I found that my friend, "Doctor John," strange to relate of a
fisherman, had not exaggerated the merits of the fishing. How they
got there, two thousand feet above the lower valley, I don't know;
but trout fairly swarmed in the little streams, which boiled among
the rocks, and they were as greedy as if they had never seen a fly in
their lives. I shortly became contemptuous toward anything under three
pounds, and addressed myself to the task of defending my flies against
the smaller ones, and keeping them only for the big fellows, which ran
over three pounds--the patriarchs of the streams. With these I had
capital sport, for they knew every angle and hole, they sought every
coign of vantage, and the rocks were so thick and so sharp that from
the time one of these veterans took the fly, it was an equal contest
which of us should come off victorious. I was often forced to rush
splashing and floundering through the water to my waist to keep my
line from being sawed, and as the water was not an hour from the green
glaciers above, it was not always entirely pleasant.
I soon made firm friends with my hosts, and varied the monotony of
catching three-pounders by helping them get in their hay for the
winter. Elsket, poor thing, was, notwithstanding her apparently
splendid physique, so delicate that she could no longer stand the
fatigue of manual labor, any extra exertion being liable to bring on a
recurrence of the heart-failure, from which she had suffered. I learned
that she had had a violent hemorrhage two summers before, from which
she had come near dying, and that the skill of my friend, the doctor,
had doubtless saved her life. This was the hold he had on Olaf of the
Mountain: this was the "small service" he had rendered them.
By aiding them thus, I was enabled to be of material assistance to
Olaf, and I found in helping these good people, that work took on
once more the delight which I remembered it used to have under like
circumstances when I was a boy. I could cut or carry on my back loads
of hay all day, and feel at night as if I had been playing. Such is the
singular effect of the spirit on labor.
To make up for this, Elsket would sometimes, when I went fishing, take
her knitting and keep me company, sitting at a little distance. With
her pale, calm face and shining hair outlined against the background
of her sad-colored kerchief, she looked like a mourning angel. I never
saw her smile except when her father came into her presence, and when
she smiled it was as if the sun had suddenly come out. I began to
understand the devotion of these two strange people, so like and yet so
different.
One rainy day she had a strange turn; she began to be restless. Her
large, sad eyes, usually so calm, became bright; the two spots in her
cheeks burned yet deeper; her face grew anxious. Then she laid her
knitting aside and took out of a great chest something on which she
began to sew busily. I was looking at her, when she caught my eye
and smiled. It was the first time she ever smiled for me. "Did you
know I was going to be married?" she asked, just as an American girl
might have done. And before I could answer, she brought me the work.
It was her wedding dress. "I have nearly finished it," she said. Then
she brought me a box of old silver ornaments, such as the Norsk brides
wear, and put them on. When I had admired them she put them away. After
a little, she arose and began to wander about the house and out into
the rain. I watched her with interest. Her father came in, and I saw a
distressed look come into his eyes. He went up to her, and laying his
hand on her drew her toward a seat. Then taking down an old Bible, he
turned to a certain place and began to read. He read first the Psalm:
"Lord, thou hast been our refuge, from one generation to another.
Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the
world were made, thou art God from everlasting, and world without end."
Then he turned to the chapter of Corinthians, "Now is Christ risen
from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept," etc.
His voice was clear, rich, and devout, and he read it with singular
earnestness and beauty. It gave me a strange feeling; it is a part of
our burial service. Then he opened his hymn-book and began to sing a
low, dirge-like hymn. I sat silent, watching the strange service and
noting its effect on Elsket. She sat at first like a person bound,
struggling to be free, then became quieter, and at last, perfectly
calm. Then Olaf knelt down, and with his hand still on her prayed one
of the most touching prayers I ever heard. It was for patience.
When he rose Elsket was weeping, and she went and leant in his arms
like a child, and he kissed her as tenderly as if he had been her
mother.
Next day, however, the same excited state recurred, and this time the
reading appeared to have less effect. She sewed busily, and insisted
that there must be a letter for her at L----. A violent fit of weeping
was followed by a paroxysm of coughing, and finally the old man, who
had sat quietly by her with his hand stroking her head, arose and said,
"I will go." She threw herself into his arms, rubbing her head against
him in sign of dumb affection, and in a little while grew calm. It was
still raining and quite late, only a little before sunset; but the old
man went out, and taking the path toward L---- was soon climbing the
mountain toward the Devil's Seat. Elsket sat up all night, but she was
as calm and as gentle as ever.
The next morning when Olaf returned she went out to meet him. Her look
was full of eager expectancy. I did not go out, but watched her from
the door. I saw Olaf shake his head, and heard her say bitterly, "It is
so hard to wait," and he said, gently, "Yes, it is, Elsket, but I will
go again," and then she came in weeping quietly, the old man following
with a tender look on his strong, weather-beaten face.
That day Elsket was taken ill. She had been trying to do a little work
in the field in the afternoon, when a sinking spell had come on. It
looked for a time as if the poor overdriven heart had knocked off work
for good and all. Strong remedies, however, left by Doctor John, set it
going again, and we got her to bed. She was still desperately feeble,
and Olaf sat up. I could not leave him, so we were sitting watching,
he one side the open platform fireplace in one corner, and I the
other; he smoking, anxious, silent, grim; I watching the expression
on his gray face. His eyes seemed set back deeper than ever under the
shaggy gray brows, and as the firelight fell on him he had the fierce,
hopeless look of a caged eagle. It was late in the night before he
spoke, and then it was half to himself and but half to me.
"I have fought it ten long years," he said, slowly.
Not willing to break the thread of his thought by speaking, I lit my
pipe afresh and just looked at him. He received it as an answer.
"She is the last of them," he said, accepting me as an auditor rather
than addressing me. "We go back to Olaf Traetelje, the blood of Harold
Haarfager (the Fair-haired) is in our veins, and here it ends. Dane
and Swede have known our power, Saxon and Celt have bowed bare-headed
to us, and with her it ends. In this stronghold many times her fathers
have found refuge from their foes and gained breathing-time after
battles by sea and land. From this nest, like eagles, they have swooped
down, carrying all before them, and here, at last, when betrayed
and hunted, they found refuge. Here no foreign king could rule over
them; here they learnt the lesson that Christ is the only king, and
that all men are his brothers. Here they lived and worshipped him. If
their dominions were stolen from them they found here a truer wealth,
content; if they had not power, they had what was better, independence.
For centuries they held this last remnant of the dominion which Harold
Haarfager had conquered by land, and Eric of the Bloody Axe had won by
sea, sending out their sons and daughters to people the lands; but the
race dwindled as their lands had done before, and now with her dies the
last. How has it come? As ever, by betrayal!"
The old man turned fiercely, his breast heaving, his eyes burning.
"Was she who came of a race at whose feet jarls have crawled and kings
have knelt not good enough?" I was hearing the story and did not
interrupt him--"Not good enough for him!" he continued in his low,
fierce monotone. "I did not want him. What if he was a Saxon? His
fathers were our boatmen. Rather Cnut a thousand times. Then the race
would not have died. Then she would not be--not be so."
The reference to her recalled him to himself, and he suddenly relapsed
into silence.
"At least, Cnut paid the score," he began once more, in a low intense
undertone. "In his arms he bore him down from the Devil's Seat, a
thousand feet sheer on the hard ice, where his cursed body lies crushed
forever, a witness of his falsehood."
I did not interrupt, and he rewarded my patience, giving a more
connected account, for the first time addressing me directly.
"Her mother died when she was a child," he said, softly. His gentle
voice contrasted strangely with the fierce undertone in which he had
been speaking. "I was mother as well as father to her. She was as good
as she was beautiful, and each day she grew more and more so. She was
a second Igenborg. Knowing that she needed other companionship than an
old man, I sought and brought her Cnut (he spoke of him as if I must
know all about him). Cnut was the son of my only kinsman, the last of
his line as well, and he was tall and straight and strong. I loved him
and he was my son, and as he grew I saw that he loved her, and I was
not sorry, for he was goodly to look on, straight and tall as one of
old, and he was good also. And she was satisfied with him, and from a
child ordered him to do her girlish bidding, and he obeyed and laughed,
well content to have her smile. And he would carry her on his shoulder,
and take her on the mountain to slide, and would gather her flowers.
And I thought it was well. And I thought that in time they would marry
and have the farm, and that there would be children about the house,
and the valley might be filled with their voices as in the old time.
And I was content. And one day he came! (the reference cost him an
effort). Cnut found him fainting on the mountain and brought him here
in his arms. He had come to the village alone, and the idle fools there
had told him of me, and he had asked to meet me, and they told him of
the mountain, and that none could pass the Devil's Ledge but those
who had the old blood, and that I loved not strangers; and he said he
would pass it, and he had come and passed safely the narrow ledge, and
reached the Devil's Seat, when a stone had fallen upon him, and Cnut
had found him there fainting, and had lifted him and brought him here,
risking his own life to save him on the ledge. And he was near to
death for days, and she nursed him and brought him from the grave.
"At first I was cold to him, but there was something about him that
drew me and held me. It was not that he was young and taller than Cnut,
and fair. It was not that his eyes were clear and full of light, and
his figure straight as a young pine. It was not that he had climbed the
mountain and passed the narrow ledge and the Devil's Seat alone, though
I liked well his act; for none but those who have Harold Haarfager's
blood have done it alone in all the years, though many have tried and
failed. I asked him what men called him, and he said, 'Harold;' then
laughing, said some called him, 'Harold the Fair-haired.' The answer
pleased me. There was something in the name which drew me to him.
When I first saw him I had thought of Harald Haarfager, and of Harald
Haardraarder, and of that other Harold, who, though a Saxon, died
bravely for his kingdom when his brother betrayed him, and I held out
my hand and gave him the clasp of friendship."
The old man paused, but after a brief reflection proceeded:
"We made him welcome and we loved him. He knew the world and could
tell us many things. He knew the story of Norway and the Vikings, and
the Sagas were on his tongue. Cnut loved him and followed him, and she
(the pause which always indicated her who filled his thoughts)--she,
then but a girl, laughed and sang for him, and he sang for her, and his
voice was rich and sweet. And she went with him to fish and to climb,
and often, when Cnut and I were in the field, we would hear her laugh,
clear and fresh from the rocks beside the streams, as he told her some
fine story of his England. He stayed here a month and a week, and then
departed, saying he would come again next year, and the house was empty
and silent after he left. But after a time we grew used to it once more
and the winter came.
"When the spring returned we got a letter--a letter to her--saying he
would come again, and every two weeks another letter came, and I went
for it and brought it to--to her, and she read it to Cnut and me. And
at last he came and I went to meet him, and brought him here, welcome
as if he had been my eldest born, and we were glad. Cnut smiled and
ran forward and gave him his hand, and--she--she did not come at first,
but when she came she was clad in all that was her best, and wore her
silver--the things her mother and her grandmother had worn, and as she
stepped out of the door and saluted him, I saw for the first time that
she was a woman grown, and it was hard to tell which face was brighter,
hers or his, and Cnut smiled to see her so glad."
The old man relapsed into reflection. Presently, however, he resumed:
"This time he was gayer than before:--the summer seemed to come with
him. He sang to her and read to her from books that he had brought,
teaching her to speak English like himself, and he would go and fish up
the streams while she sat near by and talked to him. Cnut also learned
his tongue well, and I did also, but Cnut did not see so much of him
as before, for Cnut had to work, and in the evening they were reading
and she--she--grew more and more beautiful, and laughed and sang more.
And so the summer passed. The autumn came, but he did not go, and I was
well content, for she was happy, and, in truth, the place was cheerier
that he was here. Cnut alone seemed downcast, but I knew not why; and
then the snow came. One morning we awoke and the farm was as white as
the mountains. I said to him, 'Now you are here for the winter,' and he
laughed and said, 'No, I will stay till the new-year. I have business
then in England, and I must go.' And I turned, and her face was like
sunshine, for she knew that none but Cnut and I had ever passed the
Devil's Ledge in the snow, and the other way by which I took the Doctor
home was worse then, though easier in the summer, only longer. But
Cnut looked gloomy, at which I chid him; but he was silent. And the
autumn passed rapidly, so cheerful was he, finding in the snow as much
pleasure as in the sunshine, and taking her out to slide and race on
shoes till she would come in with her cheeks like roses in summer, and
her eyes like stars, and she made it warm where she was.
"And one evening they came home. He was gayer than ever, and she more
beautiful, but silenter than her wont. She looked like her mother the
evening I asked her to be my wife. I could not take my eyes from her.
That night Cnut was a caged wolf. At last he asked me to come out, and
then he told me that he had seen Harold kiss her and had heard him tell
her that he loved her, and she had not driven him away. My heart was
wrung for Cnut, for I loved him, and he wept like a child. I tried to
comfort him, but it was useless, and the next day he went away for a
time. I was glad to have him go, for I grieved for him, and I thought
she would miss him and be glad when he came again, and though the snow
was bad on the mountain he was sure as a wolf. He bade us good-by and
left with his eyes looking like a hurt dog's. I thought she would have
wept to have him go, but she did not. She gave him her hand and turned
back to Harold, and smiled to him when he smiled. It was the first time
in all her life that I had not been glad to have her smile, and I was
sorry Harold had stayed, and I watched Cnut climb the mountain like a
dark speck against the snow till he disappeared. She was so happy and
beautiful that I could not long be out with her, though I grieved for
Cnut, and when she came to me and told me one night of her great love
for Harold I forgot my own regret in her joy, and I said nothing to
Harold, because she told me he said that in his country it was not
usual for the father to be told or to speak to a daughter's lover.
"They were much taken up together after that, and I was alone, and I
missed Cnut sorely, and would have longed for him more but for her
happiness. But one day, when he had been gone two months, I looked over
the mountain, and on the snow I saw a black speck. It had not been
there before, and I watched it as it moved, and I knew it was Cnut.
"I said nothing until he came, and then I ran and met him. He was thin,
and worn, and older; but his eyes had a look in them which I thought
was joy at getting home; only they were not soft, and he looked taller
than when he left, and he spoke little. His eyes softened when she,
hearing his voice, came out and held out her hand to him, smiling to
welcome him; but he did not kiss her as kinsfolk do after long absence,
and when Harold came out the wolf-look came back into his eyes. Harold
looked not so pleased to see him, but held out his hand to greet
him. But Cnut stepped back, and suddenly drawing from his breast a
letter placed it in his palm, saying slowly, 'I have been to England,
Lord Harold, and have brought you this from your Lady Ethelfrid
Penrith--they expect you to your wedding at the New Year.' Harold
turned as white as the snow under his feet, and she gave a cry and fell
full length on the ground.
"Cnut was the first to reach her, and lifting her in his arms he bore
her into the house. Harold would have seized her, but Cnut brushed
him aside as if he had been a barley-straw, and carried her and laid
her down. When she came to herself she did not remember clearly what
had happened. She was strange to me who was her father, but she knew
him. I could have slain him, but she called him. He went to her, and
she understood only that he was going away, and she wept. He told her
it was true that he had loved another woman and had promised to marry
her, before he had met her, but now he loved her better, and he would
go home and arrange everything and return; and she listened and clung
to him. I hated him and wanted him to go, but he was my guest, and I
told him that he could not go through the snow; but he was determined.
It seemed as if he wanted now to get away, and I was glad to have him
go, for my child was strange to me, and if he had deceived one woman
I knew he might another, and Cnut said that the letter he had sent by
him before the snow came was to say he would come in time to be married
at the New Year; and Cnut said he lived in a great castle and owned
broad lands, more than one could see from the whole mountain, and his
people had brought him in and asked him many questions of him, and
had offered him gold to bring the letter back, and he had refused the
gold, and brought it without the gold; and some said he had deceived
more than one woman. And Lord Harold went to get ready, and she wept,
and moaned, and was strange. And then Cnut went to her and told her of
his own love for her, and that he was loyal to her, but she waved him
from her, and when he asked her to marry him, for he loved her truly,
she said him nay with violence, so that he came forth into the air
looking white as a leper. And he sat down, and when I came out he was
sitting on a stone, and had his knife in his hand, looking at it with
a dangerous gleam in his eyes; and just then she arose and came out,
and, seeing him sitting so with his knife, she gave a start, and her
manner changed, and going to him she spoke softly to him for the first
time, and made him yield her up the knife; for she knew that the knife
hung loose in the sheath. But then she changed again and all her anger
rose against Cnut, that he had brought Harold the letter which carried
him away, and Cnut sat saying nothing, and his face was like stone.
Then Lord Harold came and said he was ready, and he asked Cnut would he
carry his luggage. And Cnut at first refused, and then suddenly looked
him full in his face, and said, 'Yes.' And Harold entered the house to
say good-by to her, and I heard her weeping within, and my heart grew
hard against the Englishman, and Cnut's face was black with anger, and
when Harold came forth I heard her cry out, and he turned in the door
and said he would return, and would write her a letter to let her know
when he would return. But he said it as one speaks to a child to quiet
it, not meaning it. And Cnut went in to speak to her, and I heard her
drive him out as if he had been a dog, and he came forth with his face
like a wolf's, and taking up Lord Harold's luggage, he set out. And so
they went over the mountain.
"And all that night she lay awake, and I heard her moaning, and all
next day she sat like stone, and I milked the goats, and her thoughts
were on the letters he would send.
"I spoke to her, but she spoke only of the letters to come, and I kept
silence, for I had seen that Lord Harold would come no more; for I had
seen him burn the little things she had given him, and he had taken
everything away, but I could not tell her so. And the days passed, and
I hoped that Cnut would come straight back; but he did not. It grieved
me, for I loved him, and hoped that he would return, and that in time
she would forget Lord Harold, and not be strange, but be as she had
been to Cnut before he came. Yet I thought it not wholly wonderful that
Cnut did not return at once, nor unwise; for she was lonely, and would
sit all day looking up the mountain, and when he came she would, I
thought, be glad to have him back.
"At the end of a week she began to urge me to go for a letter. But I
told her it could not come so soon; but when another week had passed
she began to sew, and when I asked her what she sewed, she said her
bridal dress, and she became so that I agreed to go, for I knew no
letter would come, and it broke my heart to see her. And when I was
ready she kissed me, and wept in my arms, and called me her good
father; and so I started.
"She stood in the door and watched me climb the mountain, and waved to
me almost gayly.
"The snow was deep, but I followed the track which Cnut and the
Englishman had made two weeks before, for no new snow had fallen, and I
saw that one track was ever behind the other, and never beside it, as
if Cnut had fallen back and followed behind him.
"And so I came near to the Devil's Seat, where it was difficult, and
from where Cnut had brought him in his arms that day, and then, for
the first time, I began to fear, for I remembered Cnut's look as he
came from the house when she waved him off, and it had been so easy
for him with a swing of his strong arm to have pushed the other over
the cliff. But when I saw that he had driven his stick in deep to hold
hard, and that the tracks went on beyond, I breathed freely again,
and so I passed the narrow path, and the black wall, and came to the
Devil's Seat; and as I turned the rock my heart stopped beating, and I
had nearly fallen from the ledge. For there, scattered and half-buried
in the snow, lay the pack Cnut had carried on his back, and the snow
was all dug up and piled about as if stags had been fighting there for
their lives. From the wall, across and back, were deep furrows, as if
they were ploughed by men's feet dug fiercely in; but they were ever
deeper toward the edge, and on one spot at the edge the snow was all
torn clear from the black rock, and beyond the seat the narrow path
lay smooth, and bright, and level as it had fallen, without a track.
My knees shook under me, and I clutched my stick for support, and
everything grew black before me: and presently I fell on my knees and
crawled and peered over the edge. But there was nothing to be seen,
only where the wall slants sharp down for a little space in one spot
the snow was brushed away as if something had struck there, and the
black, smooth rock showed clean, cutting off the sight from the glacier
a thousand feet down."
The old man's breast heaved. It was evidently a painful narrative, but
he kept on.
"I sat down in the snow and thought; for I could not think at once.
Cnut had not wished to murder, or else he had flung the Englishman from
the narrow ledge with one blow of his strong arm. He had waited until
they had stood on the Devil's Seat, and then he had thrown off his pack
and faced him, man to man. The Englishman was strong and active, taller
and heavier than Cnut. He had Harald's name, but he had not Harald's
heart nor blood, and Cnut had carried him in his arms over the cliff,
with his false heart like water in his body.
"I sat there all day and into the night; for I knew that he would
betray no one more. I sorrowed for Cnut, for he was my very son. And
after a time I would have gone back to her, but I thought of her at
home waiting and watching for me with a letter, and I could not; and
then I wept, and I wished that I were Cnut, for I knew that he had had
one moment of joy when he took the Englishman in his arms. And then I
took the scattered things from the snow and threw them over the cliff;
for I would not let it be known that Cnut had flung the Englishman
over. It would be talked about over the mountain, and Cnut would be
thought a murderer by those who did not know, and some would say he had
done it foully; and so I went on over the mountain, and told it there
that Cnut and the Englishman had gone over the cliff together in the
snow on their way, and it was thought that a slip of snow had carried
them. And I came back and told her only that no letter had come."
He was silent so long that I thought he had ended; but presently, in a
voice so low that it was just like a whisper, he added: "I thought she
would forget, but she has not, and every fortnight she begins to sew
her dress and I go over the mountains to give her peace; for each time
she draws nearer to the end, and wears away more and more; and some day
the thin blade will snap."
"The thin blade" was already snapping, and even while he was speaking
the last fibres were giving way.
The silence which followed his words was broken by Elsket; I heard a
strange sound, and Elsket called feebly, "Oh, father."
Olaf went quickly to her bedside. I heard him say, "My God in Heaven!"
and I sprang up and joined him. It was a hemorrhage. Her life-blood
was flowing from her lips. She could not last like that ten minutes.
Providentially the remedies provided by Doctor John were right at hand,
and, thanks to them, the crimson tide was stayed before life went out;
but it was soon apparent that her strength was gone and her power
exhausted.
We worked over her, but her pulse was running down like a broken clock.
There was no time to have got a physician, even had there been one to
get. I mentioned it; Olaf shook his head. "She is in the hands of God,"
he said.
Olaf never left the bedside except to heat water or get some stimulant
for her.
But, notwithstanding every effort, she failed to rally. The overtaxed
heart was giving out, and all day she sank steadily. I never saw such
a desperate face as that old man's. It haunts me now. He hung over
her. He held her hand, now growing cold, against his cheek to keep it
warm--stroked it and kissed it. As towards evening the short, quick
breaths came, which precede dissolution, he sank on his knees. At
first, he buried his face in his hands; then in the agony of his
despair, he began to speak aloud. I never heard a more moving appeal.
It was a man speaking face to face with God for one about to enter his
presence. His eyes were wide open, as if he saw His face. He did not
ask that she should be spared to him; it was all for his "Elsket," his
"Darling," that Jesus would be her "Herder," and lead her beside the
still waters; that she might be spared all suffering and sorrow, and
have peace.
Presently he ended and buried his face in his hands. The quick, faint
breaths had died away, and as I looked on the still white face on the
pillow I thought that she had gone. But suddenly the large eyes slowly
opened wide.
"Father," she said, faintly.
"Elsket," the old man bent over her eagerly.
"I am so tired."
"My Elsket."
"I love you."
"Yes, my Elsket."
"You will stay with me?"
"Yes, always."
"If Cnut comes?"
"Yes, my Elsket."
"If Cnut comes----" very faintly.
Her true lover's name was the last on her lips.