neighbour's farm had come in to breakfast, Rolf was snug in bed, with a
large pitcher of whey by the bedside, to quench his still insatiable
thirst. No one but the neighbours knew of his being there; and he got
away unseen in the afternoon, rested, shaven, and dressed, so as to
look more like himself, though still haggard. Packing his old clothes
into a bundle, which he carried with a stick over his shoulder, and
laden with nothing else but a few rye-cakes and a flask of the
everlasting corn-brandy, he set forth, thanking his hosts very heartily
for their care, and somewhat mysteriously assuring them that they would
hear something soon, and that meantime they had better not have to be
sought far from home.
As he expected, he met no one whom he knew. Nine-tenths of the
neighbours were far away on the seaters; and of the small remainder,
almost all were attending the bishop on the opposite shore of the lake.
Rolf shook his head at every deserted farmhouse that he passed,
thinking how the pirates might ransack the dwellings if they should
happen to discover that few inhabitants remained in them but those
whose limbs were too old to climb the mountain. He shook his head
again when he thought what consternation he might spread through these
dwellings by dropping at the doors the news of how near the pirate
schooner lay. It seemed to be out of the people's minds now, because
it was out of sight, and the bishop had become visible instead. As for
the security which some talked of from there being so little worth
taking in the Nordland farmhouses--this might be true if only one house
was to be attacked, and that one defended; but half-a-dozen ruffians,
coming ashore to search eight or ten undefended houses in a day, might
gather enough booty to pay them for their trouble. Of money they would
find little or none; but in some families there were gold chains,
crosses, and earrings, which had come down from a remote generation; or
silver goblets and tankards. There were goats worth carrying away for
their milk, and spirited horses and their harness to sell at a
distance. There were stores of the finest bed and table linen in the
world, sacks of flour, cellars full of ale, kegs of brandy, and a mass
of tobacco in every house. Fervently did Rolf wish, as he passed by
these comfortable dwellings, that the enemy would cast no eye or
thought upon their comforts till he should have given such information
in the proper quarters as should deprive them of the power of doing
mischief in this neighbourhood.
The breeze blew in his face, refreshing him with its coolness, and with
the fragrance of the birch, with which it was loaded. But it brought
something else--a transient sound which surprised Rolf--voices of men,
who seemed, if he could judge from so rapid a hint, to be talking
angrily. He began to consider whom, besides Oddo, Elringsen could have
thought it safe or necessary to bring with him, or whether it was
somebody met with by chance. At all events, it would be wisest not to
show himself, and to approach with all possible caution. Cautiously,
therefore, he drew near, keeping a vigilant watch all around, and ready
to pop down into the grass on any alarm. Being unable to see anyone
near the tarn, he was convinced the talkers must be seated under the
crags on its margin; and he therefore made a circuit to get behind the
rocks, and then climbed a huge fragment, which seemed to have been
toppled down from some steep, and to have rolled to the brink of the
water. Two stunted pines grew out from the summit of this crag; and
between these pines Rolf placed himself, and looked down from thence.
Two men sat on the ground in the shadow of the rock. One was Hund, and
the other must undoubtedly be one of the pirate crew. His dress, arms,
and broken language all showed him to be so; and it was, in fact, the
same man that Erica had met near the same place, though that she had
had such an adventure was the last thing her lover dreamed of as he
surveyed the man's figure from above.
This man appeared surly. Hund was extremely agitated.
"It is very hard," said he, "when all I want is to do no harm to
anybody--neither to my old friends nor my new acquaintances--that I
cannot be let alone. I have done too much mischief in my life already.
The demons have made sport of me. It is their sport that I have as
many lives to answer for as any man of twice my age in Nordland; and
now that I would be harmless for the rest of my days----"
"Don't trouble yourself to talk about your days," interrupted the
pirate, "they will be too few to be worth speaking of, if you do not
put yourself under our orders again. You are a deserter--and as a
deserter you go back with me, unless you choose to go as a comrade."
"And what might I expect that your orders would be, if I went with you?"
"You know very well that we want you for a guide. That is all you are
worth. In a fight, you would only be in the way--unless indeed you
could contrive to get out of the way."
"Then you would not expect me to fight against my master and his
people?"
"Nobody was ever so foolish as to expect you to fight, more or less, I
should think. No, your business would be to pilot us to Erlingsen's,
and answer truly all our questions about their ways and doings."
"Surprise them in their sleep!" muttered Hund. "Wake them up with the
light of their own burning roofs! And they would know me by that
light! They would point me out to the bishop;--they would find time in
their hurry to mark me for the monster they might well think me!"
"Yes; you would be in the front, of course," observed the pirate. "But
there is one comfort for you--if you are so earnest to see the bishop,
as you told me you were, my plan is the best. When once we lock him
down on board our schooner, you can have him all to yourself. You can
confess your sins to him the whole day long; for nobody else will want
a word with either of you. You can show him your enchanted island,
down in the fiord, and see if he can lay the ghost for you."
[Illustration: In desperation Hund, unarmed as he was, threw himself
upon the pirate.]
Hund sprang to his feet in an agony of passion. The well-armed pirate
was up as soon as he. Rolf drew back two paces, to be out of sight, if
by chance they should look up, and armed himself with a heavy stone.
He heard the pirate say--
"You can try to run away, if you like; I shall shoot you through the
head before you have gone five yards. And you may refuse to return
with me; and then I shall know how to report of you to my captain. I
shall tell him that you are lying at the bottom of this lake--if it has
a bottom--with a stone tied round your neck, like a drowned wild cat.
I hope you may chance to find your enemy there, to make the place the
pleasanter."
Rolf could not resist the impulse to send his heavy stone into the
middle of the tarn, to see the effect upon the men below. He gave a
good cast, on the very instant; and prodigious was the splash, as the
stone hit the water, precisely in the middle of the little lake. The
men did not see the cause of the commotion that followed; but, staring
and turning at the splash, they saw the rings spreading in the dark
waters which had lain as still as the heavens but a moment before. How
could two guilty, superstitious men doubt that the waters were thrown
into agitation by the pirate's last words? Yet they glanced fearfully
round the whole landscape, far and near. They saw no living thing but
a hawk which, startled from its perch on a scathed pine was wheeling
round in the air in an unsteady flight. The pirate pointed to the bird
with one hand, while he laid the other on the pistol in his belt.
"Yes," said Hund, trembling, "the bird saw it. Did you see it?"
"See what?"
"The water-sprite, Uldra. Before you throw me in to the water-sprite,
we will see which is the strongest."
And in desperation Hund, unarmed as he was, threw himself upon the
pirate, sprang at his throat, and both wrestled with all their force.
Rolf could not but look; and he saw that the pirate had drawn forth his
pistol, and that all would be over with Hund in a moment if he did not
interfere. He stood forward between the two pine stems, on the ridge
of the rock, and uttered very loud the mournful cry which had so
terrified his enemies at Vogel islet. The combatants flew asunder, as
if parted by a flash of lightning. Both looked up to the point whence
the sound had come; and there they saw what they supposed to be Rolf's
spectre, pointing at them, and the eyes staring as when looking up from
the waters of the fiord. How could these guilty and superstitious men
doubt that it was Rolf's spectre, which, rising through the centre of
the tarn, had caused the late commotion in its waters? Away they
fled--at first in different directions; but it amused Rolf to observe
that rather than be alone, Hund turned to follow the track of the
tyrant, who had just been threatening and insulting him, and driving
him to struggle for his life.
"Ay," thought Rolf, "it is his conscience that makes me so much more
terrible to him than that ruffian. I never hurt a hair of his head;
and yet, through his conscience, my face is worse than the blasting
lightning to his eyes. Heigh-ho! Where is Erlingsen? It is nothing
short of cruel to keep me waiting to-day, of all days; and in this
spot, of all places--almost within sight of the seater where my poor
Erica sits pining, and seeing nothing of the pastures, but only, with
her minds' eye, the sea-caves where she thinks these limbs are
stretched, cold and helpless, as in a grave. A pretty story I shall
have to tell her, if she will only believe it, of another sort of
sea-cave."
To pass the time he took out the shells he had collected for Erica, and
admired them afresh, and planned where she would place them, so as best
to adorn their sitting-room, when they were married. Erlingsen arrived
before he had been thus engaged five minutes; and indeed before he had
been more than a quarter of an hour altogether at the place of meeting.
"My dear master!" exclaimed Rolf, on seeing him coming, "have pity on
Erica and me, and hear what I have to tell you, that I may be gone."
"You shall be gone at once, my good fellow! I will walk with you, and
you shall tell your story as we go."
Rolf shook his head, and objected that he could not, in conscience,
take Erlingsen a step further from home than was necessary, as he was
only too much wanted there.
"Is that Oddo yonder?" he asked. "He said you would bring him."
"Yes; he has grown trustworthy of late. We have had fewer heads and
hands among us than the times require since Peder grew old and blind,
and you were missing, and Hund had to be watched instead of trusted.
So we have been obliged to make a man of Oddo, though he has the years
of a boy, and the curiosity of a woman. I brought him now, thinking
that a messenger might be wanted to raise the country against the
pirates; and I believe Oddo, in his present mood, will be as sure as we
know he can be swift."
"It is well we have a messenger. Where is the bishop?"
"Just going to his boat, at this moment, I doubt not," replied
Erlingsen, measuring with his eye the length of the shadows. "The
bishop is to sup with us this evening."
"And how long to stay?"
"Over to-morrow night, at the least. If many of the neighbours should
bring their business to him, it may be longer. My little Frolich will
be vexed that he should come while she is absent. Indeed I should not
much wonder if she sets out homeward when she hears the news you will
carry, so that we shall see her at breakfast."
"It is more likely," observed Rolf, "that we shall see the bishop up
the mountain at breakfast. Ah! you stare; but you will find I am not
out of my wits when you hear what has come to my knowledge since we
parted, and especially within this hour."
Erlingsen was indeed presently convinced that it was the intention of
the pirates to carry off the Bishop of Tronyem, in order that his
ransom might make up to them for the poverty of the coasts. He heard
besides such an ample detail of the plundering practices which Rolf had
witnessed from his retreat as convinced him that the strangers, though
in great force, must be prevented by a vigorous effort from doing
further mischief. The first thing to be done was to place the bishop
in safety on the mountain; and the next was so to raise the country as
that these pirates should be certainly taken when they should come
within reach.
Oddo was called, and entrusted with the information which had to be
conveyed to the magistrate at Saltdalen. He carried his master's
tobacco-pouch as a token--this pouch, of Lapland make, being well known
to the magistrate as Erlingsen's. Oddo was to tell him of the danger
of the bishop, and to request him to send to the spot whatever force
could be mustered at Saltdalen; and moreover to issue the budstick,[5]
to raise the country. The pirates having once entered the upper reach
of the fiord, might thus be prevented from ever going back again, and
from annoying any more the neighbourhood which they had so long
infested.
[5] When it is desired to send a summons or other message over a
district in Norway where the dwellings are scattered, the budstick is
sent round by running messengers. It is a stick made hollow, to hold
the magistrate's order, and a screw at one end to secure the paper in
its place. Each messenger runs a certain distance, and then delivers
it to another, who must carry it forward. If any one is absent, the
budstick must be laid upon the "housefather's great chair, by the
fireside;" and if the house is locked, it must be fastened outside the
door, so as to be seen as soon as the host returns. Upon great
occasions, it was formerly found that a whole region could be raised in
a very short time. The method is still in use for appointments on
public business.
Erlingsen promised to be wary on his return homewards, so as not to
fall in with the two whom Rolf had put to flight. He said, however,
that if by chance he should cross their path, he did not doubt he could
also make them run, by acting the ghost or demon, though he had not had
Rolf's advantage of disappearing in the fiord before their eyes. They
were already terrified enough to fly from anything that called itself a
ghost.
The three then went on their several ways--Oddo speeding over the
ridges like a sprite on a night errand, and Rolf striding up the grassy
slopes like (what he was) a lover anxious to be beside his betrothed
after a perilous absence.
This was the day when the first cheese of the season was found to be
perfect and complete. Frolich, Stiorna, and Erica examined it
carefully, and pronounced it a well-pressed, excellent Gammel cheese,
such as they should not be ashamed to set before the bishop, and
therefore one which ought to satisfy the demon. It now only remained
to carry it to its destination--to the ridge where the first cheese of
the season was always laid for the demon, and where, it appeared, he
regularly came for his offering, as no vestige of the gift was ever to
be found the next morning--only the round place in the grass where it
had lain, and the marks of some feet which had trodden the herbage.
"Help me up with it upon my head, Stiorna," said Erica.
"I know why you will not let me carry the cheese," said Frolich,
smiling. "You are thinking of Oddo with the cake and ale. Nobody but
you must deposit offerings henceforward. You are afraid I should eat
up that cheese, almost as heavy as myself. You think there would not
be a paring left for the demon by the time I got to the ridge."
"Not so," replied Erica. "I think that he to whom this cheese is
destined had rather be served by one who does not laugh at him. And it
is a safer plan for you, Frolich."
And off went Erica with her cheese.
The ridge on which she laid it would have tempted her at any other time
to sit down. It was green and soft with mosses, and offered as
comfortable a couch to one tired with the labours of the day as any to
be found at the farm. But to-night it was to be haunted; so Erica
merely stayed to do her duty. She selected the softest tuft of moss on
which to lay the cheese, put her offering reverently down, and then
diligently gathered the brightest blossoms from the herbage around, and
strewed them over the cheese. She then walked rapidly homewards,
without once looking behind her. If she had had the curiosity and
courage to watch for a little while, she would have seen her offering
carried off by an odd little figure, with nothing very terrible in its
appearance--namely, a woman about four feet high, with a flat face, and
eyes wide apart, wearing a reindeer garment like a waggoner's frock, a
red comforter about her neck, a red cloth cap on her head, a blue
worsted sash, and leather boots up to the knee--in short, such a
Lapland girl as Erica would have given a rye-cake to as charity, but
would not have thought of asking to sit down even in her master's
kitchen; for the Norwegian servants are very high and saucy towards the
Laps who wander to their doors. It is not surprising that the Lapps,
who pitch their tents on the mountain, should like having a fine Gammel
cheese for the trouble of picking it up; and the company whose tents
Erica had passed on her way up to the seater, kept a good look-out upon
all the dairy people round, and carried off every cheese meant for the
demon. While Erica was gathering and strewing the blossoms, this girl
was hidden near; and trusting to Erica's not looking behind her, the
rogue swept off the blossoms, and threw them at her before she had gone
ten yards, trundled the cheese down the other side of the ridge, made a
circuit, and was at the tents with her prize before supper-time. What
would Erica have thought if she had beheld this fruit of so many
milkings and skimmings, so much boiling and pressing, devoured by
greedy Lapps in their dirty tent?
On her way homewards Erica remembered that this was Midsummer Eve--a
season when her mother was in her thoughts more than at any other time;
for Midsummer Eve is sacred in Norway to the wood-demon, whose victim
she believed her mother to have been. Every woodman sticks his axe
into a tree that night, that the demon may, if he pleases, begin the
work of the year by felling trees or making a faggot. Erica hastened
to the seater, to discover whether Erlingsen had left his axe behind,
and whether Jan had one with him.
Jan had an axe, and remembering his duty, though tired and sleepy, was
just going to the nearest pine-grove with it when Erica reached home.
She seized Erlingsen's axe and went also, and stuck it in a tree, just
within the verge of the grove, which was in that part a thicket, from
the growth of underwood. This thicket was so near the back of the
dairy that the two were home in five minutes. Yet they found Frolich
almost as impatient as if they had been gone an hour. She asked
whether their heathen worship was done at last, so that all might go to
bed; or whether they were to be kept awake till midnight by more
mummery?
Erica replied by showing that Jan was already gone to his loft over the
shed, and begging leave to comb and curl Frolich's hair, and see her to
rest at once. Stiorna was asleep; and Erica herself meant to watch the
cattle this night. They lay crouched in the grass, all near each
other, and within view, in the mild slanting sunshine; and here she
intended to sit, on the bench outside the home-shed, and keep her eye
on them till morning.
"You are thinking of the Bishop of Tronyem's cattle," said Frolich.
"I am, dear. This is Midsummer Eve, you know, when, as we think, all
the spirits love to be abroad."
"You will die before your time, Erica," said the weary girl. "These
spirits give you no rest of body or mind. What a day's work we have
done! And now you are going to watch till twelve, one, two o'clock! I
could not keep awake," she said, yawning, "if there was one demon at
the head of the bed, and another at the foot, and the underground
people running like mice all over the floor."
"Then go and sleep, dear. I will fetch your comb, if you will just
keep an eye on the cattle for the moment I am gone."
As Erica combed Frolich's long fair hair, and admired its shine in the
sunlight, and twisted it up behind, and curled it on each side, the
weary girl leaned her head against her, and dropped asleep. When all
was done, she just opened her eyes to find her way to bed, and say--
"You may as well go to bed comfortably; for you will certainly drop
asleep here, if you don't there."
"Not with my pretty Spiel in sight. I would not lose my white heifer
for seven nights' sleep. You will thank me when you find your cow, and
all the rest, safe in the morning. Good-night, dear."
And Erica closed the door after her young mistress, and sat down on the
bench outside, with her face towards the sun, her lure by her side, and
her knitting in her hands. She was glad that the herd lay so that by
keeping her eye on them she could watch that wonder of Midsummer night
within the Arctic Circle, the dipping of the sun below the horizon, to
appear again immediately. She had never been far enough to the north
to see the sun complete its circle without disappearing at all; but she
did not wish it. She thought the softening of the light which she was
about to witness, and the speedy renewing of day, more wonderful and
beautiful.
She sat, soothed by her employment and by the tranquillity of the
scene, and free from fear. She had done her duty by the spirits of the
mountain and the wood; and in case of the appearance of any object that
she did not like, she could slip into the house in an instant. Her
thoughts were therefore wholly Rolf's. She could endure now to
contemplate a long life spent in doing honour to his memory by the
industrious discharge of duty. She would watch over Peder, and receive
his last breath--an office which should have been Rolf's. She would
see another houseman arrive, and take possession of that house, and
become betrothed, and marry; and no one, not even her watchful mistress
should see a trace of repining in her countenance, or hear a tone of
bitterness from her lips. However weary her heart might be, she would
dance at every wedding--of fellow-servant or of young mistress. She
would cloud nobody's happiness, but would do all she could to make
Rolf's memory pleasant to those who had known him, and wished him well.
Her eyes rested on the lovely scene before her. From the elevation at
which she was, it appeared as if the ocean swelled up into the very
sky, so high was the horizon line; and between lay a vast region of
rock and river, hill and dale, forest, fiord, and town, part in golden
sunlight, part in deep shadow, but all, though bright as the skies
could make it, silent as became the hour. As Erica found that she
could glance at the sun itself without losing sight of the cattle,
which still lay within her indirect vision, she carefully watched the
descent of the orb, anxious to observe precisely when it should
disappear, and how soon its golden spark would kindle up again from the
waves. When its lower rim was just touching the waters, its circle
seemed to be of an enormous size, and its whole mass to be flaming.
Its appearance was very unlike that of the comparatively small,
compact, brilliant luminary which rides the sky at noon. Erica was
just thinking so, when a rustle in the thicket, within the pine grove,
made her involuntarily turn her head in that direction. Instantly
remembering that it was a common device of the underground people for
one of them to make the watcher look away, in order that others might
drive off the cattle, she resumed her duty, and gazed steadfastly at
the herd. They were safe--neither reduced to the size of mice, nor
wandering off, though she had let her eye glance away from them.
The sky, however, did not look itself. There were two suns in it. Now
Erica really did quite forget the herd for some time, even her dear
white heifer--while she stared bewildered at the spectacle before her
eyes. There was one sun, the sun she had always known--half sunk in
the sea, while above it hung another, round and complete, somewhat less
bright perhaps, but as distinct and plain before her eyes as any object
in heaven or earth had ever been. Her work dropped from her hands, as
she covered her eyes for a moment. She started to her feet, and then
looked again. It was still there, though the lower sun was almost
gone. As she stood gazing, she once more heard the rustle in the wood.
Though it crossed her mind that the wood-demon was doubtless there
making choice of his axe and his tree, she could not move, and had not
even a wish to take refuge in the house, so wonderful was his
spectacle--the clearest instance of enchantment she had ever seen. Was
it meant for good--a token that the coming year was to be a doubly
bright one? If not, how was she to understand it?