But Katharine did not sleep. Hour after hour she watched by the window,
straining her eyes into the distance. And as he still did not come, and
the suspense became intolerable, she went out to find him. It was five
o'clock when she left the Gaard, and nearly nine when she returned.
"Has he come back?" she asked eagerly of Gerda, who was standing in the
porch. Gerda shook her head.
Just then Ole Persen, the mattress-maker, arrived at the Gaard on his
annual round to repair the mattresses or make up new ones from the
year's accumulation of wool. Ole was the newsbringer of that part of the
Gudbrandsdal, and, for a mattress-maker, was considered to be rather
reliable. He would therefore have been quite useless on the staff of an
Anglo-Saxon evening newspaper. He brought the news that over at Berg,
about ten miles away, an Englishman had been struck dead by the
lightning, and his body had been brought down from the mountains to the
nearest Skyds-station (posting-station). Ole said that the people over
there were sure he was an Englishman, and the doctor had said that the
letters in his pocket were all from England. Ole had not seen him; but
they had told him that the dead stranger was a tall thin man, with thin,
clean-shaven face.
Mor Inga and Solli looked grave.
"Art thou sure he was an Englishman, Ole?" Mor Inga asked abruptly.
"I can only tell thee what they said," answered Ole. "The doctor
declared only an Englishman would have so much money in his pocket."
Then Mor Inga told Knutty exactly what she had heard, neither more nor
less.
"It may not be our Englishman," Mor Inga said gently, "but----"
And then Knutty told the others, first Gerda and Katharine.
"It may not be our Englishman," Knutty said, looking at them bravely,
"but----"
She told Alan.
"Kjaere," she said, "it may not be your dear father, but----"
In a few minutes Knutty, Katharine, and Alan were on their way to Berg.
Solli whipped up the horses unsparingly, and admonished them with weird
Norwegian words. His voice and the roar of the foss below were the only
sounds heard; for at the onset no one of that anxious little company
spoke a single syllable. They sat there with strained faces; they
glanced at each other with silent questionings, and then as quickly
turned away to look with sightless eyes at the country which was growing
sterner and grimmer as the valley became narrower and shut them in from
all generous share of sky and space. Suddenly there came a break in the
valley, and a flood of light broke upon the travellers; they breathed a
sigh of relief, and even smiled faintly, as though that unexpected
blessing had, for the moment, eased the overwhelming burden of their
hearts. They passed the place where the church had stood before it was
swept away in the great avalanche of a hundred years ago; and on they
went, skirting a fine old Gaard built near a great mound, said to be the
resting-place of some renowned chieftain; on they went, in their silence
and suspense. The two women glanced from time to time at the drawn face
opposite, and the boy felt the silent comfort of their sympathy. When at
last he spoke, the relief to them was as great as if there had been a
second break in the valley. He bent forward and put his hands on their
knees.
"I don't know what I should do without you both," he said simply, and he
drew back again.
"Stakkar," Knutty said, "two or three miles more, and we shall know."
"Oh, Knutty," the boy cried in a sudden agony, "and I've been saying
such cruel things to him, and never thinking about hurting him; and he
went off all alone, and I can't bear to think that----"
Alan broke off; and once more Knutty saw before her the solitary figure
of her beloved Englishman climbing up the steep hillside and
disappearing into the birch-woods. She heard his words, "It will be all
right for me later." Her eyes became dim; and she would have given way
to her grief then and there, but for Katharine, who, notwithstanding her
own great need, lent half her youthful courage, strength, and
hopefulness to the old Danish woman.
"Tante," she said in her impulsive way, "for pity's sake don't forget
that you are of Viking descent--a heartless, remorseless pirate, in
fact."
There came a faint smile on the old Dane's face.
"Thank you for reminding me of my ancestors, kjaere," she said.
"And besides," continued Katharine, "we may yet find another break in
the valley. We may find that all our fears have been only the fears of
love and anxiety."
"Do you really, really think that?" the boy cried, turning to her with
passionate eagerness.
"Yes, Alan," she answered, without flinching.
So she buoyed them up, and heartened herself as well, although she was
saying to herself all the time:
"Oh, my love, my love, if it be indeed you lying there in the silence of
death, then my womanhood lies buried with my girlhood."
At last the horses drew up at the entrance of an old Gaard which was
also the Skyds-station of that district. Solli had called out
immediately, and a young woman in the Gudbrandsdal dress stepped into
the courtyard.
"Yes, yes, stakkar, he lies upstairs," she said, glancing
sympathetically at the three travellers. "Come, I will lead the way."
They passed up the massive stairs outside the old house, and reached the
covered verandah. She pointed to a door at the end of the passage.
"That is the room," she said gently; and with the fine understanding of
the true Norwegian peasant, she left them.
Katharine put a detaining hand on Knutty and Alan.
"Shall I go in first and come and tell you?" she asked. "I am the
stranger. It should be easier for me."
But they shook their heads, clung to her closer, and so all three passed
into the room together. The room was not darkened; but sweet
juniper-leaves had been spread over the floor. Katharine led them like
two little stricken children to the bed of death: one of them a child
indeed, and the other an old woman of seventy, childlike in her need of
protecting help.
Then Katharine bent forward, and with trembling hands reverently lifted
the covering from the dead man's face--and they looked.
A cry rose to their lips.
The dead man was not their beloved one.