So they rowed across the lake, he remembering nothing except the joy of
being with her, and she trying to forget that any discord of unrest had
broken in upon the harmonies of her heart. They landed on swampy ground,
and made their way over rare beautiful mosses, ling, and low growth of
bilberry and cloudberry. Ejnar and Gerda became lost to all human
emotions, and gave themselves up to the joys of their profession. Long
after all the rest of the little company had met on the rocky main road
to the Saeters, the two botanists lingered in that fairyland swamp. At
last Jens and Alan were sent back to find them, and in due time they
reappeared, with a rapt expression on their faces and many treasures in
their wallets. The country grew wilder and grimmer as the pilgrims
mounted higher. The road, or track, was very rough, scarcely fit for a
cariole or stol-kjaerre, and the Swedish mathematical Professor felt
anxiously concerned about the comfort and safety of the little Swedish
artist, who was a bad walker, and who therefore preferred to jolt along
in the gig. But she did not mind. She laughed at his fears, and
whispered to Katharine with her pretty English accent:
"My lover is afraid for my safeness!"
And Katharine laughed and whispered back:
"I hope you are having a really good flirtation with him."
"Ja, ja," she answered softly, "like the English boy says 'reeping
good!'"
Grimmer and wilder still grew the mountainous country. They had now
passed the region of the dwarf-birch and willow-bushes, and had come to
what is called the "lichen zone," where the reindeer-moss predominates,
and where the bushes are either creeping specimens, growing in tussocks,
or else hiding their branches among the lichens so that only the leaves
show above them. It seemed almost impossible to believe that here, on
these more or less barren mountain-plateaus, good grazing could be found
for the cattle during the summer months. Yet it was true enough that in
this particular district the cows and goats of about fifty Saeters found
their summer maintenance, about fifty of the great Gaards down in the
side valleys of the Gudbrandsdal owning, since time immemorial, portions
of the mountain grazing-land. The Sollis' Saeter was not in this region.
It was fifty miles distant from the Solli Gaard, and, as Jens told the
pilgrims, took two whole days to reach, over a much rougher country than
that which they had just traversed.
"This is nothing," said Jens smiling grimly, when the Swedish lady was
nearly thrown out of the gig on to Svarten's back. "We call this a good
road; and it goes right up to the first Saeter. Then you can drive no
more. Now you see the smoke rising from the huts. We are there now."
Jens, usually so reserved and silent, was quite animated. The
mountain-air, and the feeling of being in the wild, free life he loved
so much, excited him. He was transformed from a quiet, rather surly lad
into an inspired human being fitted to his own natural environment.
Gerda, looking at him, thought immediately of Björnson's Arne.
"You love the mountains, Jens?" she said to him.
"Yes," he answered simply. "I am always happy up at the Saeter. One has
thoughts."
They halted outside the first Saeter, and turned to look at the
beautiful scene. They were in the midst of low mountains. In the
distance, across the lake, they could see the snow-peaks of the great
Jutenheim range--the home of the giants. Around them rose strange weird
mountain forms, each one suggestive of wayward and grim fancy. And over
to the right, towering above a group of castle-mountains, peopled with
strange phantoms born of the loneliness and the imagination, they saw
the glistening peaks of the Rondane caught by the glow of the sun
setting somewhere--not there. And below them was another mountain-lake,
near which nestled two or three Saeters apart from the rest, and in
which they could see the reflection of the great grey-blue clouds edged
with gold. And above them passed in tumultuous procession the wonders of
a Norwegian mountain evening sky of summer-time: clouds of delicate
fabric, clouds of heavy texture: calm fairy visions, changing
imperceptibly to wild and angry spectacle: sudden pictures of fierce and
passionate joy, and lingering impressions of deepest melancholy,--all of
it faithfully typical of the strange Norwegian temperament.
"One must have come up to the mountains," whispered Clifford to
Katharine, "to understand anything at all of the Norwegian mind. This is
the Norwegians, and the Norwegians are this."
And the grim old Sorenskriver, standing on the other side of Katharine,
said in his half-gruff, half-friendly way:
"Fröken, you see a wild and uncompromising Nature, without the gentler
graces. It is ourselves."
"And again I say, with nothing petty in it," said Katharine, spreading
out her arms. "On a big scale--vast and big--the graces lost in the
greatness."
"Look," said Jens, "the goats and cows are beginning to come back to the
Saeters. They have heard the call. You will see them come from all
directions, slowly and in their own time."
Slowly and solemnly they came over the fields, a straggling company,
each contingent led by a determined leading lady, who wore a massive
collar and bell. She looked behind now and again to see if her crowd of
supernumeraries were following her at sufficiently respectful distances,
and then she bellowed, and waited outside her own Saeter. The saeter
pilgrims stood a long time looking at this characteristic Norwegian
scene: the wild heath in front of them was literally dotted with far-off
specks, which gradually resolved themselves into cows or goats strolling
home in true Norwegian fashion--_largissimo lentissimo_! Even as stars
reveal themselves in the sky, and ships on the sea, if one stares long
and steadily, so these cows and goats revealed themselves in that great
wild expanse. And just when there seemed to be no more distant objects
visible, suddenly something would appear on the top of a hillock, and
Jens would cry with satisfaction:
"See, there is another one!" He looked on as eagerly as all the
strangers, very much as an old salt gazing fixedly out to sea. Then some
of the saeter-girls came out to urge the lingering animals to hurry
themselves, and the air was filled with mysterious cries of coaxment and
impatience. At last the pilgrims went to inquire about food and lodging
for the night.
"You may get it perhaps," Jens remarked vaguely. This, of course, was
the Norwegian way of saying that they would get it; and when they
knocked at the door of the particular Saeter which Jens pointed out to
them, a dear old woman welcomed them to her stue (hut) as though it were
a palace. She liked to have visitors, and her only regret was that she
had not known in time to prepare the room for them in best saeter
fashion. Meanwhile, if they would rest, she would do her utmost; and she
suggested that the gentlemen should go down to the Saeter by the lake
and secure a lodging there, and then they could return and have their
meal in the stue here. She was a pretty old woman. Pleasure and
excitement lit up her sweet face and made her eyes wonderfully bright.
She wanted to know all about her visitors, and Gerda explained that they
were Swedes, Danes, and English, and one Norwegian only, the
Sorenskriver. She was deeply interested in Katharine, and asked Gerda
whether the English Herr and the boy were Katharine's husband and son;
and when Gerda said that they were only friends, she seemed
disappointed, and patted Katharine on the shoulder in token of sympathy
with her. Gerda told Katharine, and Katharine laughed. She was very
happy and interested. She had forgotten the sound of that jarring voice.
All her gaiety and _bonhomie_ had come back to her. It was she who began
to help their pretty old hostess. It was she who sprinkled the fresh
juniper-leaves over the floor, throwing so many that she had to be
checked in her reckless generosity. Then Gerda fetched the logs, and
made a grand fire in the old Peise (stone fireplace), and almost
immediately the warmth brought out the sweet fragrance of the
juniper-leaves. The old woman spread a fine woven cloth over the one bed
in the room. Then she bustled into the dairy and brought out mysost--a
great square block of it, and fladbröd, and coffee-berries, which
Katharine roasted and then crushed in the machine. When the table had
been set, the old woman brought a bowl of cream and sugar, and the
"vaffle" irons, and began to make vaffler (pancakes). She filled three
large plates with these delicious dainties, and her eager face was
something to behold. Finally she signed to Katharine, who followed her
into the dairy, and came back carrying two wooden bowls of
römmekolle--milk with cream on the top turned sour.
"Now," she said triumphantly, "everything is ready. And here come the
Herrer. And now you will want some fresh milk. The cows have just been
milked."
"No, no, thou hast done enough. I will go and fetch the milk," said the
Sorenskriver, who was in great spirits still, and almost like a young
boy. "Why, thou dear Heaven, I was a cotter's son and lived up at the
Saeter summer after summer. This is like my childhood again. I am as
happy as Jens!"
So off he went to the cowhouse at the other end of the little
saeter-enclosure. He began to sing a stev[O] with the milkmaids. This
was the stev:--
ASTRI, MY ASTRI.
(_The Sorenskriver sang_.)
As-tri, my As-tri, who cared but for me,
The time you were car-ing so warm-ly for me;
Weep-ing each Sa-tur-day night when I left,
Do you re-mem-ber it, now that it's past?
That was the time when I out-shone them all,
Law-yer and priest in the val-ley were nought,
That was the time when I out-shone them all,
Law-yer and priest in the val-ley were nought.
(_The milkmaids answered_)--
The time you were caring for Astri alone,
Was the time when that Svanaug you cared not to see;
The time when your steps were so active and brisk,
Hastening to greet me each Saturday eve.
That was the time when no riches on earth,
Fair could have seemed without my sweetheart's love.
That was the time when no riches on earth,
Fair could have seemed without my sweetheart's love.
[Illustration: Sheet music of 'Astri, my Astri.']
He returned with two jugs of milk. A merry laugh sounded after him, and
he was smiling too. The saeter-door was divided into two parts, and he
shut the lower half to keep out the draught; and when the old woman
tried to slip away, leaving her guests to enjoy themselves in their own
fashion, he said:
"No, no, mor, thou must stay." And every one cried out:
"Thou must stay."
So she stayed. She tidied herself, folded a clean white silk kerchief
crosswise over her head, and took her place at the table, dignified and
charming in her simple ease of manner. Many an ill-bred low-born, and
ill-bred well-born society dame might have learnt a profitable lesson
from this old saeter-woman--something about the unconscious grace which
springs from true unself-consciousness. And she smiled with pride and
pleasure to see them all doing justice to the vaffler, the mysost, the
fladbröd, and the römmekolle. She was particularly anxious that the
English lady should enjoy the römmekolle.
"Stakkar!" she said. "Thou must eat the whole of the top! Ja, saa, with
sugar on it! It is good. Thou canst not get it so good in thy country?
Thou hast no mountains there, no Saeters there? Ak, ak, that must be a
poor sort of country! Well, we cannot all be born in Norway."
And she laughed to see Alan pegging away at the vaffler.
"The English boy shall have as many vaffler as he likes," she said.
"Wilt thou have some more, stakkar? I will make thee another plateful."
It was a merry, merry meal. Every one was hungry and happy. The
Sorenskriver asked for some spaeke-kjöd (smoked and dried mutton or
reindeer) which was hanging up in the Peise. He cut little slices out of
it and made every one eat them.
"Otherwise," he said, "you will know nothing about a Norwegian Saeter.
And now a big piece for myself! Isn't it good, Botaniker? Ah, if you eat
it up, you will be inspired to find some rare plants here!"
Then they all drank the old saeter-woman's health.
"Skaal!" they said.
And then Clifford said:
"Skaal to Norway!"
And the Sorenskriver said:
"Skaal to England!"
And the botanists said:
"Skaal to Sweden!"
And the Swedish professor said:
"Skaal to Denmark!"
Then the Sorenskriver added:
"Would that all the nations could meet together up at the Saeter and cry
'Skaal!'"
And at that moment there came a knock at the door, and a little man in
English knickerbockers and Norfolk jacket asked for admittance.
"English, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, German?" asked the Sorenskriver.
"_Monsieur, je suis un peintre français_," said the little man, somewhat
astonished.
"Then Skaal to France!" cried the merry company, draining their
coffee-cups.
The Frenchman, with that perfect tact characteristic of his nation,
thanked them in the name of his country, his hand on his heart; and took
his place amongst these strangers, at their invitation. And then they
gathered round the fire and heaped up the logs. Katharine never forgot
that evening: the five nations gathered together in that quaint low room
built of huge tree-trunks roughly put together, with lichen and
birch-leaves filling in the crevices: the curious mixture of languages;
the fun of understanding and misunderstanding: the fragrance of the
juniper: the delightful sense of good fellowship: the happiness of being
in the presence of the man she loved: the mysterious influence of the
wild mountains: the loosening of pent-up instincts and emotions. Years
afterwards she was able to recall every detail of the surroundings: the
Lur (horn) hanging on the wall, and in those parts still used for
calling to the cattle; the Langeleik (an old kind of zither) in its own
special recess, seldom found missing in real old Norwegian houses,
silent now, but formerly playing an important part in the saeter-life of
bygone days; the old wooden balances, which seemed to belong to the
period of the Ark; the sausages and smoked meat hanging in the Peise;
the branches of fir placed as mats before the door; the saeter-woman
passing to and fro, now stopping to speak to one of her guests, now
slipping away to attend to some of her many saeter duties. Then at an
opportune moment the Sorenskriver said:
"Now, mor, if we heap on the logs, perhaps the green-dressed Huldre will
come and dance before the fire. Thou hast seen the Huldre, thou? Tell us
about her--wilt thou not?"
But she shook her head mysteriously, and went away as if she were
frightened; but after a few minutes she came back, and said in an awed
tone of voice:
"Twice I have seen the green-dressed Huldre--ak, and she was beautiful!
I was up at the Saeter over by my old home, and my sweetheart had come
to see me; and ak, ak, the Huldre came and danced before the fire--and
she bewitched him, and he went away into the mountains and no one ever
saw him again."
"And so," she added simply, "I had to get another sweetheart."
"Aa ja," said the Sorenskriver. "I expect there was no difficulty about
that."
"No," she answered, "thou art right."
And she beat a sudden retreat, as though she had said too much; but she
returned of her own accord, and continued:
"And the second time I saw the Huldre it was on the heath. I had gone
out alone to look for some of the cows who had not come home, and I saw
her on horseback. Her beautiful green dress covered the whole of
Blakken's back, and her tail swept the ground. And Blakken flew, flew
like lightning. And when I found the cows, they were dying. The Huldre
had willed them ill. That was fifty years ago. But I see her now. No one
can ever forget the Huldre."
So the evening passed, with stories of the Huldre, and the Trolds, and
the mountain-people of Norwegian lore; for here were the strangers in
the very birthplace of many of these weird legends, all, or most of
them, part and parcel of the saeter-life; all, or most of them, woven
out of the wild and lonely spirit of mountain-nature.
And then the little company passed by easy sequence to the subject of
visions and dreams. Some one asked Katharine if she had ever had a
vision.
"Yes," she answered; "once--once only."
"Tell it," they said.
But she shook her head.
"It would be out of place," she answered, "for, oddly enough, it was
about God."
"Surely, mademoiselle," said the Frenchman, "we are far away enough from
civilisation to be considered near enough to God for the moment?"
But she could not be induced to tell it.
"You would think I was a religious fanatic," she said. "And I am neither
fanatical nor religious."
"Ah," said Ejnar, "I hope I may have a vision to-night of what is in the
bottom of that lake we crossed over."
"You did your very best, Professor, to include us all in that vision of
the bottom of the lake," said Clifford quaintly.
"My poor Ejnar, how they all tease you!" said Gerda.
"I think," said Katharine, "the Kemiker ought to know better, being
himself a scientific man. Probably if he were piloting us all down a
mine, he would not care what became of us if his eye lit on some
unexpected treasure of the earth-depths."
"Noble lady," said Ejnar, smiling; "I perceive I have a friend in you,
and the Kemiker has an enemy."
Clifford Thornton looked into the fire and laughed happily.
Then Gerda said:
"Twice I have dreamed that I found a certain species of fungus in a
particular part of the wood; and guided by the memory of my dream, the
next day I have found it. Have you ever found anything like that in a
dream, Professor Thornton?"
Clifford looked up with a painful expression on his face.
"I always try my very hardest never to dream, Frue," he answered.
"And why?" she asked.
"Because up to the present we appear to have no knowledge of how to
control our dreams," he replied.
"But if we could control them, they would not be dreams," said
Katharine.
"So much the better then," answered Clifford; "they would be mere
continuations of self-guided consciousness in another form."
"But it is their utter irresponsibility and wildness which give them
their magic!" cried the French artist. "In my dreams, I am the prince of
all painters born since the world began. Mon Dieu, to be without that! I
tremble! Life would be impossible! In my dreams I discover unseen,
unthought-of colours! I cry with rapture!"
"In my dreams," said the Swedish mathematician, "I find the fourth
dimension, the fifth dimension, the hundredth dimension!"
"In my dreams," said the Sorenskriver, waving his arms grandiosely, "I
see Norway standing by herself, strong, powerful, irresistible as the
Vikinger themselves, no union with a sister country--nei, nei, pardon
me, Mathematiker!"
"Why, you would take away the very inspiration of the poet, the very
life of the patriot's spirit," said Katharine, turning to Clifford.
"You are all speaking of the dreams which are the outcome of the best
and highest part of ourselves," said Clifford, speaking as if he were in
a dream himself. "But what about the dreams which are not the outcome of
our best selves?"
"Oh, surely they pass away as other dreams," she answered.
"But do you not see," he said, "that if there is a chance that the
artist remembers the rapture with which he discovered in his dream that
marvellous colour, and the patriot the joy which he felt on beholding in
his dreams his country strong and irresistible, there is also a chance
that less noble feelings experienced in a dream may also be remembered?"
The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders.
"Mon Dieu!" he said. "We cannot always be noble--not even in our
dreams. I, for my part, would rather take the chance of dreaming that I
injured or murdered some one and rejoiced over it, than lose the chance
of dreaming that I was the greatest artist in the world. Why, I have
murdered all my rivals in my dreams, and they are still alive and
painting with great _éclat_ pictures entirely inferior to mine! And I am
no worse for having assassinated them and rejoiced over my evil deeds in
my dream."
"Probably because there were no evil consequences," Clifford said. "But
supposing there had been evil consequences, what then?"
"But you do not seriously believe that there is any such close
relationship between dream-life and actual life, between dream-cause and
actual effect?" asked Gerda.
"I do not know what I believe about it, Frue," he answered. "Some day
science will be able to explain to us the mysterious working of the
brain in normal life, in dream-life, in so-called death: and the
connecting links."
He had risen as he spoke, as though he, even as the old saeter-woman,
had let himself go too much, and now wished to slip away quietly. But
they all rose too, and the Sorenskriver said:
"We have spent a true saeter-evening, communing with mysteries. The
spirit of place has seized us, the mountain-spirit. But if we do not
soon get to rest and sleep dreamlessly, we shall have no brains left us
in the morning for yet another mountain mystery--the making of the
Mysost!"
"Tak for maden" (thanks for the meal), he added, turning to the old
saeter-woman.
"Tak for maden!" cried every one in a pleasant chorus.
"And tak for behageligt selskab!" (thanks for your delightful company),
he said, turning to all his comrades.
"Tak for behageligt selskab!" cried every one.
Then the men went off to the Saeter down by the lake; and Katharine,
Gerda, and the little Swedish artist arranged themselves for rest as
well as they could in a rough saeter-stue. The two of them were soon
asleep; but Katharine lay on her bench in the corner watching the fire,
listening to the moaning of the wind, and thinking of Clifford Thornton.
"Dreams, dreams," she thought. "Why should he dread to dream? And his
face was full of pain when he said that he tried never to dream. Ah, if
I could only reach him--sometimes we seem so near--and then----"
Katharine slept.
But in the morning she was up betimes, and out in the early freshness
and crispness. She was alone on that wild expanse. There was deep
stillness all around her. Silently, softly the magic mists were
caressing the mountains. The stars were losing their own brightness in
the brightening skies. The sun was breaking over the distant snow-peaks
of the Giant range. She was alone with Nature. And Nature set her free.
"My belovèd!" she cried. "My life was as grey as this great dreary wild
until your presence glorified it. You broke in upon my loneliness--the
bitterest loneliness on earth--a woman's heart-loneliness,--you broke in
upon it so that now nothing of it remains--scarcely the memory. Have no
fear, my belovèd. I will gather up your past life and your past love
with reverential tenderness. I have no fear. My love for you and my
belief in you shall conquer everything."
Clifford Thornton was mounting from the Saeter down by the lake-side. He
came out joyously into the freshness and crispness of the early morning.
He was alone on that wild expanse. There was deep stillness all around
him. Silently, softly the magic mists were caressing the mountains. The
stars were losing their own brightness in the brightening skies. The sun
was breaking over the distant snow-peaks of the Giant range. He was
alone with Nature. And Nature set him free.
"My love!" he cried. "I fling the past behind me at last. There are no
barriers--none--none. Fool that I was to think I was not free. Free! I
am as free as these vast stretches of wild country, free as this
mountain air. Do you know, will you ever know, oh, you must know, my own
belovèd, that I am yours--yours, unutterably yours. Shall I ever clasp
you in my arms and know that you are mine?"
Then suddenly he saw Katharine in the distance, and she saw him. She was
moving towards him as he was moving towards her. He hastened to meet her
with a tornado of wild gladness in his heart.
But when they came face to face they stood in silence, as when they had
first met on the evening of the quartette.
He was the first to find words.
"Don't let us go back," he said; "let us go on--let us go on--the
morning is still young--and there is no gladness like the gladness of
the early morning. What do you think?"
"No gladness like the gladness of the early morning," she repeated
joyously.
So they passed on together, over the wild and stony heathland, in the
direction of the Rondane mountains: he with a song in his heart, she
with the same song in hers.
"Isn't it glorious to be up here?" he cried. "I feel like the
Sorenskriver himself--a silent, surly fellow suddenly turned
light-hearted and eloquent. Knutty always said I ought to have been a
Norwegian."
"And I feel like Jens," said Katharine, "an inspired person, with grand,
big thoughts in my mind, which I shall lose on my way down to the valley
again. Ak, ak!"
"What was your vision?" he asked. "Will you not tell me?"
"If you wish," she answered; "but it is not worth telling, really. I
have never told any one. I don't know how I came to let those words slip
out last night."
"Tell me," he said, turning to her.
"Well," she said, "I was going to have a slight operation to my mouth,
and some anaesthetic had been given to me. I was trying my very hardest
to keep my consciousness to the last millionth of a minute, when I saw a
look of great mental suffering and tension on the surgeon's face. And I
said to myself, 'I will be merciful to the man, and I will make a
sacrifice to him of what I value most on earth at this moment: the tiny
remaining fragment of my consciousness. He will never know, and no one
will ever know; all the same, from my point of view, it is a deed of
infinite mercy.' So I let myself pass into unconsciousness an
infinitesimal instant of time sooner than I need have done. I heard him
say, 'Now!' Suddenly I found myself in a vast region, which seemed
limitless, which seemed to consist of infinite infinities which one
nevertheless could see were finities blending with each other
imperceptibly."
Katharine stood still a moment.
"And I realised," she continued, "how little I had ever known about the
proportion of things, how little my mind had ever grasped the true
significance of finities, which here were certainly infinities. I felt
entirely bewildered, and yet wildly excited. Ever since I can remember,
great space has always excited me. And suddenly, whilst I was wondering
where to go, what to do, whom to reach, I saw a woman near me--a
beautiful woman of so-called ill-fame. And she cried out to me:
"'This is heaven, and I am straining upwards, upwards, upwards through
all the infinities until I reach God. _For it takes the highest to
understand the lowest._'
"And I went with her, and a dim vision of God broke upon me, and I knew
no more. But I came back to consciousness, saying, 'For it takes the
highest to understand the lowest.'"
She paused a moment, and then said:
"If I had been thinking of God, I could better understand why I had that
vision."
"You had been thinking of God," he answered. "You had thought of mercy
and sacrifice, of an inappreciable quantity and quality from a finite
point of view; and that led you to think unconsciously of the different
aspect and value of things when seen and understood by an infinite mind
unbounded by horizons. If there is a God, that must be God--the greatest
and highest mind which understands the lowest grade of everything:
religion, morals, morals, religion."
"But it is not you who should have a vision of that kind," he added.
"You do not need it. It should come to those who cannot see beyond their
prison wall. It might make them wish to break through it and see the
open space, and still more open space, and still more open space. But
you, who have the free spirit, you were surely born in the open space;
no petty narrow horizon for you, but a wide and generous expanse."
"Alas!" she said, "you are imputing to me virtues which I have not!"
"They are not virtues," he answered. "They are part of your temperament;
born with you, not acquired."
She smiled at his praise. It was very sweet to her. He smiled too. He
was proud that he, a prisoner of silence, had had the courage to say
those words to her. And on they went together, he with a song in his
heart, and she with the same song in hers. Once she thought to ask him
why he tried never to dream; but she glanced at his grave face lit up
with happiness, and she grudged that even a passing shadow of pain
should mar the brightness of the morning. And once, perhaps at that same
moment, he himself thought of his dreams, and felt, by sudden
inspiration, that one day, one day he would be able to open his heart to
her--the woman born in the open space--and tell her the history of his
burdened mind. The thought flashed through him, and brought, not
memories of the past, but hopes for the future.
At last they turned back to the Saeter, and realised they had come a
long way: far away from the beat of the cows and goats. But after a
spell of solitude, they met a few of the wandering creatures, who
stopped to look at them and inquire in loud chorus what right they had
to venture on these private pastures. And after a time they came upon
more stragglers; and then they made out a black cow in the distance,
immovable and contemplative; but, on closer inspection, it proved to be
Ejnar examining some new-found treasure! As they approached he called
out to them:
"What have you brought back from your long walk?"
"Nothing, nothing," they cried together.
"Well," he answered, looking at them pityingly, "how foolish to go for a
long walk, then!"
They laughed, passed on, and found Gerda standing scanning the distance.
"Did you see my Ejnar?" she inquired. "It is time for breakfast, and the
Sorenskriver has been singing in the Lur to call every one in. Listen,
there it is again! The Sorenskriver is in great good spirits again this
morning. He is like a big boy."
He was like a big, good-natured boy at breakfast too. Alan confided to
Katharine that he thought the old chap was behaving awfully
disappointingly well.
"He hasn't been disagreeable one single moment," Alan whispered. "And
look here, he has given me this Lap knife. Isn't it jolly of him?"
"I think that we shall all have to give him a vote of thanks instead of
wolloping him and tying him to a tree," whispered Katharine.
"Oh, but there's all the way back yet," said Alan quaintly. And then he
added, "I say, you'll let me come along with you again, won't you?"
"Of course," she answered, her heart going out to the boy. "Of course;
we are the leaders of this expedition, and must take our followers
safely home."
He blushed in his boyish way, and slipped away with a happy smile on his
young face. He did not know it, but he admired and liked Katharine
tremendously. He did not realise it, but he always felt, after he had
been with Katharine, that his old love and longing for his father began
to tug at his heart. He went and stood by him now in front of the
Saeter, and slipped his arm through his father's.
"It's splendid up here, isn't it, father?" he said.
"Yes, Alan," answered the man joyfully, as he felt the touch of his
boy's arm.
It was the first time for many months that the boy had crept up to his
father in his old chum-like fashion. Katharine watched him, and knew
that for the moment they were happy together, and that she had begun and
was carrying on successfully her work of love and healing for the boy as
well as for the man.
"It is a morning of happiness," she said to herself; and when the merry
little Swedish artist came into the saeter-hut and showed her the sketch
which she had been making of the interior, she found the Englishwoman as
gay as herself.
"Why," she said to Katharine, "you look as if you was having the flirts
as well as me! What do you think of my sketch? Not bad? I give it
perhaps to my lover." Then she danced round the room singing a gay
Swedish melody.
The old saeter-woman laughed, clapped her hands, and cried:
"Ja vel, it is good to dance when one is young and happy!"
And then the Sorenskriver blew the Lur again to summon every one to the
cheese-making.
"Mor," he said, "thou must show us everything, so that all these foreign
people may remember the only right way to make the best cheese in the
world."
So they went into the dairy, and saw all the different kinds of bowls
and pans, and rows of square blocks of Mysost kept there to settle into
solidarity. Each block weighed about ten pounds, and Katharine was
amazed to hear that it took the milk of forty goats to make one of these
cheeses a-day. Then they saw the infernal machine which separates the
milk from the cream, and the Sorenskriver, still acting as general
showman, poured a vessel of fresh rich milk into the iron ogre, whilst
Katharine, under directions, turned the handle, and made the mighty
beast to roar and screech. Every one's nerves were set on edge. Ejnar
dashed wildly from the hut; but was collared by Alan and Jens, for the
Sorenskriver cried out:
"Don't let the Botaniker go off by himself. We shall never find him, and
our time is getting short."
And then they went to the other little hut where the cheese was being
made. There were two large open caldrons over the great stone-oven, and
two pretty young saeter-girls (saeter-gjenter) were busily stirring the
contents of the caldrons. They told Gerda that one caldron contained
cream and the other milk, from which the cheese had first been taken by
mixing it with yeast. And the pigs got the rejected cheese. Then the two
liquids were heated slowly for about four hours, being stirred
unceasingly, and when they were on the verge of boiling, they were mixed
together. Meantime they both looked and tasted like toffee, and smelt
like toffee too.
"And now you have seen the true and only Mysost, mine Damer og Herrer,"
said the Sorenskriver dramatically. "Now you know the two secrets of
Norwegian greatness--the Mountains and the Mysost!"
And he half meant it, too, although he laughed. And the old saeter-woman
quite meant it.
"Ja, ja," she said proudly, and inclined her head with true Norwegian
dignity.
Then they packed up and paid. The paying was not quite an easy matter.
The old saeter-woman made no fixed charge, and appeared not to want to
take any money. The Sorenskriver had a twinkle in his eye when he
settled up. He knew that, in accordance with Norwegian peasant
etiquette, she would appear to be indifferent to the money, accept it
reluctantly, and then probably not consider it enough! However, he
managed this delicate task with great skill, and began to arrange for
returning to the Solli Gaard. But none of the company were anxious to be
off. They lingered about, strolling, talking, laughing. The French
artist was making a small water-colour of the picturesque interior of
the stue. And he wanted to come with them too, if they could wait a
little. The old saeter-woman gave Katharine a large cow-bell.
"It has rung on these mountains a hundred years and more," she said.
"Thou shalt have it. It is for thee, stakkar. I like thee. Thou art
beautiful and kind. It is a pity thou art not that Englishman's wife."
She beckoned to Gerda to come and translate her words, and the three
women laughed together. Gerda said in a whisper:
"It is a good thing that the Kemiker is out of the way. He would be
astonished, wouldn't he? I don't think love is much in his line, is it?
Why, he is less human even than my poor Ejnar--if indeed such a thing is
possible!"
But Katharine stooped down and kissed the old saeter-woman.
"Tusend, tusend tak!" she said. She rang the bell, and then pointed to
the old woman and then to her own heart. She attempted some Norwegian
words of explanation, too, most of them wrong--which added to the
merriment. The Sorenskriver translated them.
"When I ring the bell, I shall think of you."
A few minutes later Katharine, Alan, and Clifford were sitting on the
great blocks of stone outside the saeter-enclosure, when Alan said:
"Hullo! Here are two people coming up the road--two ladies. They have
alpenstocks. What bosh! Any baby could get up here."
"Probably they are on their way to some real climbing," Clifford said.
"You know the Norwegian women walk and climb a great deal in the summer.
I always think of little Hilda Wangel in Ibsen's 'Master-builder' when I
see them with their stocks and knapsacks. You remember she came straight
from the mountains to the Master-builder's office--'the young generation
knocking, knocking at the door.' Ah, and that reminds me about Ibsen's
'Peer Gynt.' We must not leave the Gudbrandsdal without making a
pilgrimage to Peer Gynt's home. Jens has been telling me about it. That
ought to be our next outing. Will you come?"
"I am ready for anything," Katharine answered.
"Hullo!" said Alan; "English voices. We ought to get up and wave a
Union-Jack."
The voices came nearer and nearer. Katharine heard that same hard,
metallic tone which had distressed her on the previous evening. She was
distressed now. She looked from father to son and son to father. They
had not yet recognised that voice. But they understood instinctively
that some disturbing element had come into their atmosphere. They stood
up. Katharine rose. They were on either side of her. The next moment Mrs
Stanhope and her companion appeared on the top of the ridge, and stood
face to face with them. For one brief moment they were all too much
astonished to utter even an exclamation of surprise. They merely looked
at each other.
Then Mrs Stanhope stepped forward, and held out her hand to Alan. She
ignored the presence of Clifford and Katharine, and made straight for
the boy.
"Alan," she said in her kindest way, "who would have thought to find you
up here?"
"This is my dear friend's son," she said, turning to her companion. "You
know how often I have spoken of Marianne to you."
Slowly, reluctantly the boy left Katharine's side, and took the hand
held out to him.
"I thought you were far away in America," Mrs Stanhope said.
"We have come back," the boy answered simply.
"Ah me," she said, with a glance at Clifford and Katharine. "The dead
are soon forgotten."
And she added:
"Well, dear boy, some other time we must have another long talk
together. And remember I am always waiting for you--for your dear
mother's sake."
And she passed on, but they heard her saying aloud to her friend:
"And that is the woman I told you about. She amuses herself with men and
throws them over, just as she threw over Willy Tonedale, my poor
infatuated cousin. And now she is amusing herself with this widower. She
might have had the decency to wait a little longer until poor
Marianne----"
Katharine hurried after the two women.
"How dare you, how dare you speak of me in that way?" she said in a
voice which trembled with passion. "Some day you shall answer to me for
it. If we were not in a foreign country, you should answer to me for it
now."
"It is good of you to put it off until we are in our own country," said
Mrs Stanhope, with a forced laugh. But she looked uneasy, for
Katharine's flushed and angry face was not reassuring.
At that moment the Sorenskriver, the Swedish mathematical Professor, the
little Swedish artist, and the Frenchman came out of the stue.
"Well," asked the Sorenskriver, "are we all ready? Thou art not glad to
leave the Saeter, Jens. Nor am I. But all good times must come to an
end. Nei, da, Fröken Frensham! Are we leaving just when you have found
compatriots? That is too bad."
"Oh, I think I can do without them for the present," Katharine said,
with a laugh. She had composed herself outwardly, but inwardly she was
consumed with anger and mortified pride. But her moral courage did not
forsake her, although she knew that Mrs Stanhope had deliberately tried
to put her at a disadvantage with that man and that boy. But she trusted
them. She returned to them, and said, with a wistful smile on her face:
"I heard her voice down by the lake-side. That was why I felt
distressed. I knew she would spoil our happiness--yours--the
boy's--mine."
"She has always spoilt our happiness," the boy said.
"Always," said the man--"always."
Then Alan did an unexpected thing.
"Come along," he said impulsively, putting his arm through Katharine's.
"Never mind what she says. Let's get away from her. Come along, father."
Clifford looked at his boy wistfully.
"You two go on ahead," he said. "I don't want you ever to see her, Alan.
She has never been a friend to us. But I must see her--for our own
pride's sake."
"Father," cried the boy, "I have seen her once since--since mother died;
you didn't know it, but I have seen her--just before we left for
America."
"I might have known it," said Clifford.
They watched him walk back to the stue. He turned and waved to them to
move on. Gerda and Ejnar joined them, and the Sorenskriver called out:
"Do not wait for the Kemiker. He has gone back to help his compatriots,
who cannot speak any Norwegian. Farvel, mor, and tak for alt!" (Thanks
for everything).
"Farvel, farvel!" the old saeter-woman cried, waving to them all; and
then she followed Clifford into her stue, where Mrs Stanhope and her
friend were seated on the bench. She sank down in her chair, tired.
Clifford took off his hat, and stood, a tall proud figure.
"I have come back to tell you, Mrs Stanhope," he said very slowly, "that
I have never even thought it worth my while to attempt to shield myself
against your malignant tongue. But I shall shield my friend whom you
have just insulted. And I shall shield my boy. You shall not get hold of
him and attempt to influence him against me. If you attempt to see him
again, I warn you that I will make direct inquiry concerning all the
damaging words you have said against me, and I will prosecute you to the
bitter end for defamation of character; to the bitter end, Mrs Stanhope;
at the cost of all the suffering to my pride."
She had never before confronted him, and a feeling of vague uneasiness
about some of her indiscreet words seized her. For once in her life her
ready tongue failed her.
"You have always been our evil genius," he went on. "Time after time my
poor Marianne and I could have got nearer to each other but for you. But
you shall not be my boy's evil genius. You shall not come between him
and me."
Mrs Stanhope still did not speak. She was tired, bewildered.
"And," he said, "I would warn you, too, that it is unwise of you to try
to belittle Miss Frensham in the presence of her friends."
Mrs Stanhope still gave no sign. His quiet, deliberate manner
intimidated her. For one moment there was a painful silence, to which
the saeter-woman put an end.
"Be so good as to tell them to go," she said to Clifford. "I do not want
any more guests now. I am tired. Tell them to go to the third Saeter
away from here."
He told them, with a ghost of a grim smile on his drawn face; and they
could see for themselves that the old saeter-woman wished to be rid of
them. She was pointing dramatically in the direction of the third
Saeter. They rose to go.
"You do not appear to have much belief in your son's belief in you," Mrs
Stanhope was able to say as they passed out of the stue.
"My dear Julia," her friend said, "I really advise you to remain
speechless for the rest of our visit to a Norwegian Saeter! Surely you
don't want two libel-suits! You know, my dear, I've always said your
indiscretion----"
They passed out of hearing. Clifford took leave of the old saeter-woman,
and went to join his companions.
"Alas!" he thought, "she was able to find the right weapon with which to
wound me."
Meantime Katharine and Alan were waiting for him. The boy had thrown
himself down on the ground, and seemed lost in his own thoughts.
Suddenly he said to her:
"How did you know it was her voice? You have never seen her--have you?"
"Yes," Katharine answered. "I have seen her once before, Alan, when she
said cruel and slanderous things against your father. Every one was
shocked. No one believed."
"No one believed," Alan repeated to himself.
"No one could believe such things of a man like your father," Katharine
answered without looking at him. "Even I, a stranger to him, knew they
must be untrue. I thought to myself at the time what a curse it must be
to be born with a tongue and a mind like Mrs Stanhope's. Much better to
be a sweet old saeter-woman like the old woman up there."
"What was it she said about father?" the boy asked with painful
eagerness.
"I think you know," Katharine replied gently.
And just then Clifford came towards them. Alan got up and ran to meet
him.
"Father," he cried, "I want to tell you everything she said to me. I've
tried dozens of times, but----"
"I know, Alan," Clifford said tenderly. "You are even as I have been all
my life--a prisoner of silence. We will have a long talk when we get
home."
It was a glorious day: with bright warm sunshine, cold, crisp air, and a
sky of unbroken blue. And all around stretched the great and wonderful
distances, less mysterious in the frankness of the morning, but always
possessed of mystic influence and eloquent bidding. But the harmony of
the day was gone for Clifford, Katharine, and Alan; the gladness of the
expedition was over for them. Still, they took their part with the
others, and did their best to hide their own sad feelings. The returning
pilgrims passed over the wild heathland, through the low and luxuriant
growth of brush, juniper, and stunted willow, through the birch-woods
and pine-forests, and so downwards, downwards, their faces set towards
the Rondane mountains and their backs to the great Jutenheim range.
Gerda sang, Ejnar was rescued from swamps, the French artist sketched,
and the little Swedish lady flirted with him, for a "changeling," so she
told Katharine! The Mathematiker sulked, Katharine comforted him, and
Alan kept close to her, whilst Clifford strolled along, sometimes with
them, sometimes alone, and sometimes with Gerda, who loved to get him to
herself. The Sorenskriver had left his geniality behind at the Saeter.
He became quieter and quieter, until he reached his normal condition of
surliness. Jens, however, remained in a state of mountain-exhilaration
all the way home, and, encouraged by sympathetic listeners, told stories
of frightful Trolds living in the mountains, and of the occasions when
he himself had seen apparitions of men, women, and horses fading into
nothing on near approach.
"Ja, vel," he said, "at this very water-trough where Svarten is now
drinking, I have seen half a dozen horses standing and barring the road;
but when I came near, they have disappeared. Ja, ja, I've even heard
them being whipped, and heard the noise of their hoofs striking the
ground."
He told a story of a man he knew who had once seen several men, all
black and all wearing top-hats, "just like church-people," standing on a
stone-heap down in the valley. He shouted to them, but they did not
answer, and then he was foolish enough to ask them to show him their
backs.
"Now," said Jens, "you know they have not any backs, and he had scarcely
pronounced the words when he fell in a dead faint. This was about six
o'clock in the evening; and two hours later he regained consciousness
and found himself lying near his own home. As it was in the valley that
he met these people, they must have carried him up home. He is very
grave and quiet now, and you will never hear _him_ making fun of the
Huldre-folk."
It was late in the afternoon when the travellers reached the Gaard. The
flag had been hoisted and was flying at half-mast. Knutty came out to
meet them, and said, "Velkommen tilbage" (Welcome back).
And then she added:
"Jens, Bedstefar is dead."
[Footnote O: _Stev_, a vocal conversation.]