscience increased when he looked at his mother.
Her hair was white that had once been dark, and her face, which had been
full of the loveliness of love and the beauty of happiness, was scored
deep with lines of suffering. His heart yearned over her, and
notwithstanding his determination not to reveal his identity until
morning, it was as much as he could do to restrain himself from saying
as well as he could for the emotion that was mastering him, "Mother,
don't you know me? I am Oscar," and then throwing his arms about her
dear neck as he had always meant to do.
Meantime Anna, who had recovered her self-control and was lighting the
lamp that swung from the ceiling, glanced across at the new-comer and
thought, "He's nearly frozen stiff, and no wonder." With that thought
she bustled about to rekindle the stove, and called on him to remove his
snow-covered clothing.
"Won't you take off your cloak and boots, sir?" she said, and though the
question was so commonplace he could not answer immediately, for his
voice would not come.
"Your cloak and boots, sir, and I'll put them to dry by the stove."
"Ah yes, of course, certainly."
She stood by him while he threw off his ulster and shook the snow from
his hair and beard, emerging a younger and stronger man, but she only
thought, "A stranger, I suppose. Why does he travel in this weather?"
When he had pulled off his riding-boots, she brought him a pair of
Magnus's slippers and said:
"You must have had a terrible ride, sir."
"It was pretty bad certainly," he said, and after that he got on better.
"A gentleman must have been anxious to get on with his journey to travel
on a day like this."
"I was--I had something to do at the end of it."
"Have you come far, sir?"
"Altogether? Yes, very far."
"From Reykjavik perhaps?"
"Farther than that--from England."
"From England!"
"From London."
As he stooped to put on the slippers he thought his mother was looking
at him, and he trembled between fear and hope of being recognized.
"I suppose," he said--his head was down--"I suppose you've never been as
far as that, landlady?"
"No, sir."
"Nor any of your family?"
He could not resist the temptation to say this, but his mother did not
seem to hear him--she was on her knees, breaking sticks into the stove.
"Sit up and warm yourself, sir. My son raked out the fire, but these
sticks will burn presently. You are here on business, I suppose?"
"Yes, I'm here on business."
Anna thought of the auction and waited for the stranger to speak of it.
When he did not do so she said, "Travelers come from England to buy
sheep and ponies, but they don't often come in the winter, sir."
Still he did not speak (he was thinking of Elin and looking round for
any trace of her), and rising from the stove Anna said:
"But you'll be hungry after your long ride--what can I give you to eat?"
"Anything at all--anything you have ready."
"I'm afraid I have nothing ready--that is to say, nothing that is good
enough for the like of you, sir."
As soon as he could find his voice after that he said, "Don't you always
keep smoked mutton in an Iceland house?"
"Well, yes, if that will do, sir."
"I should like it above all things."
There was a moment's silence, and he thought his mother was looking at
him again. "Then perhaps you are an Icelander?" she said.
"Yes, I'm an Icelander," he answered.
"What is your name?"
Another wild impulse to reveal himself immediately to his mother, nearly
swept down his fears, for he was choking with a sense of duplicity and
his conscience was fighting in contrary ways, but after a moment his
prudence conquered, and with a gulp in his throat he said:
"They call me Christian Christiansson."
"Well, it's lucky you found us up, sir. We were on the point of going
to bed."
"I suppose the other members of your family are gone already?"
"There's only one besides what you've seen--my granddaughter--and she
had just gone off as you came in, sir."
He looked at her as she was crossing in front of him, and saw that she
was wearing the brooch which he had given her when he came back from
Oxford. That sent all the blood to his head again, and he was saying,
before he was aware of it--
"Do you know, landlady, I've slept in this house before?"
"It must have been a long time ago then--I don't remember you."
"It was a long time ago. That," pointing to the portrait of Anna on the
wall, "that is a portrait of yourself, isn't it?"
"It used to be, but I was younger when it was like me, sir."
A sudden softening came into his voice as he replied, "It was exactly
like you when I saw you last, landlady."
"Then you've not been here for ten years at least, sir."
"Quite ten years," he answered. "And that," pointing to the portrait of
the Governor, "is a portrait of your husband."
"It must be more than ten years since you were here, sir, for my husband
is more than twelve years in his grave."
"It is more than ten years. In fact it is sixteen years--nearly
sixteen."
She looked fixedly at him for a moment and something in her memory
seemed to stir, for her bosom heaved perceptibly, but she only said,
with a deep sigh, "We've seen trouble since you traveled in these parts
before, sir."
"Ah, yes, I've heard of it--I heard of it in Reykjavik. You had a
son----"
"That was my son who opened the door to you."
"But you had another son--a younger son."
"Yes, but--we never talk of him now, sir."
"Who's portrait is that in your brooch, landlady?"
"It's his--he is dead."
"Died in disgrace, didn't he?"
"Who knows that, sir? Man sees the deed, they say, but God the
circumstance."
"They think hard things of him in Reykjavik, though. They say he robbed
his father of every penny when he went away, and never sent anything
home toward the maintenance of his child."
"It needs no skill to wound the defenceless," said Anna, bridling up.
"The father robbed himself to save his son, if you want to know the
truth, and as for never sending anything home for the child the poor boy
had nothing to send, for he was poor himself, sir."
"So you found that out, did you?"
"After he was dead we did--one of his father's English friends wrote to
tell us so. And all the time he had been writing letters to me to say
how busy he was and how well he was succeeding--just to keep up my heart
and save me from fretting."
The mother's lingering fondness for her prodigal was rising in her eyes
and breaking in her voice and she was trying to turn away, but he could
not let her go.
"What a pity his father didn't live long enough to hear that! It would
have softened his heart toward him, perhaps."
"It didn't need softening, sir--not at the end at all events."
"His father forgave him, did he?"
"He died thinking his son had become a great man and had justified all
his hopes and atoned for everything. It was only a delusion, sir, but
it made him very happy."
"Your son was a musician, wasn't he?"
"Yes, sir, and from the time he was a child he used to scribble things
and call them his compositions. The pieces of paper always disappeared
and I never knew what had become of them, but when his father was lying
dead I found out where they were."
"And where were they?"
"In his poor father's hands."
Christian Christiansson had gone on and on, while the hot blood throbbed
in his brain, struggling between the desire to reveal himself and the
fear of doing so, but he was drawn up at last by a stifling sense of his
own unworthiness, and before he knew what he was doing he said:
"The man who could do wrong to a father who loved him like that must
have been a scoundrel--a bad-hearted scoundrel, and he deserved
everything that happened to him."
"He was nothing of the kind, sir," said Anna. "He may have done
wrong--I'm not defending him--but a better-hearted boy was never born
into the world. Everybody loved him, and he loved everybody, and as for
me----"
Christian Christiansson recovered himself at the sound of Anna's
faltering words. "God bless her!" he thought, and his heart danced to a
new song, but he only said, with a perceptible lowering of his voice, "I
beg your pardon! Naturally his mother cannot think so, but this is the
first time I've heard a good word for him since I came to Iceland."
"I hadn't meant to speak of him at all, sir. I never do when my other
son is near--Hush! He is coming back."
But the noise which they heard behind them was that of the opening and
closing of a bedroom not a kitchen door, and it was followed by the
light footstep of a girl, whereupon Anna said:
"Elin! I thought you were in bed and asleep, my child."
"I was, but I awoke and heard you had a visitor, so I got up to help,
grandma."
Christian Christiansson trembled from head to foot. The silvery voice
at his back seemed to come to him from across a wide abyss--for it was a
familiar voice but vague as with the mist of dreams and dim as with the
clouds of night.
"This is my granddaughter, sir," said Anna. And then Christian
Christiansson turned and saw her--a young girl as tall as a woman, with
fair complexion, a soft smiling face, and beautiful blue eyes. She wore
a laced bodice, a turned-down collar, a hufa, a tassel, plaited hair,
and looked like the living picture of what her mother had been when he
came from college.
It was his daughter, his little Elin, whom he had traveled so far to
see, but it seemed to him as if all the cruel years had rolled back in a
moment, and it was Thora returned to life.
*II*
"Well, now that you are here, you had better lay the table," said Anna.
"Yes, grandma," said the girl.
"Put on the smoked mutton and the Rullapilsa and the Rikling, while I go
to the elt-house to make coffee."
"Yes, grandma."
"Make yourself at home, Christian Christiansson--my granddaughter will
wait on you."
"I will," he tried to say, but his voice would scarcely come.
Anna being gone, he sat for some moments looking at Elin while she
tripped from dresser to table, and in and out of the pantry, spreading
the cloth, and laying the plates and the food. The girl was so simple,
so natural, so free from self-consciousness, that she seemed to be
hardly aware of his presence, for she hummed to herself softly as if
some song-bird in her breast could not be kept quite still. His heart
swelled and throbbed as his eyes followed her about, and when she left
the room the light seemed to fail in it, and when she came back the air
seemed to become warm. In the dizzy happiness of that hour he felt as
if he had lost a daughter in every one of the fifteen years he had lived
without her, and now that she was near, so close, his hands burned and
itched to hold her. He wanted to take her in his arms and say, "My
child! My child! Doesn't something tell you who I am? I am your
father, and I have wanted you so much and thought of you so often, and
now I have come to fetch you and we shall never be parted again!" But
between fear of frightening her and dread of disclosing himself, all he
could do was to conquer the fluttering in his throat and say:
"Your name is Elin, isn't it?"
"Yes, sir," said the girl.
"What a beautiful name it is, too--Eleen! Your father chose it, didn't
he?"
"I have never heard that, sir. Did grandmother say so?"
"Grandmother and I," he stammered, "have been talking of your father.
You don't remember him?"
"Oh no, sir--he died when I was quite little."
"What a loss that must have been to you, my child!"
"I can't say that, sir," said the girl, "because, you see, Uncle Magnus
has been the same as a father to me all my life, and I have never known
any difference."
"What a loss to your father himself then! How happy you would have made
him, and how proud he would have been of you!"
"I can't say that either," said the girl again, "because he lived five
years after I was born, and it seems he never took any notice of me."
"Did grandmother tell you so?"
"Oh no, sir. Indeed no! Nor Uncle Magnus neither. But everybody know
all about my father, and even the girls at school knew that."
A feeling of mortal shame came over him, and the warm pulsing place in
his breast grew still and cold.
"So you are not sorry your father is dead, Elin?"
"It wouldn't be right to say that, sir."
"At all events you feel no love for him?"
"I never knew him--you can't love somebody you never knew, can you?
Perhaps if he had lived longer and returned home I might have come to
love him. But I don't see how I could if what people say about him is
true."
"What do they say, my child?"
"They say he was unkind to my mother, and that that was one of the
reasons why she died so early."
"Then you never wish you could have seen and known your father?"
"How can I? If he wasn't good to my poor mother, why should I think he
would have been good to me? But see, your supper is ready. Grandma
will bring the coffee presently; won't you begin with the meat, sir?"
He sat down to the table but his hunger was gone. For a moment he
almost wished himself back in the black night from which he had come.
The girl's simple words had been ringing the death-knell of his
expectations. He had left her all these years to the keeping and care
of others--could he expect to come back now and find the affection he
had forfeited? Ah no! He had come too late--too late! But just as one
part of the plan he had formed for himself was becoming vague and
shadowy a gleam of new light was shot into his brain, and his heart rose
with a bound.
"Didn't grandma call you Christian Christiansson?" asked the girl.
"Yes," he answered. "Ever hear that name before, my child?"
The girl turned to him with a face glowing with excitement and said,
"Everybody in Iceland has heard it, sir. It is the same as the name of
the great composer who lives in England."
A deafening tumult of joy was rising within him, and he said, "So
you--you have heard of him, have you?"
"I sing his songs, sir. They are beautiful! I think they are the most
beautiful songs in the world. Would you like me to sing one of them
while you eat your supper?"
"Will you?"
"I should like to," she said, and before he could catch the breath which
had been suspended she had slipped off like a shaft of moonlight and was
back like a ray of the sun, bringing a guitar in her hands.
"This was my mother's guitar, and now it's mine, and it's such a good
one," she said, and with the utter freedom from self-consciousness which
is the charm of children she sat and began to play. After a moment she
stopped, with her head aside, and said:
"Which should it be, I wonder? But perhaps you know them all and would
like me to sing something in particular?"
His face was down, the waves of emotion were surging through and through
him. "Sing--sing anything you like, my darling," he replied.
The fluttered earnestness of his words startled her for a moment, but
she only smiled with a new sweetness and began to sing, first in low,
clear half-tones, and then in a high, tremulous treble that was like the
peal of a lark at the gate of heaven.
Christian Christiansson could not eat; he could only rest his elbows on
the table and cover his face with his hand. His own child was singing
his own song to him in a voice that was like her mother's voice and like
his own voice too!
When the song was done she turned to him again with eyes shining with
unshed tears and said, "Isn't that beautiful?"
"It was beautifully sung, my child, beautifully!" he said. And then,
after a moment, "Elin, would you like to hear something of the man who
wrote that song and how he came to write it?"
Elin's eagerness was heart-breaking. "Indeed, indeed I should," she
said. "Do you know your namesake then?"
"I have known him all his life, my child."
"Tell me about him. Oh, do tell me. One who has such beautiful
thoughts and feelings must be so good and noble."
"He is neither the one nor the other, Elin, but only a poor wayward
sinner like ourselves. In early life he did wrong by his young wife and
she died. Then he did wrong by his father and he had to fly from his
country. After that he went through many sufferings and was guilty of
many sins, but he came to himself at the end, and then he remembered a
little daughter whom he had left behind him. He wished to return to her
immediately, and be a father to her at last, and make it up to her for
all that he had done amiss to her mother who was dead. But there were
many things to do first, for he was like one who was buried under an
avalanche which he had brought down on himself, and he had to work his
way back to life and the world. So when he was far away and his heart
was hungry for the love of his little girl, and he didn't know what was
happening to her, and he wanted so much--oh so much--to go to her, but
could not do so yet because he had sinned and must pay his penalty, he
wrote that song, and it was the cry of his soul to the mother in heaven
to comfort and care for their child on earth."
As Elin listened to the story of Christian Christiansson the tears which
had been standing in her eyes rolled down her cheeks, and her bosom
under her laced bodice slowly rose and as slowly fell again.
"How beautiful!" she said. And seeing how much she was moved by the
sorrows of the man who was not her father, the new light came to him and
he asked himself why, if she could not care for him in his true
character, she should not love him as Christian Christiansson.
There was a shadowy ghost of pain in that thought too, but he put it
aside. After years of hope and heavy labor he had come home to claim
his child, and what he had dreaded had come to pass--her heart had been
poisoned against him. But while she loathed him as Oscar Stephenson she
loved him as Christian Christiansson! Oh, beautiful, blind, pathetic
fallacy, could he not let it be?
In a tumult of heart and brain that was like a whirlpool in a dark
river, he had risen to go to the girl, hardly knowing what he was to do
or say, when Anna came back with a smoking coffee-pot in her hand,
saying in a cheery voice:
"Here it is at last! The fire had gone out in the elt-house, and I had
work enough to kindle it."
And then, having both in the room at one moment--his mother and his
daughter--his feelings almost mastered him again, and he had as much as
he could do to keep himself from blurting out everything and so being
done with further torture. But just as the words of his confession were
trembling on his lips he thought, "Not to-night; to-morrow morning; and
then what joy, what happiness!"
Almost at the same moment Magnus returned to the house and said, "The
little mare was nearly done, sir, but I've rubbed her down and given her
hay, and she shall have a mash before I go to bed."
"Let us have a bottle of brandy first," said Christian Christiansson,
and a few minutes later Elin was carrying away the dishes to wash them,
Anna was going into Magnus's bedroom to make it ready for the guest, and
the two brothers were sitting at opposite sides of the table with the
bottle between them.
*III*
They were less like each other now than ever before--the elder with his
matted, black beard, his strong features, and the vertical lines in his
low brow under the upright stubble of his iron-grey hair; the younger
with his luminous brown eyes and delicate face, his full round forehead,
and his thin, silken, light hair brushed backward to the crown.
Christian Christiansson was quivering to the core at this first
encounter with the brother whom he had wronged and ruined, but he tried
to bear himself bravely and to see how safe it would be to reveal his
identity when the time came to do so.
"It's good of you to give up your room to me," he began.
"That's nothing--nothing at all," said Magnus.
"And perhaps you ought to know why I'm here to-night."
"Please yourself, sir--please yourself."
"To tell you the truth, then, I'm here to attend the auction to-morrow
morning. I only heard of it in Reykjavik yesterday, having arrived by
the 'Laura' the day before."
"So that was the business that brought you, sir?"
"It was. I've been abroad for fifteen years, and I've made some money,
and now I've come home to invest it. So knowing this was a good
farm----"
"None better in Iceland, sir, if it only had a chance, and if you can
afford to buy it out and out----"
"I think I can--I've money enough in my pocket at this moment to buy the
place to-morrow and leave some for something else. I'm sorry for you,
though, and if it's painful to you to hear me talk like this----"
Magnus, who had been rolling in his chair like a man whose mind as well
as his body was uneasy, began to laugh immoderately. "Not at all, sir!
Not at all!" he said, filling his glass. "It's pleasant to hear of
anybody having more money than he wants. For my part, I've never had
enough to pay my debts, sir. For sixteen years I've been ploughing the
waves and now," raising his glass and draining it, "I'm reaping the
breakers, b---- them!"
Christian Christiansson trembled to his very heart at the sound of
Magnus's laughter--the bitter laughter of rebellion and despair--but he
tried to cover up his fear and to carry it off with a cheery tone.
"Don't be too depressed," he said. "Nobody knows what the future has in
store for him. It's a pretty dark night outside, but all the same the
sun will rise to-morrow morning. Besides, there's always a sunny side to
misfortune if we'll only allow ourselves to see it. Life is sweet, my
friend, whatever happens."
"You think it is, sir?"
"I know it is, so why should we sit down on our little handful of
thorns?"
"Because some of us have nothing else to sit upon," said Magnus, and he
laughed again--the same cold, quaking laughter.
Christian Christiansson shuddered, but struggled on. "You think you've
failed, but I know some that have succeeded who would be glad to change
places with you any minute. They've got their gold or their fame or
both pouring down on them like an avalanche, and nothing to do with it,
nobody to share it with--so it is only so much Dead Sea fruit being
piled on their backs. You are not like that. Even if you have to lose
your land, you've got your health, and a good character and a clean
conscience, and your dear ones left to you, haven't you?"
"That's why!" said Magnus. "You don't suppose I'm thinking of myself,
do you? It's just because I've got my dear ones left to me that this
accursed ill-luck is so hard to bear. What's it to me to have my houses
full of lambs, if the floods have come and they are floating on the
lake? You talk like a man who has never known misfortune, sir."
Christian Christiansson felt dizzy. "Perhaps I haven't--perhaps I
have," he said in a faint voice, "but I've known despair, and I know
that no man can live by that. We can only live by hope--not what is,
but what is to be--and if we cannot believe when the clouds are dark,
that the world is ruled in righteousness----"
"And is it?" said Magnus. "Does the bad man suffer in this world? Do
his sheep die of the rot and his cattle tumble over the rocks, or do
they increase faster than anybody else's? No, sir," he said, turning
away in his seat, "if you're a rascal ready to rob your own father, the
chances are you'll prosper in this world, but if you're an honest man
trying to do good to everybody, as likely as not you'll do no good to
yourself or to anybody about you."
The dizziness which had seized Christian Christiansson was increasing
every moment, but he said:
"The world has its own way of punishing offenders, and even if they
escape in life, death is always waiting for them----"
"Death?" said Magnus, swinging round in his creaking chair. "Death is a
blind, blundering monster who strikes down the young and leaves the old,
the happy and leaves the miserable, the innocent and leaves the guilty,
the poor helpless betrayed one and leaves the betrayer! We have all
seen that, haven't we? _I_ have, I know that much."
The heat and flame of Magnus's husky voice had fallen to a thick whisper
that was like a broken sob. Christian Christiansson dared not raise his
face, but he tried to say:
"God brings out all things well in the end. I have always found it so.
The march of the world may be enveloped in darkness, but it tends toward
justice in the long run."
"What is the long run to me, sir?" said Magnus. "I'm only here for a
few years and I want justice now. I want to see the bad man punished in
the present, not in some future generation. Justice, you say! The sins
of the fathers visited on the children--that's the only justice I see in
this world. A poor child left penniless because her father gambled or
drank the money he didn't make--do you call that justice, sir? I
don't!"
Magnus's thick voice was breaking again, and there was silence for a
little while.
"No, no, sir! Don't tell me we get our deserts in this world--any of
us--good or bad. Life gives the lie to that old story--always has,
always will do. If you are a cheat or a profligate, or a prodigal, you
may live in luxury and travel as far as the sun, but if you are a poor
devil staying at home and working your fingers to the bone you'll get
thrown out into the road. But what's the good of talking? The evil day
is coming. Let it come!"
Never before had Christian Christiansson felt so little and so mean.
The sources of pride were dry in him and he was brought very low in his
own esteem. In the presence of the brother who had borne his burdens
and broken down under them he saw himself as an abject and pitiful
thing. He could not raise his head, for he felt as if his shame were
written on his forehead, but he struggled to say something, and the only
words that came to him seemed to scorch his tongue and parch his throat.
"I can not dispute with you," he said. "You've suffered more than I
have, and no doubt your present troubles are the legacy that was left to
you by the prodigal brother your mother was talking about."
Magnus's manner changed instantly at the mention of his mother. "She
was talking about him again, was she?" he said.
"Does she often talk of him then?"
"Too often, and she seems to think of nothing else. He was the
foundation she built her house upon, poor soul, and it fell, but she
holds to him all the same."
"God bless her!" said Christian Christiansson involuntarily. "God bless
all women, I say. They're always on the side of the sinners and the
sufferers. They'll get their compensation somewhere--they must,"--he
was thinking of to-morrow morning.
"I see no sign of it in this case," said Magnus. "She was the best
mother to him a man ever had, and he knew it, but he repaid her with
neglect and contempt."
"Contempt?"
"What else would you call it? He lived five years abroad and wrote to
her only once in all that time. Yet every night she used to stand
outside the door until the post passed, winter and summer, dry or fine,
waiting for the letter that never came."
Christian Christiansson felt as if his very soul were shriveling up with
shame.
"She forgave him for that, though, and when he died--you know how he
died, everybody knows it--she thought that all he had been trying to do
when he fell into that foul dishonor was to get money enough to come
back home and make amends."
"She thought that, did she?"
"She still thinks it."
Christian Christiansson had a sense of hysterical oppression at his
heart. Again he wanted to tell all, and he dared not. "But if it had
been true," he said--"I don't say it was, but if it had been--if your
brother had really been trying for years to make money solely in order
to wipe out the debts he had left behind him--if he had come home with
the fortune in his hands----"
Magnus's dark face darkened ominously, and bringing his great fist down
on to the table he said, "There would have been a curse on every coin of
it, and I should have flung it in his face."
Christian Christiansson did not ask him why. He knew too well what
Magnus meant. In an instant, by such a flash of the lightning of the
mind as must come to the guilty soul on the Day of Judgment, the past of
his life lay open before him, and the most awful fact of it stood out
with naked vividness--the desecration of his wife's grave.
It was impossible to plead that this had been only the act of a moment;
that he had repented it a thousand times with bitter tears; that he had
derived no profit or advantage from it, and had endured for ten years
its fearful penalty in the death of his identity. Again and again he
had soothed himself with such excuses, but he could not cheat his
conscience now. Why was he Christian Christiansson? How had it come to
pass that he had two hundred thousand crowns in his pocket and that his
works were known all over the world?
All the miserable sophistry and false reasoning which had made him what
he was, the owner of fame and fortune, had been riddled through and
through by Magnus's terrible words. All the mocking vanity which had
lured him onward to that hour with promises of the great surprise, the
great denouement, when he should say, "See, I am here; I have justified
all expectations," lay stark and dead and cold.
No, he could not reveal himself to his family to-morrow morning. He
could not reveal himself at all. Having once become Christian
Christiansson, he could never again be known as Oscar Stephenson. Thus
did the dead punish him, and the desecration of his wife's grave had but
rendered the vow he made to himself perpetual and registered the oath he
made to her in heaven.
Christian Christiansson was feeling as if all the world had gone away
from him when Anna came out of the guest-room, saying:
"There, sir! Your room is ready and you can go to bed at any time."
Magnus got up to go to the elt-house to mix the mash for the pony, and
then mother and son were together again.
*IV*
In the confusion of that heart-quelling moment he was asking himself how
he could carry out his plan of rescuing his family from their
misfortunes if he could not tell them who he was, and how he could claim
his daughter and take her away with him, if he could not say, "I am her
father, she is mine," when chance and a commonplace word--those twin
sisters of invention and wisdom--showed him what he was to do.
"I shall want to be awakened early in the morning, landlady, for I
suppose the Sheriff will come soon."
"The Sheriff, sir?"
"I've just been telling your son that I intend to bid for your farm at
the auction to-morrow morning."
"So that was what you had to do at the end of your journey?"
"Yes, it was what I had to do, landlady."
She looked at him for a moment, and then asked, "What can a gentleman
like you want with a farm like this?"
He did not reply, so she said, "You can not think of living in such a
lonesome place as Thingvellir."
Still he did not speak, and she said again, "You might let the farm
certainly, but it is hungry land, I assure you, and everything depends
on how you work it."
She busied herself about the table as if trying to find something to do.
"My son," she said, "is the only one who has ever been able to work it
properly, and if he has got into difficulties at last it wasn't his
fault, for there isn't a man in Iceland who would have been able to keep
his head above water."
She waited for him to say something, but he gave no sign. "His
difficulties are not so very serious, either. Eight thousand crowns
arrears of interest--that is all, in sixteen years, sir."
Again she waited, but he was still silent. "When the Sheriff went off
this evening, he said if my son could find the money before nine o'clock
to-morrow morning, he wouldn't go on with the auction."
Christian Christiansson had rested his head on his hand and seemed to be
listening intently.
"If my son could only find somebody to lend him the money----"
There was a ring of appeal in her voice which startled herself, for she
stopped, and looking nervously round at the stranger, said:
"I'm sure he would never regret it, sir. Magnus would work his fingers
to the bone to repay every penny. He has always been a boy like that,
and with better seasons and a little luck----"
It was then that the new scheme came to Christian Christiansson and he
covered his face with his hand to think of it, whereupon Anna, mistaking
the meaning of the altered gesture, faltered and began again.
"I'm taking a great liberty, sir, but I'm not thinking of myself--I'm
thinking of my son. In one sense I'm to blame for all that has happened
to him. He doesn't know it and I daren't tell him, but I am."
Christian Christiansson looked up at her.
"It was all my fault that his father took the mortgage."
"_Your_ fault?"
"Yes, sir. My husband loved the poor boy who is gone, but he was the
Governor of Iceland and every eye was on him to see that he kept his own
house in order, and but for me he might have let the law take its
course. I pleaded and prayed with him, thinking that we ourselves would
be the ones to suffer. But I only ruined one son in trying to save the
other--and I didn't save him."
Christian Christiansson dropped his head, for the waters of bitterness
were falling over him in a flood, and Anna, thinking she had touched
him, went on more eagerly:
"Then there's the girl, sir, my granddaughter. You've seen her
yourself, and you'll say she doesn't look like a servant, but if the
auction comes off she'll have to go out to service. They treat girls
shamefully in some farmhouses, and my son can not bear the thought of
it. Neither can I, for I can't help thinking of her father. Whatever
else he may have been he was a gentleman, and to think of his daughter
being a drudge to somebody----"
Anna's voice was faltering again, but after a moment she went on
bravely.
"As for myself, I'm an old woman, and a little misfortune more or less
doesn't matter to me now. My time is short in any case, and I shall be
glad to go when I'm called. Most of my loved ones are gone already--my
son and my granddaughter are all that are left--and if I could feel that
I was leaving them happy and comfortable----"
Christian Christiansson could bear no more. "Landlady," he said, "I had
set my heart on buying the farm--I had a particular reason for wishing
to buy it--but instead of doing so I'll lend your son the money to pay
the interest."
Anna's eyes opened wide in astonishment, and now that her prayer was
answered her breath seemed to be suspended. "You _will_, sir?" she said.
"I will, on one condition.
"Oh, never mind the condition, let me go and tell him."
"My condition is that you give me the girl to adopt as my daughter."
"Ah!"
"I'm a lonely person, too, though I'm not so old as you are, and when
I'm in England I haven't wife or child or mother or brother to share my
life with me. The girl's sweet face would be a great comfort to me
there, and I'm ready to pay this interest if you are willing to let her
go."
The light had died out of Anna's eyes--her head was down.
"I should give you every guarantee that she would be taken care of. I
am rich, as men of my class go, and she should want for nothing."
"But I didn't think your condition would be like that, sir," said Anna.
"Why not? Are you thinking of the girl or of yourself, landlady?"
"I am thinking of my son. No man was ever so wrapped up in a child. He
has had her nearly all her life, and he is very, very fond of her. When
she was little and the snow was deep as it is to-day he used to take her
to school on his shoulder, and at night when she was sleepy he would
carry her in his arms to bed. If she were his own he could not love her
more dearly. It is like fatherhood to him, and he will never be a
father now, because----"
Anna hesitated as if trying to say something which she was afraid to
say, and then through her gathering tears she blurted out her secret.
"To tell you the truth, sir, he cared for her mother, but gave her up to
somebody else and she died, and from that day forward all the best years
of his life were wasted in a cruel longing for something to love. Then
the child came, and it was almost as if the mother herself had sent her
little one to comfort him. _She_ could not love him, for she loved the
other one to the last, but the child might, and she has--God bless her,
she has!"
Christian Christiansson was wrung to the heart, but he struggled on.
"So you think he could not part with the girl even for her own welfare
and happiness?"
"I don't say that, sir; and perhaps if it were put to him properly----"
"Put it yourself, landlady."
"I daren't! He might suppose that I was thinking of myself."
"And if he did, would that be such a serious matter? Can it be nothing
to him that his mother will be saved from being homeless if no harm is
to come to the girl? And no harm shall come to her--you may take my
word for that."
Anna thought for a moment and then she said, "You would tell us where
she is to go, and what she is to do, and how she is to be brought up?"
"Indeed I would."
"She might write to us constantly and come to see us sometimes,
perhaps?"
"Certainly she might."
"After all, it would just be like going into service."
"Just."
"Only she would be a lady, not a servant?"
"Only that."
"You would be good to her? Something tells me you would. And you
would, wouldn't you?"
"I should be as good to the girl as if--as if I were her own father,"
said Christian Christiansson.
Anna dried her eyes and said:
"I don't know what to say, sir--I really don't know what to say to you."
"Say nothing to me--speak to your son, landlady."
"You will lend him the money to pay the interest immediately?"
"Immediately."
"Eight thousand crowns--you can find it all by nine o'clock to-morrow
morning?"
"See," said Christian Christiansson, taking the pocketbook out of his
breast-pocket, "there's enough in this purse to pay the interest twenty
times over. And I'll not _lend_ the money to your son--I'll _give_ it
to him if he will give me the girl instead."
"He will be sorry to part with her, but after all it will be one mouth
less to feed, and when I'm gone that will be another, and then perhaps,
having no burdens and no embarrassments----"
"Speak to him--he's here," said Christian Christiansson, and just at
that moment Magnus returned to the hall carrying a wooden bowl of
smoking bran.
Then in a low and trembling tone, hardly daring to raise her eyes to his
face, Anna told her son of the stranger's offer, dwelling chiefly on the
advantages to himself when Elin would be provided for, and she herself
would be under the earth, and he, no longer crippled by grinding debt,
would be able to pay his way and win back his lost inheritance. But as
she went on her voice faltered, and her words became confused, for he
was looking down at her with a lowering brow, and at last she stopped
altogether, saying:
"I didn't mean any harm, Magnus. I only thought----"
"You thought I could sacrifice Elin to save myself, mother," said
Magnus, and at that hard word Anna sank into a chair and sobbed.
Then Magnus turned to Christian Christiansson and said, "I'm much
obliged for your offer, sir, but my niece is not for sale."
With that he was passing out of the house, when Christian Christiansson,
who was quivering from head to foot, cried, "Wait!"
"Well?"
"You have decided for yourself fast enough--have you thought of anybody
else?"
"Who else is there to think about?"
"Your mother for one. If you refuse my offer and the house is sold over
your heads to-morrow morning, what is to become of her?"
Magnus flushed as if an invisible hand had smitten him across the face.
"What is to become of the girl, too--have you thought of that? Have you
a right to send her into service--to be a drudge to somebody?"
Magnus was shuddering visibly--even the bowl was trembling in his hands.
"No doubt you are fond of the girl and have been good to her, but if she
were your own daughter she would be a separate being, and in a case like
this you would have no right to speak for her."
"Then she shall speak for herself," said Magnus, and putting the smoking
bowl on the table he crossed to the inner door and cried in an agitated
voice, "Elin! Elin! Elin!"
In a moment the girl came running into the room with a look of alarm,
saying, "What is it? Has anything happened?"
"Listen!" said Magnus, and Christian Christiansson could see that though
his voice shook as if his soul were shaken he was trying to speak
calmly. "This gentleman," he said, "has told your grandmother that he
wishes to adopt you as a daughter, and he offers to pay my debts if I am
willing to let you go."
"Uncle!" cried the girl.
"I have told him you shall speak for yourself, and so you shall, and
whatever you decide to do your grandmother and I will agree to."
"But, Uncle!"
"Don't speak yet, my child. It is only fair that you should hear
everything. Elin, I am a broken man and I have no longer a home to
offer you. After the auction to-morrow morning I don't know what is to
become of grandmother and you and me, or where we are to go or what roof
is to cover us. But this gentleman is rich, and he promises to provide
for you all your life, and to give you all you need and everything you
could wish for. If you stay with me you may suffer privations, but if
you go to him you will never know a poor day again as long as you live."
His deep voice had all it could do to support itself, but he bore up to
the end, and then Anna, whose eyes were filling as fast as she could
wipe them, said:
"Isn't it wonderful, Elin? Isn't it like a miracle? Like an answer to
your prayer, my child, just when we were so low and downhearted? The
gentleman will satisfy us that you are going to a good Christian home
and that you will be properly brought up and cared for."
And then Christian Christiansson himself, though he could scarcely speak
for the contending emotions that shook Him to the soul, stepped forward
and said:
"Let me tell you who I am, Elin. We spoke of Christian Christiansson
the composer, and you sang his song to me and said you would like to
hear something about him. I am Christian Christiansson."
The girl made a little involuntary cry, and his voice faltered for a
moment.
"Yes, I am he, and the story I told you was the story of my own unhappy
life, only--I have lost my daughter since I wrote that song, and now I
am quite alone. Will you not come and take her place, my child? You
shall be just the same to me as my own daughter, and you shall never
know the difference. You will return with me to England and live my
life, and whatever I do you shall do, and wherever I go you shall go
also."
"Think of that, Elin!" said Anna. "You love music--you take after your
poor father that way--and you will travel about just as your dear mother
used to do!"
"It would be beautiful!" said Elin.
She had been standing all this time by the table with one hand resting
lightly upon it, while her sweet face reflected the changing lights of
alarm and pain and surprise and joy.
"I can't think of anything in the world I should love so much, but--I
can not, I must not."
"Elin!"
"Grandma, didn't you tell me yourself when I came here long ago, and you
put me to bed the first time, that I was never to leave Uncle Magnus,
and if anybody ever came to take me away I was not to go? I was a
little mite, but I gave you my word, I remember, and I am going to keep
it."
"But I was thinking of somebody else then, Elin. I couldn't know that
this gentleman would come--at a time like this, too----"
"But that makes no difference, grandma. Besides, if I were to go to
this gentleman and he were to treat me as if I were his own daughter, I
should have to think of him as if he were my own father. Would you like
that, grandma? And would Uncle Magnus like it?"
"We should sacrifice ourselves, honey, we should sacrifice ourselves
that you might be well off and happy."
"But I don't want to be well off if you and Uncle Magnus are going to be
poor. And I shouldn't be happy at all--I should be miserable."
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" moaned Anna, unable to say more. And then the
girl turned with a smile to Christian Christiansson, who was throbbing
with pride and pain, and she said:
"It is very, very good of you, sir, and there isn't another girl in the
world who wouldn't be glad to go; but I can't, you must see yourself I
can't--I must stay with my uncle. Grandma is going to do so, and why
shouldn't I?"
"He would be better without either of us, Elin," said Anna.
"Don't say that, grandma."
"I do say it, my child, and if you only knew how cruel the world is----"
"But God isn't, and He will not separate us now after we have been
together so long. You said so yourself, you know, when I talked of
going into service. You said He would find another way, and He
will--I'm sure He will."
It wrung Anna's heart to have her own teaching coming back to reproach
her, yet thinking of Magnus she made one more effort. "But don't you
see, dear, that if you stay with Uncle Magnus he will lose the land,
whereas if you go with this gentleman he will be able to keep it?"
Then the innocent young face which had been so full of beautiful trust
in the greatness and the goodness of God to triumph over all perils and
privations clouded over for one moment, and she said, "Do you _want_ me
to go, grandma? And does Uncle Magnus want it?"
Neither of them answered her, and she looked from one to the other--Anna
brushing her eyes with the back of her wrinkled hand, and Magnus
standing motionless with a white face broken up like the melting
snow--and then the cruel swelling in the girl's heart subsided and her
eyes shone like the sun.
"I _know_ you don't," she answered herself. "You are only thinking
about _me_."
And then the brave little soul tossed up her head with a proud look and
said, "As for the land--if it comes to losing that or losing me, I know
what Uncle Magnus will say. He will say--I _know_ he will--'Let me keep
my little Elin and the land--_the land may go_!'"
"And so I do, my darling," cried Magnus, and he opened his great arms to
her, and she ran into them and was gathered to his breast.
At the next moment Anna had joined them and Magnus had put his arms
around both, and it was just as if they had conquered a great
temptation--as if some dark shadow which had threatened to separate them
had passed away--for they were clinging together and crying like
children.
Christian Christiansson stood aside for a moment and looked on at their
happiness, feeling himself without part or lot in it, and then, fearing
that he might cry out and betray himself or break down altogether, he
turned away and fled into the guest-room.
*V*
He threw himself face downward on the bed, and the waters of Marah went
over and over him. Sight of the happiness he had lost the right to
claim was the hardest experience that had yet come to him, and he wept
bitterly. "My child! My dear, dear child!" he had wanted to cry, but
those were words of proud endearment which he might never use except in
the voiceless chambers of his empty heart.
But this mood lasted only for a few moments, and then a fierce and
almost savage jealousy took possession of him, and he dried his eyes and
sat up in contempt of his own weakness. What right had any one to rob
him of his child? Elin was flesh of his flesh, and no man should take
her away. Even the law would recognize his right to his own offspring.
He had merely to say to the Sheriff, "She is mine," and the Sheriff
would have no choice but to deliver her up to him.
Then calmer moments came, and he saw that he could only assert his legal
right to his daughter by disclosing his identity, and that was out of
the question. And even if it were possible to carry his daughter away
by force, it would be a poor triumph to take her body if he could not
also take her soul. Every man wished his children to love him, and
unless Elin could love her father, what was the good of claiming her?
He opened his eyes to calm the deafening tumult of his conflicting
thoughts, and saw a little faded photograph in a stand on a table that
stood beside the bed. It was an old photograph of Thora, and he
remembered it immediately, for it was the same that in the better time
belonged to Aunt Margret and stood on the drawers beside her door. He
took it up in his shaking hand and held the candle to look at it, and
then, in a moment, by that magic the Almighty knows, he was back with
Thora in the birth-room at Government House, and she was saying, in the
tremulous joy of her young motherhood, "Kiss me, Oscar! Put your arms
about both of us, dearest! That way--so!"
Something of the tenderness of Thora's sweet heart returned to him with
that haunting memory, and along with it came a new and thrilling
thought. If Elin belonged to him by right of Nature, then Nature
herself would speak for him. He had only to say to her, "I am your
father; you are my daughter," and she would come to him--she could not
help herself--because Nature is a mighty thing and none of us can resist
the mysterious call that comes to our blood from the blood that gave us
birth!
He would do so; he would find the girl alone and speak to her; he would
whisper the secret of his life in the ear of his own child, and then the
marvelous Mother of us all would do the rest.
When he returned to the hall, Elin was shaking out the cloth and
removing the last of the supper things--all except the bottle and
glasses, which she left on the table. "It must be now," he thought, and
though his heart quailed at coming to this last throw in the game he had
played for life and love, he put his fortune to the test.
"It was very brave of you, my child," he said, "to choose poverty when
you might have chosen wealth. But you did well, for wealth is only of
this world's making, and the angel that brings us happiness does not ask
us if we are poor or rich."
His voice faltered when he came to what he had to say next, but he
rallied and went on:
"It was very sweet of you, too, to remain with your uncle and your
grandmother, instead of coming to a stranger, for being of your own
flesh and blood they have naturally the first claim upon you. But
if--if, instead of Christian Christiansson, I had been _your own
father_, would you--would you have come to me then?"
Elin did not answer him immediately, and he looked steadfastly into her
face, feeling that all hope of happiness for the remainder of his life
hung on her reply.
"Would you?"
The sweet young face looked troubled for a moment, and then slowly--very
slowly and sadly--Elin shook her head.
He felt like a man who had been sentenced to death, but while his face
clouded and fell, the girl's rose and became beautifully calm.
"I don't see how that could make any difference," she said. "I couldn't
feel as if you were my father unless I had known you as long as I could
remember, and longer even than that. What I call a father is one who has
nursed you on his knee when you were a little thing, and kissed you and
coaxed you when you were sick, and thought of you and cared for you
always, not one who has been away from you all your life, who has never
cared for you at all, and whom you wouldn't know if you met him in the
road."
"But don't you feel, dear, that there is something in the relation of a
child to her father, however he may have neglected her--something
intimate and sacred--something she can never know in her relation to
anybody else, however much he may have done for her--don't you feel
that, Elin?"
Again the girl thought for a moment, and again she shook her head.
"But if I were to say to you, 'My child, my dear, dear child, I may have
done nothing for you, but still I am your father, and you are the only
one who is left to me now, and I want you to come to me and be my
daughter, and we shall never be parted again'--if I were to say that to
you, would you still hold to your uncle?"
The tremulous fervor with which he spoke these imploring words brought
tears to the girl's eyes, but her heart stood firm and strong.
"Yes," she said, "I couldn't help it, because Uncle Magnus has been my
real father after all."
It was all over. His last hold of the girl was lost. Again he felt as
if the world had gone away from him, as if the dark column of hope which
had shown its bright face for a moment had turned again, and now all was
hopeless darkness.
He had thought Nature would speak to the girl, but it had not spoken.
Nature was a great, inexorable instrument in the hand of God, and God's
hand was on him. _As he had done, so he was being done by_--as he had
taken the love of Thora from Magnus, so Magnus, after many years, had
taken the love of Elin from him. It was right, it was inevitable, and
he must bow his head in speechless submission before the justice and the
vengeance of God!
He must leave the house as he had come to it, not only without revealing
himself to his mother and brother, but also without his child. It would
be the bitterest moment of his life, but he must meet it and go on.
"You are quite right, my dear--quite right," he said. "A child's love is
like a flower in the window--it cannot grow without somebody to water
it. Your uncle has done everything for you, and he is entitled to all
your affection. It wouldn't be fair if your father could come back,
after all these years, and take you away from him. Cling to him, Elin,
love him, and comfort him, and may God bless you for your loyalty and
trust!"
He had tried to speak bravely, but his voice broke and he stopped.
After a moment he said calmly:
"Can you give me pen and ink and a sheet of writing-paper?"
She brought them instantly, and he sat at the table and wrote a line or
two. Then he took out his pocket-book, opened it, and put the paper
inside of it, and closed it up again.
"Elin, will you do me a great favor?"
"Oh yes, sir," said the girl.
"It is late, and I've had a long day, and I may not be up when the
auction begins in the morning--will you take this pocket-book and give
it to the Sheriff the moment he arrives?"
"With pleasure, sir."
"You will not open it or show it to anybody else, but you will carry it
to your room at once and put it under your pillow, and to-morrow morning
you will be up early and give it to the Sheriff before he begins the
sale--will you do this for me, my dear?"
"Indeed I will, sir."
"Thank you! And now you must go to bed. Good-by, my child!"
"But I'll see you in the morning, sir?"
"Who can say? We may both have other things to think about by that
time, so we had better say good-by to each other now."
"But am I not to see you again?"
"Who can say that either! I have come a long way, you know, and now I
may have to go--" he hesitated, and then turning away he said, "I may
have to go still farther."
"You have been so kind to me, sir--I am sorry I can not go with you."
"Ah, God forbid!--I mean, you can not--I see you can not! But if you
_could_ have done so I should have been so fond of you, and we should
have been such good friends together."
"I shall never forget you, sir."
"Nor I you. I shall always think of the brave little girl I met
once--only once--and then could see no more.
"You are only a stranger to me, sir, but--but----"
"Yes, I am only a stranger to you, my child, but we have come together
on the great ocean of life, and now--now we must say good-by and part."
"Good-by, sir!"
"Good-by, little girl, and God bless you!"
The girl stepped to her bedroom door and then stopped and turned and
looked back at him. Her eyes were full--she knew not why. Nature was
saying something to her at last--she knew not what.
He was looking after her with all his hungry soul in his quivering face,
and when she turned he stretched out his arms to her.
"Elin!" he whispered, and she came back to him, and he folded her to his
heart and kissed her on the forehead and on the lips. Ah, sweet, soft,
warm lips, he felt them to the last!
A mist floated before his eyes; he heard footsteps going away from him;
he heard a door open and close, and then--his child was gone.
* * * * *
Christian Christiansson was alone. He felt that he had come to the lees
of his life and saw nothing but a blank where he might crawl to die.
Could he go back to Reykjavik? That was impossible, for the Minister and
his people would be preparing their banquet in honor of his visit, and
to go through such rejoicing would be a scorching martyrdom at which the
devil himself would laugh. Could he return to England and resume his
old life as the unknown composer? That was impossible also, for he could
never write as he had written before, because the old impulse was gone,
the fire was burnt out, the life that had inspired him was dead, and
because the foundations of his fame were broken up by the new
consciousness that he had no right to it, by the sense that his career
and all that had come of it had been built on the desecration of his
wife's grave, and by the certainty that his success had been paid for as
by the sweat of his very soul.
What then was before him? Old age? What was old age without friends,
without children, without love, without respect and with memory--that
last joy of a man's declining days--like a poisoned river running
through a wasted land?
Was there nothing before him then? Yes, there was one thing--one
only--and as he lay in that room alone with his head over his hands on
the table, he had the trembling, thrilling, palpitating sense of
supernatural wings hovering above him, and of an awful voice that seemed
to say, "THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH!"
At that moment he became aware of other voices--more human and homely
voices--murmuring about him, and one of them said, "He has fallen
asleep, poor gentleman," and another, "He has drunk too much, perhaps."
Then a hand touched him on the shoulder and somebody cried in his ear:
"Hadn't you better go to bed, sir?"
It was his mother, with Magnus behind her, and looking at both he could
see that they supposed he was intoxicated. In the wild laboring of
heart and brain, it suited him that they should continue to think so,
and indeed the strain of nerve had been so hard that when he rose to his
feet he staggered like a drunken man.
"Heigho! What's this?" he laughed. "Your brennie-vin must be pretty
heady, landlady. But no matter! It will be a good nightcap and make me
sleep the sounder. I'm tired, very tired, but I'm going to have a long
sleep at last--a long, long sleep at last."
"But to-morrow will be New Year's Day," said Anna. "The bells ring at
daybreak, and the Sheriff will be here soon after, so you'll have to be
stirring early if you want to be ready for the auction."
"Why, so I shall--I had forgotten all about it--and since we can not
agree about the girl I must buy the farm whatever happens. I told you I
wanted it for a particular purpose, but I didn't say what it was. It's
my secret, landlady, but I don't mind telling you. I want it for my
mother."
"Your mother?"
"That's so! She was born in these parts, and the poor old thing would
like to end her days here."
"So she tells you to buy up my farmstead?"
"Not she! She doesn't know anything about it. That's to be my
surprise. I've not been a good son, but when I go away never to come
back again I want to feel that the dear old soul is happy and
comfortable and has a roof to cover her."
He laughed, with the same sense as before of an hysterical oppression of
the heart, and then turned to Magnus and said:
"Sorry to buy your house over your head, but business is business, you
know, and anybody is at liberty to bid who has money to pay."
Magnus moved aside with a contemptuous expression.
"Don't look so glum, my man. You think you've been badly treated and
perhaps you have, but you're the luckiest man in Iceland if you ask me.
You think because you've done well you ought to be rewarded, but what
right have poor wretches like us to expect reward in this world? You
think because a man is rich he is to be envied, but what's the use of
having your pocket full if your heart is empty? And you think because
Death kills the innocent and the happy it is a cruel monster, but there
are worse things than Death, and Life is one of them when you've nobody
to care whether you live or die. Then cheer up, old fellow! You've got
your health and your good name, and your mother and that sweet girl to
love and to love you, so what the devil have you got to complain of?
Nothing at all!"
Saying this with a mixture of real emotion and its mocking make-believe,
a touch of the boy came back to him for a moment and he put his arm
across his brother's shoulder as he used to do in the old days, but
Magnus shuddered and shrank away.
"Your candle is burning in the bedroom, sir," said Anna coldly.
And then he saw that his mother also looked black at him, as one who had
come to turn them out of house and home, and as one who had tried to
tempt the girl away from them, and as one who could laugh at their
condition and have no thought except for himself. And thinking that
this was the last he would see of her; that it was so different from the
parting he had expected; that all hope of pardon and reconciliation was
lost; that his mother would never hear that her lingering faith in her
prodigal had been justified and never know that he had been and gone, he
had as much as he could do not to break down and betray himself even at
the end.
But gathering up his clothes which had been drying by the stove, he
turned toward the bedroom, saying with another laugh--a laugh that went
to Anna's heart like a sword:
"Don't look so downhearted, landlady. When things are at their worst
they can't move without they mend. You've had your troubles, but you
shall drink my health under my mother's roof-tree to-morrow morning.
Good night!"
And then he reeled into the guest-room.
*VI*
The stranger being gone, mother and son looked into each other's faces.
Then they spoken in whispers.
"Did you hear him?" said Anna.
"About his mother's roof-tree?" asked Magnus.
"About the auction--about everything. The man can have no feeling--no
pity."
"None."
"'Business is business,' he said, when he talked of buying the place
over our heads. And when he spoke of his mother ending her days here he
never once thought of me."
"He never thought of Elin either. He would have taken the girl away
from us without a moment's hesitation."
"He would," said Anna. "'There's enough in this purse,' he said, 'to
pay your interest twenty times over.'"
"Did he say that?"
"He did. He took his pocket-book out of his breast-pocket and----"
"His breast-pocket, you say?"
"Yes, 'and I'll _give_ the money to your son,' he said, 'if he'll give
me the girl instead.'"
Anna talked on in an innocent, helpless way without knowing what bad
work she was doing, but suddenly, mysteriously, at the mention of the
purse a change passed over Magnus's face and it grew ugly with evil
passions.
"He must be rich," said Anna.
"Richer than anybody has a right to be," said Magnus.
"Surely God can not mean that anybody should be as rich as that while
other people are so poor."
"God!" said Magnus, and his distorted face quivered.
"If he would only lend us enough to satisfy the Sheriff in the morning!"
said Anna.
"What's the good of expecting a man to help us to keep the farm when he
has come to buy it for himself?"
"It's hard, though, cruelly hard, to be turned out of house and home by
the first person who comes along with more money."
"That's what I was thinking," said Magnus.
Down to this moment Anna had only been trying to sympathize with
Magnus's mood, but now something in his tone made her suspect that she
had awakened a devil, and she looked at him in terror.
He took up the bottle and drank; he drank out of the neck; and there was
a new devil in every drop. His eyes began to gleam with a feverish
luster, and Anna trembled. She remembered that Magnus had not taken any
strong drink until to-day since the day of Thora's funeral, and then she
thought of her father, and a sensation of extreme cold crept over her.
"Let us not talk of it any more," she said, as she tried to put the
bottle away, but Magnus held on to it.
Mother and son looked at each other again, and then Anna went over to
the stranger's door and listened.
"Has he locked it?" asked Magnus.
"No, I'm afraid-- No, no, he has not."
"What is he doing?"
"The candle is out--he must be in bed already."
"Then," said Magnus, "he has thrown himself down without undressing and
the pocket-book is on him still."
"Magnus, what are you thinking of?" said Anna--her teeth were
chattering.
"Would it be so very wicked?"
"What?"
"To take as much as would satisfy the Sheriff in the morning?"
"Magnus! I didn't mean that."
"He would never miss it--never know it was gone--and it would enable us
to keep the farm and so save us from starvation."
"Oh, dear! What have I done?"
"He's a prodigal himself, it seems. Very well, let prodigal pay for
prodigal."
She could not breathe freely--she could only look at Magnus in
speechless surprise. He took up the bottle again and gulped clown the
last of the liquor.
"He has drunk a good deal--he will sleep heavily--and he won't awake
until the auction is over."
"Let us go to bed," said Anna.
"Go yourself," he growled, for the furies that march in the brain of the
drunken man had mastered him.
"Magnus," said Anna, "if you will not go to bed I shall stay up all
night with you."
Then the devil that had changed Magnus into a cunning, savage beast,
showed him what he had to do.
"Very well, let us go to bed," he replied.
He bolted the outer door again and raked out the stove, while his mother
extinguished the lamp and re-lit the candles. She thought the evil
impulse that had come to him had been conquered, and she talked of other
matters.
"I've made up Eric's bed for you, and you'll find everything
comfortable," she said.
As she passed Elin's door she opened it gently and held her head aside
to listen. The sound of the soft and measured breathing came out to
them for a moment and then the door was closed again.
"Poor child! She would lay her head on her pillow full of faith in the
miracle that is to happen before to-morrow morning. Of such is the
kingdom of heaven!"
They parted at the door of the badstofa, and a few minutes afterward the
little house lay silent and dark in the arms of the hills and on the
breast of the snow, but the wings of Death hung over it.
* * * * *
Magnus did not go to bed. He threw himself on the eiderdown and went
through a fierce fight with God as represented by God's vicar, his
conscience. A vision of the pocket-book in the stranger's breast-pocket
danced before his dark heart, and he told himself that come what would
he must take enough of the stranger's money to pay the interest in the
morning. If he did not do so the man would buy the farmstead and Elin
and his mother would be turned adrift.
On this thought came compunctions. To take the man's money would be to
steal, and Magnus had never stolen. But faith being already gone,
morality followed, and he wrestled with his conscience and overcame it.
What he was going to do was what men did every day, only they called it
business, and they did it to wrong the right, whereas he would do it to
right the wrong. Magnus marshaled his reasons and justified himself.
Here was a man so rich that he would not know to-morrow morning that he
had lost what was sufficient to make his dear ones happy. That man was
going to expose them to poverty and destitution. Surely it was right,
it was necessary, it was his duty to prevent him.
In the mad tangle of his disordered brain he saw everything that had
happened that day in a sinister light, and it seemed as if fate had
thrown the man into his hands. He might have gone to lodge at the
Parsonage--he had come there! He might have concealed the purpose of
his coming--he had revealed it! He might have said nothing of the
pocket-book--he had shown it with childlike simplicity! Surely this was
the way out of his difficulties which Destiny had marked out for him,
and not to take it would be to cover himself with self-reproaches when
his dear ones came down to want.
Having persuaded himself that he could not help but take as much of the
stranger's money as was necessary to pay the interest, he began to ask
why he should take so little. If the pocket-book in the man's
breast-pocket contained enough to pay the interest twenty times over,
why not take enough to buy the farm out and out? That would enable him
to leave to Elin the inheritance which he had lost through his brother's
extravagance and crime. This man was about to take it away from her--he
must not and he should not do so!
Stage by stage he pushed back the bulwarks of conscience until he came
to ask himself why he should not take all. His mind was clogged and
numb by this time, but he knew well what that meant. It meant taking
the stranger's life. There was at first an indescribable horror in the
thought of killing a human being, but after a moment it passed away.
This man alone stood between his dear ones and shelter--why shouldn't
he? This man threatened to take their lives by exposing them to
starvation--why shouldn't he take his life instead?
A momentary qualm came with the thought that he would be attacking one
who had trusted himself to the hospitality of his house, a defenseless
man in his sleep. But he thought of the stranger's heartless laughter,
his callousness to their condition, and recalled what he had said of his
mother, and pictured her sitting there surrounded by every comfort while
his own mother, born in that place, was turned out to perish, and then
his gorge rose again and his heart knew no pity.
He began to ask himself how it could be done. It could be done, quite
easily. Nobody except themselves had seen the man; nobody else would
ever know that he had been to their house. He could tell his mother and
Elin that the stranger had gone away in the early morning. They would
believe him, and even if they did not they would hold their tongues, for
his interest would be their interest, and all he would do would be done
for them.
A new and awful light illumined his gloomy mind, and he saw himself
doing everything. No other eye would see, no other ear would hear. It
was freezing hard to-night, and if it was found in the drowning pool
when the ice melted the story would be that the stranger had lost his
way in the snowstorm and stumbled over the rocks.
Having satisfied himself that he could defeat this world's judgment, the
tortured man in the toils of his temptation began to think of the
judgment of the next. But fear of that vanished in a moment. Nothing
was known in the other world of what took place in this one, and God
interfered but little in the affairs of men!
At the thought of God a singing noise came into his ears like water in
the ears of a drowning man. It was his conscience going down after its
last gasp, for he was telling himself that murder though it might be,
and contrary to God's law, God had done nothing for him, and therefore
he was not called upon to do anything for God. He had been a good man
all his life, yet God had left him in the lurch. God and the world were
letting his mother and Elin perish, therefore he must fight the
world--and God!
In the last convulsion of his human nature he remembered that once
before the impulse to kill had come to him, and that he had suffered the
tortures of the damned whenever afterward he had thought of it. But
that was different, that was in the whirlwind of outraged passion, and
if he had carried out his threat it would have been the worst of crimes,
the unpardonable sin, the sin against the Holy Ghost--a brother's
murder! A thousand times he had thanked God that Oscar had not lived to
come home, but how strange were the ways of fate--another man, another
heartless prodigal, had come there, and if his dear ones were to be
saved from starvation and the consequences of Oscar's crimes, he knew
what he had to do!
"Let prodigal pay for prodigal," he thought again, and then he leaped up
from the bed.
His brute nature, goaded on by the flattering devil of drink, had
conquered his conscience, yet his knees knocked together as he went on
tiptoe by his mother's room, and when he came to Elin's door he could
hardly breathe. Their pure souls were sleeping in the protecting
atmosphere of prayer; and when he asked himself what he was to say in
the morning if they wanted to know where he had got the money, his mind
was so clogged and numb that he could find no answer.
But this thought, with the vision that came after it of how his mother
and Elin would look at him with searching and suspicious glances--of how
when all would be over and he hoped to be at rest he would find them
sitting together in silence, staring at nothing--nearly broke down the
brute in him and his whole body was shaken by a kind of tearless sob.
Nevertheless the flash of human light on his dark heart only made the
blackness more profound, and after a moment he went on with his
preparations.
When he stepped on tiptoe into the hall, the two sheep-dogs who had been
sleeping on the mat by the door got up and stretched themselves and
yawned, and lest they should make a noise he took them out and locked
them up in a shed. After that he went over to the stable, which was at
some distance from the dwelling, and saddled and bridled the stranger's
mare, and then with a sharp cut of his whip he sent her galloping and
whinnying into the darkness. A breath of icy wind was coming down the
valley as if day were stirring in its morning sleep, and a faint pink
and white light in the eastern sky, with a glint on the western
glaciers, seemed to say that the dawn was near, but the drink was in
Magnus's eyes and he could not see clearly.
No snow had fallen since the traveler arrived, and returning to the
front of the farmstead Magnus made backward tracks from the porch to the
river, partly in order to obliterate the stranger's footsteps and partly
to conceal his own when he should come out again, carrying a heavy
burden. The man was gone by this time, and Magnus was like a night-bird
hovering about his own house and thinking of his prey.
When he returned to the hall there was no sound there except that of the
ashes slipping in the stove, and of the clock ticking in the darkness
the deliberate seconds. He took off his boots, leaving on his
snow-stockings only, and then he picked up a large cushion from the
arm-chair and stepped to the stranger's door and listened.
But heaven as well as hell is in the heart of every man, as long as life
is with him, and the tearless sob came back to Magnus and shook his
whole body, as he thought at the last moment of the awful pity of the
thing he had to do. Yet telling himself again that God did nothing in
this world, and saying once more, "Let prodigal pay for prodigal," he
turned the handle and opened the door.
Then he stepped softly into the guest-room and bolted the door behind
him.
*VII*
Anna, at that moment, had awakened from a frightening dream. On first
going to her room she had been troubled by the memory of what she had
done to awaken evil thoughts in Magnus, and visions had come to her of
how, if anything happened, Magnus might say, "You put it into my head,
mother." To banish her self-reproaches she had said a prayer for
forgiveness, telling God she had never once thought of theft or
violence, but only of Magnus and Elin and the inheritance they had lost
through her importunity, and how cruel it seemed that while other people
had so much more than they wanted, such hard times should come to her
dear children.
Then she had gone to bed, and the voice of the stranger, which had
teased her all the evening through with memories she could not fix,
haunted her again, and the light being out, and her eyes no longer
disturbed by sight of the stranger's different face, she knew whose
voice it reminded her of. It was a voice very dear to her, a voice
always near to her, Oscar's voice, which she was never to hear again.
When, with a thrill of the heart, this thought came to Anna, it altered
the stranger altogether. His laughter ceased to be cruel, and what he
had said of himself not being a good son became touching. And when she
thought of his poor mother waiting for her prodigal and so soon to see
him home again, and pictured her joy when he should say, "Mother,
mother! I'm here at last, and we shall never, never be parted again!"
her heart overflowed with sympathy, and she was sorry she had not been
kinder to him when he was going to bed.
Then she went to sleep and the dream spirit took her back to the good
time when she had two boys in her house, a dark one and a fair one, and
the father had punished the dark one unjustly, and his stern and gloomy
soul, with its sense of wrong, would not suffer him to explain, but the
fair one was sobbing out a confession--"It was not Magnus, it was me,
papa"--and a moment afterward two happy little heads were on the same
pillow side by side, and both were laughing merrily.
In the shifting kaleidoscope of her dream this picture had hardly gone
when Anna awoke with the clearest consciousness of Oscar's voice crying,
"Mother! Mother! Mother!" She thought it must have been the stranger
calling in his sleep, for the china ornaments on her dressing-table
seemed to ring, but when she listened there was no other sound.
Then the memory of Magnus's temptation came rolling back on her like a
thundercloud over a clear sky, and she got up to go to her son's room to
make sure that he was in bed.
Magnus had not been to bed!
With candle in hand, and still in her night-dress, Anna hurried to the
hall, crying in a whisper of only half-realized apprehension, "Magnus!
Magnus!"
There was no reply.
She listened at the stranger's door and thought she heard a movement
inside the room, but she dared not enter or knock.
"Magnus! Magnus!" she whispered again, but no answer came back to her.
She heard the neighing of a horse that seemed to be running round and
round the house and her flesh began to creep, for that sound in the
night was like the cry of a disembodied soul. Then there came the
deadened noise of dogs barking, and she knew they were their own dogs
and that they must have been shut up in an outhouse. This started a new
thought, and she ran to the outer door to see if it had been opened.
The door was unbolted!
She was about to open it and cry again when she heard a noise behind
her. It came from the stranger's room, and putting her ear to the door
she distinctly heard the sounds of sobs. Some one inside was sobbing.
She knew the low, stifled voice. It was Magnus. He was on his knees or
prostrate on the floor, and he was sobbing as if his heart would break.
At that Anna boldly tried to open the door, but found it fastened on the
inside.
"Magnus! Magnus!" she whispered, but he did not answer.
She was now sure that the awful thing she had thought of had come to
pass. Her suspense had deepened to fear, but pity and love conquered
every other feeling, and going down on her knees in her night-dress, she
whispered through the key-hole:
"Magnus! Magnus! Open the door. It is only mother! It was all my
fault, dear! Let me come in!"
But the smothered sobbing inside continued, and no other sound came back
to her. Then in the silence of all else she heard the sound of
sleigh-bells outside. At first she thought this must be a ringing in
her ears, but the bells grew louder and came nearer, and then the dogs
in the outhouse barked again.
Fear deepened to terror, the necessity for concealment flashed upon her,
and she knocked at the bedroom door and cried in the same affrighted
whisper:
"Magnus, there is some one coming. Wait till he has gone. Don't stir.
Don't come out. Only tell me you hear me."
The sobbing ceased, but Magnus did not speak. Meantime the sleigh-bells
came nearer and nearer, with the cracking of a whip, the whoop of a
driver, and the hiss of runners in the soft snow.
"Magnus! Magnus!" cried Anna loudly, in a last effort, but she was
stopped by the near shout of some one outside, "Helloa! helloa
there!"--and she rose to her feet with an intention of bolting the outer
door.
Before she could do so there was a metallic knock on the window-pane, a
voice crying, "God be with you!" and footsteps hurrying up the outer
steps. Then Anna turned about and fled back to her bedroom.
While she dressed she heard the outer door thrown open and the sound of
many persons trooping into the hall. They were very bright and happy,
for they laughed merrily and talked all together, and the house was full
of noise.
When she came out of the badstofa she met the postboy on his way to the
elt-house to boil water to give his ponies a hot drink, and on returning
to the hall she found the door and the shutters of the window open, the
daylight streaming in, and the postman himself there with several
passengers, including the Factor, who was muffled up to the eyes, and
Margret Neilsen, who was unrolling herself from the folds of a white
bearskin.
"Helloa!" cried everybody, and the postman said, "Here we are at last,
you see! We couldn't come yesterday by reason of the snowstorm, but the
Factor actually got me to start away as soon as it stopped at eleven
o'clock last night--eleven!"
"Well, we don't kill a pig every day, do we?" said the Factor, and while
the men laughed and winked, Margret Neilsen said:
"And how's Anna?"
Anna was speechless and ghastly white, so the Factor said, "We seem to
have startled her out of her senses, for she looks as if she had seen a
ghost. But where's Magnus?"
"Magnus? Oh--somewhere about," said Anna.
"And how's my precious Elin?" said Aunt Margret.
"She's not up yet," said Anna.
"Then I'll go and waken her. Which is her room--this one?" said Aunt
Margret, making for the guest-room.
"No, no," said Anna, intercepting her and standing with her back to the
guest-room door. "That one," and Aunt Margret went into Elin's bedroom.
"And now," said the Factor, with winks all round him, "what about the
other one?"
Anna looked at the Factor in mute terror.
"The new-comer, you know? Not stirring yet, I suppose?"
"New-comer?"
"Well, guest, friend, whatever you choose to call him."
"What friend?"
"Why, the friend who came last night, of course."
Anna, who had never lied in her life, wanted to lie now, but she could
not do so. "I don't understand you, Factor," she said faintly.
"Well!" said the Factor, and then, as if by an afterthought, "I thought
he wouldn't wish to startle you, having been so long away and supposed
to be dead. But don't you know yet who he is?"
Anna trembled and said, "Of whom are you speaking, Oscar Neilsen?"
"Of the tall fair man with the pointed beard who came to lodge at your
house last night."
Anna was now speechless with terror, and the company, misunderstanding
her silence, became suddenly very grave. "Can it be possible that he
lost his way in the snowstorm?" said one. "But he knew every inch of
the road, and could find his way blindfold," said another. "Such a
night, though," said a third. "He got as far as the House of Rest."
"But the boy there said he would never see the end of his journey."
"Well, this is serious," said the Factor. "The Minister wanted him to
stay at Government House over-night, but he seemed so anxious to see
you----"
"To see me!" said Anna.
"Naturally, after his long absence. Strange! very strange! But do you
mean to say that no traveler came here last night?"
A vague shadow of the Factor's meaning had flashed upon Anna's mind, and
the terror of a moment ago had deepened to horror. What had Magnus done
in the blindness of his passion and despair? But even then the desire
to save her son was above all other emotions, and she was about to deny
all knowledge of the traveler, when the door behind her was opened and a
voice over her shoulder said:
"Yes, a traveler did come here last night, but he went away again in the
early morning."
It was Magnus, and when Anna turned to look at him she drew a deep
breath of relief, for she knew he was telling the truth. His face,
since she saw it last, had undergone a mysterious and miraculous change.
The gloomy arrogance of despair had gone, something had carried light
into the darkness of his soul, and he looked like a man who had come as
from the immediate presence of his God.
"But this is stranger than ever," said the Factor. "It was known that
he had taken a large sum of money out of the Bank, and everybody
supposed he meant to buy up this place at the auction."
"Yes," said Aunt Margret, coming out of Elin's bedroom, "to give to his
old mother."
And then Elin's soft voice was heard to say, "Has the Sheriff come yet?"
"Who is asking for the Sheriff?" said the Sheriff himself, coming
forward at that moment.
"The gentleman gave me this pocket-book last night, and told me to
deliver it to you before the auction began this morning."
"It's not for me, though," said the Sheriff, who had taken the
pocket-book to the table and opened it, and was reading the writing on
the sheet of paper which fell out first, "'For Elin, Oscar's daughter,
from Christian Christiansson.'"
"A present for Elin, perhaps," said the Factor.
"A thousand-crown note!" cried the Sheriff.
The gaiety of the company was breaking into loud congratulations, when
the Sheriff, who was still opening the folds of the pocket-book, said,
"Wait! There's more than that--much more! One--two--three--fifty
thousand--another--and another--and"--then the rapid rustling of
bank-notes, followed by the delighted cry, "Two hundred thousand
crowns!"
"The very sum he took out of the bank!" said the Factor.
"Kiss me, my precious!" said Aunt Margret.
"Me, too, granddaughter," cried the Factor.
Anna looked stunned, and Magnus like one who wished the earth to swallow
him. But the Factor rattled along with shouts and laughter.
"Now I understand everything. He has given the money to the girl, but
left it to her friends and relations to advise her as to what she is to
do with it."
Elin's blue eyes being still full of bewilderment, the Factor kissed her
again and said, "Now who do you think has left you this great fortune,
little one?"
"Christian Christiansson," said the girl.
"Certainly! But don't you know who Christian Christiansson is? No?
You neither, Anna?"
Anna was trembling on the verge of discovery. "Who?" she said, but
rather with her lips than with her voice.
"Why, Oscar--your son Oscar, who isn't dead at all, and has come back
and made amends to everybody! I always knew there was good stuff in my
godson!"
The truth burst on Anna in a whirlwind of joy--joy that her son was
alive, joy that he had come home and justified her faith in him, joy,
too, though with a twinge of pain in it, that he had gone away again and
further trouble with Magnus was averted. A prayer gushed from her heart
and she wanted to go down on her knees.
"My son!" she said in a breathless whisper.
"My father!" said Elin, with a tenderness the word had never had for her
before.
The company were now cackling and crowing again, but the two women--the
old one and the young one--looked round for Magnus. He was standing at
the back, his strong face all broken up and melted. It was not at this
moment that the truth had first burst on him. That had come like a
blinding blow of light the instant he had entered the guest-room and
realized that God did something after all in this world for His
children.
"Mother--Elin!" he stammered, and he opened his arms to them.
"It's the miracle, isn't it?" said the girl.
It was the miracle indeed.
* * * * *
There was no auction in Thingvellir that day, and when the bells rang
for service the company went to church. The little wooden tabernacle
was full of worshippers, for it was New Year's Day, and the farmers had
ridden over with their families from all the country round about. They
sat, in their thick mufflers and snow-stockings and the mist of their
smoking breath, as far up the church as the square rail enclosing the
communion table, on stools about the octagonal pulpit and even among the
refuse, the lumber and potted-meat barrels that were stored in the
gallery.
The Factor was there, very loud in his responses, fixing up the figures
on the tin plate which announced the hymns; Elin, too, with the wonder
not yet gone from her innocent blue eyes; Anna with her tempered
happiness and a heart overflowing with thanksgiving, and (most strange
of all) Magnus himself, a changed and humbled man.
Everybody looked at Magnus, in surprise at seeing him there, but Magnus
looked at no one. While the Pastor read the lesson ("All we like sheep
have gone astray"), while he gave out his text ("This day shalt thou be
with Me in Paradise"), while he preached his homely sermon on the
conversion of the dying thief on the cross, showing the shortness of
time, the power of redemption, and the certainty of death's sundering,
and even while the deacon chanted the anthem ("Weeping may endure for a
night, but joy cometh in the morning"), and the congregation sang the
closing hymn, and Elin's silvery young voice ringing up to the round
ceiling reminded him of her mother's, Magnus sat with his face toward
the picture on the wall above the communion-table.
It was a picture of Christ in white robes and among warm eastern
foliage, healing the blind man by the wayside, and while he looked at it
a great softening of the heart came to him, for he thought of the
blessed but awful moment, only just passed, when the scales fell from
his own eyes, and his naked soul stood face to face with its Maker.
That was the moment when, with murder in his mind and a spirit of war
with God, he had entered the stranger's bedroom and bolted the door
behind him, and then found that his victim had been snatched out of his
hands and heard a fearful voice which seemed to say, "Stop! or the voice
of thy brother's blood will cry unto Me from the ground!"
When the service was over there was much handshaking and well-wishing
outside the porch, for rumor of what had happened in Anna's household
had passed from mouth to mouth, but Magnus took his old mother on his
arm and walked home with her alone, except for Elin, who tripped through
the crisp snow by their side, humming a little of the last hymn.
The young people were racing the ponies to and fro in their joy of the
first snow; the old ones were gossiping in groups on the exciting news
of the day; and the Factor, who was swinging along in his plaid-shawl,
with a contented expression, like an old cow going home in the evening
with her udder full, was saluting everybody, and inviting all and sundry
to the Inn-farm, for a cup of coffee.
It was more than a cup of coffee he had had prepared for them, for
assuming command while Magnus seemed paralyzed by surprise, he had
ordered a lamb to be killed, and Aunt Margret remained behind to roast
it.
The dinner was a large and long one, for everybody was welcome to it,
and before it came to an end the Factor rose to propose a toast.
"Every snow-cowl has an end," he said, "and I am happy to inform you all
that the cloud that has hung so long over the Inn-farm, over Anna
Magnusson's family and over my family, is now gone for good. 'Show the
man and not the table,' says one of our Sagas, but in this case we have
had to show you the table and not the man. He will be on his way to
Reykjavik by this time, I suppose, and, if prophecy is the wise man's
guess, I guess he will get such a rousing welcome there as no man ever
had in this old island before.
"Brothers and sisters, I give you a health--Anna's long-lost son, _our_
long-lost son, Iceland's long-lost son--Oscar Stephen-son!"
The toast was received with shouts and the jingling of glasses, but Anna
did not drink, and Magnus dropped his head.
*VIII*
On the east of the plain and the lake of Thingvellir there is a pass
going over the mountain of Hengel to the little trading station of
Eyrarbakki. It winds through a number of geysers and mineral springs
which seem to be always smoking against the bare side of the fell. They
are little pools of simmering water in the crusted yellow earth, some of
them, white and sparkling as a star, some round and deep-blue as a
woman's eye, some oval and blood-red, like the living heart of some
monstrous animal.
You walk warily on the path between, for the earth is hot and thin under
his feet, and sometimes it throbs like the lid of a boiling kettle, and
sometimes there is a smothered roar beneath you as of mighty battles in
the bowels of the earth, and then the pools begin to boil and send up
spouts of foaming water and tongues of liquid flame, and the air is full
of sulphurous vapor.
An awful, evil, and devilish place, looking like a cauldron over a
circle of hellish fire. But higher up the pass the snow lies white and
calm and crisp, and higher still are the glistening glaciers, and there,
while the mountain quakes in its volcanic throes, the avalanche comes
down in winter so suddenly that no man can hear or see it, for it is
loud as the crack of doom and swift as the shaft of death.
At daybreak that day Christian Christiansson was crossing this pass on
his way to Eyrarbakki, intending to take ship to Norway. Although it
was only two hours since he had pushed open the guest-room window and
left the Inn-farm, he was already a stronger and braver man. Then he
had thought of nothing but ending everything, and the shadow of
self-destruction had floated before him, but now he saw clearly that
until God ordained he should die it was his duty to live. As he had
sinned so he should suffer. He must pay his penalty to its last pang,
its uttermost moment. His penalty was to live on without the love he
had forfeited, the happiness he had lost the right to claim. It was
hard, but it was just, and he must face the end without flinching.
Welcome life, then, as long as it lasted! Welcome death when it was
due!
After he had passed through the heat and smoke and come out on the clear
heights beyond he paused to look back. The world around was all white
and stark under the snow of last night's storm, but a crimson shaft from
the sun which had not yet risen was crossing the topmost peaks, and the
lowlands were still sleeping in a veil of mist. He thought he could
hear the ringing of the church bell, and that sweet human sound came
winging its way up to him through the vapor of the sulphur-pits as the
singing of a star might rise through the clouds of the world to the ears
of the souls in heaven.
Presently the sun strode up and the mist fell back, and then he saw in
the valley far below the little church itself and the home he had left
behind him. He had left happiness there, and love, and warm comfort,
for that was his reparation to the dear ones he had injured, and now for
his atonement to God he was going out alone, stripped of everything and
unknown to any one.
It was as much as he could bear to think of that, but he smiled to
himself sadly while he pictured the surprise and joy of the happy scene
when the girl would come out with the pocket-book and the auction would
be stopped. He thought, too, of his mother in church, with a soul full
of gratitude, and saw Elin with a ray of sunlight from the lead-lighted
window on the heart-breaking sweetness of her smile. It was not thus
that he had expected to leave them when for ten years he had worked by
the sweat of body and spirit that he might come back and be forgiven.
But it was not in this world that the prodigal could be taken back; not
here that any earthly father could run to meet him and throw his arms
about his neck. What he had sown he must reap, and not all his
penitence and tears could undo what he had done.
It was long before he could take his last look at the home he was
leaving forever, and when at length he drew a deep breath and went on,
he had to comfort himself with the thought that Thora would be pleased
with him for giving up their child to Magnus. Her voice from the other
world seemed to come to him and say, "Well done! Poor, brave, wounded
heart, God's angels rejoice over you!" But it was hard to find solace
in heavenly cheer while his blood ran warm and yearned for human
company.
Before he was aware of it he was at the foot of the glaciers, those
great lone homes of Nature never trodden by the foot of man or animal,
where no bird sings and no flower grows, where only the wind moans over
motionless billows of ice and the sun rises in a blank barrenness on
chasms of the frozen deep. Looking back from this place he could see
nothing of the valley and the houses of men, or of anything but a wide
circle of mountain peaks, all silent and white, in which he was the only
living thing. And then the feeling of being cut off from the rest of
humanity amid these grand but grim surroundings elevated his senses and
affected him like music, like composing, with a sort of ecstacy which
was part rapture and partly pain.
In this ecstasy of emotion he asked himself if his life had been wasted,
if happiness was gone from him even if, because he had sinned, there was
nothing before him now but renunciation and suffering. And then the
teaching of his childhood came back to him with a new and sublime
significance, and he saw for the first time the lesson of life and the
meaning of death. The lesson of life was Duty--to do right without
expectation of reward or fear of punishment; and the meaning of death
was to bring to the sinful, penitent soul the pardon the world can not
give.
Then thank God for life, but thank God for death also! Whatever a man's
sin, Nature could not forget it, and the laws of life could not forgive,
but the mercy of God was without measure of guilt, and the gates of
heaven were wide!
God veiled His face from His creatures, and to man's questioning eyes
the infinite wisdom was as blank as these white walls of ice and snow,
but two thousand years ago a simple Galilean had read this riddle of
life as no man before or since has read it. He had read it for all men,
good or bad, but most of all for wayworn sinners like himself, for whom
the world has no pity, and no forgiveness. And though he was the
guiltiest of the guilty, and his sin had found him out, and as the price
of his repentance he had had to give up everything in life that he held
most dear--the love of his child and the hope of pardon and
reconciliation--yet love and pardon and reconciliation were waiting for
him still when God's own voice should call him, and "this mortal should
put on immortality."
By this time he was in that mood in which a man of his temperament finds
it difficult to distinguish the real from the imaginary, in which he
hears the sounds of Nature and mistakes them for voices from the other
world. He had wandered without knowing it from the path of the pass,
which was marked by stones standing upright out of the snow, when the
volcanic fire in the womb of the mountain began to shake it with mighty
throbs, and then suddenly the awful stillness was broken by a crash and
a resounding rumble as of echoing thunder coming down from the
snow-capped heights.
Oscar Stephenson did not see or hear or feel anything. He was only
conscious of a burst of heavenly music, of a sense of ten thousand
angels singing an anthem, a triumphant paean of praise that grew louder
and louder every moment; a sense of blinding light, and of traveling at
a terrific velocity into the realms of the sun; a sense of the Day of
Judgment, of the life of the world being over, its busy throngs gone,
its pageants finished, its honors, distinctions, castes, gold, wealth,
and fame passed into nothingness; a sense of being outside the great
Judgment Hall with an infinite multitude of kings and beggars, good men
and bad, the guilty and the innocent, and of kneeling there among the
meanest and most ashamed; a sense of a spirit stooping to him and taking
his hand and saying, "Come," of looking up into her face, and seeing it
was Thora, and of his breath coming so fast and short that he could
scarcely breathe; a sense of stumbling along with his head down and the
spirit leading him forward and singing as they ascended; a sense of an
overwhelming Presence somewhere in front of him, of the music dying down
and becoming fainter and fainter, and then of an awful hush and of a
blessed Voice which said:
"FOR THIS MY SON WAS DEAD AND IS ALIVE AGAIN, WAS LOST AND IS FOUND."
* * * * *
A moment afterward there was no one on Hengel mountain, the great lone
home of Nature was calm and white and silent.
THE END