Magnhild Etc. IRVINE THE NOVELS OF BJORNSTJERNE BJORNSON Edited by EDMUND GOSSE Fcap. Svo, cloth, 3^. net Synnovl Solbakken Arne A Happy Boy The Fisher Lass The Bridal March, (5^ One Day Magnhild, & Dust Captain Mansana, 6^ Mother's Hands Absalom 's Hair, dr 5 A Painful Memory And other Sttort Stories and Novelettes LONDON WILLIAM HEINEMANN 21 Bedford Street, W.C. MAGNHILD & DUST BY BJORNSTJERNE BJORNSON (Translated from the Norwegian) LONDON WILLIAM HEINEMANN 1897 All rights rawed BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE [MAGNHILD was originally published in Copen- hagen in October 1877. It was begun in Rome, in the spring of 7575, and completed at Bjornson's new property, A ulestad, in Gausdal, during 1876. The publication of this book produced a violent impression in Scandinavia, and led to much pol- emical discussion. Bjornson replied several times to his assailants. The book was translated into Swedish and German in 1878, but it has remained one of the least known of his productions. E. G.] MAGNHILD CHAPTER I A RANGE of lofty precipitous mountains from which at this moment a storm is clearing away. The valley is narrow and perpetually winding. A rapidly flowing river winds along with it, skirted by a road. Higher up on the slope lie numerous farmhouses, for the most part low and unpainted. Fields of cut hay and half- ripened corn surround them. When the last bend in the valley is rounded, the fjord is seen. It lies shining now under the lifting fog. The mountains so enclose it that it seems like a lake. A carriole crawls along the road at the usual jog-trot. In the carriole a waterproof and a sou'- wester are visible, and between these a beard, a MAGNHILD nose, and a pair of spectacles. A trunk is lashed to the back seat, and on the box, riding backwards, sits a grown-up girl in place of the usual post-boy, bundled up in a shawl. She has coarse shoes on her dangling feet. Her arms are tucked in under the shawl. All at once she cries out : " Magnhild ! Magnhild !" The traveller turned and looked round at a tall woman in a waterproof who had just passed. He had caught a glimpse of a long face with delicate outlines under the hood which was drawn forward over the head ; now he saw her stand still, with her forefinger at her lips, staring. As he kept on looking at her, she grew red. " I'll come indoors the moment I've put up the horse," cried the post-girl. They drove on. " Who was that ? " asked the traveller. " She is the wife of the saddler down at the port," was the answer. Presently they had gone far enough to catch sight of the fjord, and the outskirts of the village at the port. The girl stopped the horse and got down. She first groomed the horse a little, and then set her own dress to rights. It was not raining now, so she took off the shawl, folded it MAGNHILD up and put it in the little pocket in the front of the carriole. She thrust her fingers in under her headgear to tidy her hair, which hung down in wisps over her cheeks. " She seemed odd that woman ;" he pointed the way they had just come. The girl looked at him and hummed a little. Then she inter- rupted herself: " Do you remember the land- slip you passed a couple of miles back in the mountains?" "I've passed so many land- slips." She smiled : " Yes, but this one was on the other side of a church." "An old landslip?" " Yes, it's a long time since the thing happened, It was there her people's farm used to be. The landslip came when she was eight or nine years old. Her parents, all her brothers and sisters, and every living creature on the farm were killed ; no one was saved but her. The landslip carried her over the river, and when the people came to the rescue, she was the first thing they found ; and she was unconscious." The traveller fell into a reverie. " She must be destined for something," he said at last. The girl looked up. She waited some time ; but MAGNHILD their glances did not meet. She seated herself on the box and they drove on. The valley widened out down here by the port : the farms lay in the level bottom. The church, with the graveyard round it, lay to the right, a little apart from the village, which was a small trading port. The houses were some- what numerous, mostly of one storey, painted white or red, or else not painted at all. Along the fjord were the wharves. A steamboat was just getting up steam ; farther away at the mouth of the river a couple of old brigs were taking in cargo. The church was new, and was an attempt at the style of the old Norwegian stave-churches. The traveller must have understood that ; for he paused, looked a moment at the exterior, and then alighted and went in through the gate, and then through the church door ; both gate and door were standing open. He was scarcely inside before the bells began to ring ; and he saw through the open door a bridal procession coming up from the village. As he came out again, the procession was close to the gate of the churchyard, and he stood there while it passed 4 MAGNHILD by : the bridegroom, an elderly man with huge fists and a huge face ; the bride, a young girl, thick-set and heavy. The bridesmaids were all dressed in white and wore gloves. Not one of them dared look at the stranger, unless it might be with a side glance ; most of them were round-shouldered, one was crooked ; indeed there was scarcely a single really well-built girl among them. Their masculine ideals came after them in grey, brown, and black felt hats, in baggy coats, pea-jackets, or round ones. Most of them had their hair twisted into a curl just in front of the ear, and their beards, when they had any, were wisps under the chin. Their faces were hard ; their mouths generally coarse, and for the most part tobacco-stained at the corners. Some of them carried a plug in the cheek. The traveller thought involuntarily of the woman in the waterproof. Her story was the story of the landscape. Her delicate, though as yet unawakened face, was as full of longings as the mountains of drifting rain showers ; all that he saw both landscape and people became a background for her figure. 5 MAGNHILD As he came towards the road, the post-girl went over to the wayside where the horse was browsing. But even while she was drawing the horse back by the bridle she looked intently at the bridal procession. "Are you engaged to be married ?" he asked, smiling. " The man who is to have me, hasn't got eyes," she answered, in the words of a proverb. " Then you are longing for something more than you can find here," he said, adding "perhaps for America?" She looked taken aback ; the question evidently struck home. " Is it to earn the passage-money more quickly that you do posting ? The tips are liberal, eh ?" She was blushing now. She answered not a word, but resumed her seat with her back to him even before he had got into the carriole. They were soon among the hotels which lay on each side of the road, close to the edge of the town itself. They drew up in front of one of them. By the railing stood several loungers, most of them mere lads ; they had no doubt been watching the bridal procession, and were waiting now for the travellers who would be coming by the steamboat. The , newcomer alighted and 6 MAGNHILD went indoors, while the girl untied the box. As she did so, some one must have offered her help ; for as the traveller came to the window he saw her push away from her a tall hobblede- hoy in a short jacket. Presumably she said something rough at the same time, and got as good as she gave, for the bystanders burst into a peal of laughter. The girl came in with the heavy box. The traveller opened the door for her, and she laughed as she came up to him. As he was counting out the money for her, he said : "I agree with you, Ronnaug, you should get away to America as soon as possible." He gave her two dollars for herself : " Let me add my mite," he said, gravely. She looked at him open-eyed and open-mouthed, took the money, thanked him, and tried to push back her hair with both hands, for it was falling down again. But in so doing she lost several of the coins she had in one of her half-closed fists. She stooped to pick them up, whereupon several hooks in her bodice gave way, so that the kerchief round her neck was loosened and one end of it fell out ; for something heavy was tied up in it. While she was busied putting it right, she dropped her 7 MAGNHILD money again. However, at last she got away with all her riches, and was received outside with a coarse jest. But this time she did not answer. On the contrary, she glanced shyly in at the window as she passed, driving the horse at a brisk pace. He was to see her once more ; for later, when he went down to the steamboat, she was standing with her back turned to the street in a doorway, over which hung a sign with " Skarlie, Sadler " painted on it. He drew nearer and saw Magn- hild standing inside in the passage. She had not yet taken off her waterproof, though the rain had long ceased. Even the hood, she still wore over her head. Magnhild saw him first and drew back ; Ronnaug turned and also retreated into the passage. That evening Ronnaug's ticket was bought ; for the sum was made up. Magnhild did not undress when Ronnaug went home, late as it was. She sat in a big chair in a little low room, or paced up and down. And just once leaning her heavy head against the window- pane, she said, half aloud : "Then she must be destined for something." 8 CHAPTER II SHE had heard these words before. The first time was in the churchyard, that gusty winter's day, when fourteen of her kins- people were buried, all those she had cared for, parents, grandparents, and brothers and sisters. She stood there once again ! The wind had here and there swept the snow away ; the palings of the fence stuck sharply out ; big stones cropped up as if they were the heads of monsters who lay with the rest of their bodies in the drift. The wind whistled behind them in the open aisle of the church, and down from the old wooden belfry the shrieking clangour of the bell cut its way, stroke by stroke. The people stood round, blue with the cold, their hands in mittens, and their coats well buttoned up ; the pastor in sea boots and a fur coat under his cassock. He too wore great 9 MAGNHILD mittens, as one noticed when he gesticulated. He pointed with one of them at her. " This poor child kept her footing, and with the rope of her little sledge still in her hand, she was carried down and across the frozen river the only creature whom the Lord was pleased to save. For what is she destined ? " She drove home with him, sitting in his lap. He had commended her to the care of the community, and now took her along with him "in the meantime," in order to set a good example. She nestled cosily against his fur coat, with her little numb fingers inside his great mittens, against his soft fat hands. And the whole time she sat and thought, "For what am I destined, I wonder ! " She thought she would find that out when she got indoors. But she saw nothing here that she had not seen before, until she went into the inner room, where a piano, which some one was playing on at the moment, fascinated her. But for that very reason she forgot what had been in her mind when she came in. The pastor's family consisted of two daughters, rather thick-set girls, with small round heads and MAGNHILD fair hair in plaits. They had a new governess, a pallid person, stoutish, with more bare neck than Magnhild was accustomed to see, and with open sleeves. Her voice sounded as though her throat were not quite clear ; and Magnhild more than once found herself coughing in this lady's stead, as though that might relieve her, but it didn't. The governess asked Magnhild her name, and if she could read ; Magnhild could, of course, for all her family had been book-lovers. Then the governess proposed (always speaking in the same husky voice) that Magnhild should have lessons with the other girls in order to spur them on. Magnhild was a year older than the elder one. The mother sat a little apart doing some embroidery. She now looked up at Magnhild and said : " A very good plan," and then bent over her embroidery again. She was a woman of middle size, neither thin nor stout, with a small head and light hair. The pastor, large and ponderous, came downstairs after having taken off his cassock. He was smoking, and said, as he passed through the room : " I see a fish-cart coming along ; " then he went on out. MAGNHILD The younger girl began practising her scales again. Magnhild did not know whether she ought not to go out to the kitchen. She was still sitting on the wood-box by the stove, tortured by this uncertainty, when they were called into the next room to dinner. They all laid aside their work, and the little girl at the piano closed the instrument. When Magnhild was alone, and heard the knives and forks clattering, she began to cry, for she had had nothing to eat that day. In the middle of the meal the pastor came out of the dining-room ; for the family had agreed that he probably had not bought a sufficient quantity of fish. He opened a window, and called to the man to wait till they had finished dinner. As he turned to go into the dining-room again, he saw the child sitting on the wood box. " Are you hungry ? " he asked. She did not answer. He had lived long enough among peasants to under- stand that silence meant yes, so he took her by the hand and led her to the table, where they quietly made room for her. In the afternoon she joined the girls in playing with their little sledge, and afterwards she read with them and MAGNHILD had a lesson with them in Bible history ; then shared an afternoon bite with them and played again till supper-time, when she came to the table with the rest. She slept that night on a sofa-bed in the dining-room, and did her lessons the following day with the pastor's daughters. She had no other clothes than those she was wearing, but the governess cut down an old dress for her ; she got some old linen one of the girls had done with, and she went about in a pair of boots belonging to the mistress of the house. The sofa-bed she slept on was moved when the dining-room had to be given up to the shoemakers who came to overhaul the shoes of the house- hold. It was placed in the kitchen, but there it was in the way; then it went into the servants' room, but the door was always banging against it ; and at last it was taken up to the children's room. Thus it happened that she came to eat, to work, and to sleep with the pastor's daughters ; and as no clothes were ever made specially for her, it ended by her going about in theirs. In the same haphazard way she came to play the piano. It was discovered that she had a greater aptitude for music than the daughters 13 MAGNHILD of the house ; so she had to learn in order to help them. She grew tall, and developed a pretty singing voice. The governess trained it, but chiefly in singing by note, at first merely because the governess cared most for the mechanical part of music, but afterwards too, because in their solitude up there they found amusement in the remarkable proficiency the girl attained in sing- ing at sight. The pastor would lie on the sofa his favourite attitude and laugh aloud when Magnhild ran through all kinds of exercises, up and down like a squirrel in a tree. The result for Magnhild was that she came to learn more not of music, as one might have anticipated, but of basket-weaving. For at this time the opinion spread like an epidemic, that dexterity in handicraft must be cultivated amongst the peasantry, and emissaries of the new doctrine visited this parish among the rest. Magnhild was chosen for the first pupil : she was the one likely to have the greatest "dexterity." After basket - weaving came the double spinning-wheel ; after that weaving, especially the more artistic kinds ; MAGNHILD after that embroidery, &c. &c. She learned it all very rapidly ; that is to say, she learned with ardour until she had mastered it ; to carry the thing further did not amuse her. But now that she was obliged to teach others, both adults and children, it became an established custom for her to go twice a week to the parish school, where many pupils gathered. What had once become fixed as a habit she thought no more about. The house she was brought up in set her the example. The pastor's wife went her regular rounds in kitchen, cellar, and dairy ; afterwards she worked at her embroidery ; the entire house was embroidered through and through. One might have taken her for a fat spider with a little round head, that hung her web over chairs, tables, beds, sleighs, and carriages. Her voice was seldom heard : she was seldom spoken to. The clergyman was much older than his wife. His face was remarkable, in that it had so little nose and chin, and so little eye ; but so much of everything else. In his college days he had barely passed his examinations, and then sup- ported himself by giving lessons, till, in middle MAGNHILD life, he married one of his former pupils a girl with a fortune. Then he devoted himself to looking for a clerical charge, " the only thing about which he ever displayed any perseverance," as he used to say in jest. After ten years' seek- ing, he had (not very long before) obtained this living, and he could hardly hope for anything more. He lay on the sofa, for the most part, and read ; chiefly novels, but periodicals and papers as well. The governess sat in the selfsame chair in which Magnhild had seen her the first day ; she took the same daily walk to church and back again, and was punctual to the moment with her work. She had gradually grown excessively stout, had still the bare neck and the open sleeves, and still the muffled, husky voice, as if from a throat which no healthy action had ever cleared. The clergyman's daughters grew large and heavy, like their father, with small, round heads, like their mother. Magnhild and they were friends, that is to say, they slept in the same room, worked, played, and ate together. There was no circulation of ideas in the parish. If 16 MAGNHILD any came from without, they did not, in any case, penetrate further than the study. The clergyman did not impart them. The utmost he did in that way was occasionally to read aloud some old or new novel, which he hap- pened to find entertaining. One evening they were gathered round the table. The clergyman had yielded to their en- treaties, and had just begun to read aloud " The Pickwick Club." Thereupon, the kitchen door was slowly opened, and in was thrust a great bald head, with a broad, snub nose, and a smiling aspect. A short leg, with very wide trousers, next appeared, and after that another, crooked, and, therefore, shorter still. The whole figure seemed lopsided, as he turned on the crooked leg to shut the door. In doing so, he exhibited the back of the same great head, with a little fringe of hair, low down a square back ; and disproportionately large hind quarters, only half covered by a pea-jacket. Again he made a lopsided turn towards them, and again presented to them his smiling face with the snub nose. The girls bent their heads down over their sewing, a suppressed titter came first 17 B MAGNHILD from one young seamstress, and then from the other. " Are you the saddler ? " asked the pastor, rising. " Yes," he answered, hobbling forward and offering his fist, which was so extraordinarily large, and had such wide, round finger-tips, that the pastor could not but look at it as he took it. The fist was offered all round, and when Magnhild's turn came, she burst out laughing just as her hand vanished into his. One peal followed another, and was in turn suppressed. The pastor hastened to say that they were reading " The Pickwick Club." " Ha ! Ha ! " was the saddler's response. " Yes ; you can't help laughing at that." " Have you read it ? " asked the pastor. " Yes, during the years I was in America I read most of the English authors in fact, I've got them all at home now," he answered, and began to tell of the cheap popular editions one could get. But the laughter of young girls is not so easily suppressed ; it kept bubbling up again, even after the saddler had lit his pipe, and the reading was resumed. Now, indeed, they had a pretext. The pastor grew tired after a little, and wanted to stop ; but the saddler 18 MAGNHILD offered to read on, and actually did so. He read in a dry, sedate way, and with such an un- usual pronunciation of the proper names, that the humour of the thing became irresistible. Even the pastor joined in the laughter, which no one any longer restrained. The girls kept on laughing, scarcely knowing what they laughed at. Even when they went up to bed they were still laughing, and while they were undressing they imitated the walk of the saddler, said " good evening," and talked as he did, and spoke the foreign words with his (English) pronunciation. Magnhild was the cleverest in taking him off: not much had escaped her. At this time she was fifteen : in her sixteenth year. The next day they spent every moment of leisure in the dining-room, which was now no longer the dining-room, but the work-room. The saddler told about a residence of many years in America, and of his travels in England and Germany ; he talked away without inter- rupting his work and was always putting in some jest. An incessant titter from his listeners followed the narration. They scarcely noticed 19 MAGNHILD themselves how by degrees they stopped laugh- ing at him, and laughed at the humour of his talk instead ; nor did they notice until later how much they all learned from him. He was so much missed, that, when he went home, the talk about him took up more than half their time for many days after, and, indeed, never absolutely ceased. Two things had made the deepest impression on Magnhild. The first was the English and German songs he had sung for them. She had not understood the words, unless, perhaps, a fragment now and then ; but how the melodies had enthralled her ! It was while singing psalms on Sunday, they had first noticed that Skarlie had an excellent voice. After that he was made to sing perpetually. These foreign airs blowing hither out of a fuller existence, haunted Magnhild the whole summer long. They conjured up images which, for the first time, awoke real longing. One may say, too, that she never before understood what song was. One day when she was practising again the everlasting scales, as a preparation for singing at sight, she suddenly felt this tuneless exercise MAGNHILD like the beating of wings against a cage ; they seemed to be fluttering up and down against the walls, the windows, the doors, in constant and unavailing protest, until silently the sound sank down like cobwebs over the furniture of the room. With hts songs she could sit alone out of doors. While she hummed them, the tints of the forest melted into a picture, and this was a new experience. The effect of density and strength, as one tree-top towered over another up the whole mountain side, almost overwhelmed her ; the rushing sound of the river fascinated her. The other thing which had made so deep an impression on her, and acted upon her in the same direction, was his story of how he had become lame. As a young man in America, he had rescued a twelve-year old boy from a burn- ing house. He had fallen with the boy under the falling ruins. Both were dragged out : Skarlie with a broken leg, but the boy unhurt. Now, this boy was one of the most remarkable men in America. He had to be saved : " he was destined for something." This reminder ! The thought of her own MAGNHILU destiny had hitherto been associated with the churchyard's wintry aspect, frost, and weeping, and the penetrating sound of bells ; it had been something gloomy. Now it shifted to big cities beyond the seas, among ships, burning houses, song, and lofty fortunes. From this time on, she dreamed about the thing that she was des- tined for as something remote or vast. 22 CHAPTER III LATE that summer, all three girls were con- firmed. This was so much a matter of course to them all, that the thing that chiefly occupied them was what kind of dress they should have for the great day. Magnhild, who never yet had worn a dress which had been cut out and made for her, was wondering if she should at last have one. No. The little girls were given silk dresses ; but for her, an old black gown was made over, one which had become too small for the pastor's wife. It was too short, both in the waist and skirt, but that she scarcely noticed. She got a little coloured silk kerchief from the governess to put round her neck, and a brooch ; she borrowed her everyday shawl from the pastor's wife, and the governess lent her a pair of gloves. Her inward preparation was no more elaborate than her outward. 23 MAGNHILD The day slipped pleasantly away without any special excitement. Religious sentiments at the parsonage, as, indeed, generally throughout the parish, were a placid matter of habit. There was some crying in the church, the parson pro- duced wine at dinner, and drank healths ; and there was some discussion as to what was now to become of Magnhild. This last affected her so far as to make her get up after the coffee was served, and go out and sit by herself. She gazed across at the broad streak of bare stone and sand down the side of the wooded moun- tains, and finally at the vast stretch of debris in the middle of the plain for it was there her home had stood. Her little brothers and sisters stood before her, one bright face beside another. Her mother came as well ; the melancholy eyes rested upon her. She saw once more the lines about the mouth. Her gentle voice flowed around her in a beautiful psalm. They had just that day been singing in the church one of the psalms she used to sing. Her father sat again at his bench with his silver work, at which he was a master hand. A book or a paper lay at his side he would 24 MAGNHILD pause in his work now and then, glance down at the open book, or turn a page. His long delicate face was turned at intervals towards the room and the people in it. The old grandparents sat in the next room. Grandmother trotted about getting some tidbit for Magnhild ; while grandfather told the children a story. The dog lay and stretched himself by the fireplace, shaggy and grey. His whining was the last sound of life she had heard behind her as she was carried down. That horrible day overshadowed the whole picture of her child- hood, with night and thunder and shuddering. She covered up her face and burst into tears. The saddler's songs came crooning, bringing with them longing and indistinct images. Out of the half-understood songs and out of his stories, which she often quite misunderstood, a motley multitude moved by; and, wearied out with the day's thoughts, emotions, and longings, numbed, overcome, she fell asleep. The evening brought Ronnaug. They had come to know her at the meetings for confirmation preparation. She was in service in the neigh- bourhood, and had a holiday in honour of the 25 MAGNHILD occasion. She brought with her a lot of stories about the various love affairs in the parish. The young girls of the parsonage, who knew so litttle of such things, sat with wide eyes and listened. It was Ronnaug's fault that the youngest made a rent in her new silk dress. Ronnaug rolled over and over down the slopes with such marvellous speed that they got her to do it again and again, and at last the parson's daughter must needs imitate her. After that she often came in the evenings when her work was done. They all took delight in her irrepressible, high spirits. She was as healthy and frolicsome as a young calf, having scarcely clothes enough to cover her, for she was always tearing them in bits ; and she had an endless labour with her hair, which was for ever coming down over her face, because she had never properly done it up. When she laughed and that was a thing she did not do by halves she threw her head back so that they could see past a row of teeth white as a wild beast's, and far down into her throat. Skarlie came again in the autumn. There was a difference between the reception he had 26 MAGNHILD now and the former one. They all three stood about his sledge, they carried in his things despite his laughing remonstrance, and they laughed with him too as he stopped in the hall to take off his fur coat. An unceasing storm of questions pelted about him the first time they sat with him in his work- room. There were obscurities and doubts saved up since the time he had last talked to them, and a variety of other things besides, which they thought he would be able to explain. About few things in the parish did he express the current opinions ; but he would turn things off with a joke when they pressed him too hard. If he chanced to be alone with Magnhild, he would express himself more freely ; at first with caution, but by degrees in stronger terms. Never before had she in any way criticised her surroundings ; now she quickly learned to laugh with him over the pastor's last sermon, or his lazy life, or over the mistress's spider-like activity, which he described in such an amusing way. " The fat tranquillity " of the governess, even her little friends' "round yellow heads," she could laugh at, because the jesting tone in 27 MAGNHILD which he touched them off was so surprisingly new ; she did not perceive how this jesting little by little loosened the solid earth under her feet. The customary pastime in the country of accusing a young girl of being in love found in the meantime a somewhat unprepared victim in Magnhild. They called her " the saddler's wife," because she was always sitting with him. He got to hear of it himself, and began at once to call her "his wife" "his tall wife," "his fair wife," "his very young wife." The following summer, the pastor's daughters went to town to finish their education. The governess remained behind " for the present." The saddler came again in the autumn to complete his work. Magnhild was naturally oftener alone with him now. He was livelier than ever. His favourite jest was about travel- ling round the world with " his young wife." They had a dreadful lot of accidents by the way, and saw many remarkable things, which he described at length, with the advantage of per- sonal experience. But the most amusing thing of all was the picture of the two travellers he limping on before with a travelling bag, 28 MAGNHILD and she following with waterproof and umbrella, irritated by heat and dust and thirst ; tired, and heartily sick of him. Then they would rest in his little house at the port, where she would have her own way in everything and live like a princess. It would be impossible to describe the face of the pastor when one evening the saddler came up to the study, sat down opposite him, and, after a very simple preface, asked if the pastor had any objection to Magnhild's becoming his wife. The pastor was lying on the sofa, smoking. He took the pipe out of his mouth, the hand that held it dropped; the muscles of the fat face were relaxed till it looked like dough in which were stuck eyes as expressionless as two raisins ; until he all at once gave a jerk, so that the springs under him creaked and cracked. The book which lay upside down on his knee slid to the floor ; the saddler took it up with a smile and turned over the leaves. The pastor had risen. "What does Magnhild say to it?" The saddler looked up still smiling. "I, of course, wouldn't have asked, if it were unlikely that she would agree with me about it." The 29 MAGNHILD pastor raised the pipe to his lips and puffed away. By degrees he grew more calm, and, without pausing in his walk, he said : " As a matter of fact, I don't know what is likely to become of the girl." The saddler looked up again from the book he was glancing through, and which he now laid aside. " It's really more a kind of adoption than a marriage. Down there with me she can do anything she likes with her life." The pastor looked at him, puffed and walked up and down and puffed again. " I suppose you're very well off ? " " Well, if not exactly well off, I have at least enough to marry on." He laughed. But there was something in the laugh that did not altogether please the pastor. He did not like either the indifference Skarlie affected in the matter. He liked least of all being taken so by surprise. " I must speak to my wife about it," he said, and drew a long audible breath. "Yes, that is what I must do," he added, with more conviction, " and speak to Magnhild too," came as an afterthought. " Of course," said the other, and rose. A little while after, his wife was sitting where 30 MAGNHILD the saddler had sat. She let both hands lie open on her lap, and gazed after her lord and master as he paced up and down and smoked. "Well, what do you think ?" he repeated, stopping before her. He received no answer, and began his walk again. " He is far too old," she said, at last. " And rather underhand in his ways," added the pastor. He paused near her and whispered : " No one really knows where he came from or exactly why he wants to stay here. He could easily have a big workshop in a large town. Well off, as he is, and such a clever dog !" In everyday life the pastor was not overchoice in his terms. " Fancy ! that she should let herself be cajoled into this," whispered the mistress of the house. " Cajoled ! just the word cajoled ! " repeated the pastor, and snapped his fingers. " Cajoled !" he smoked away. " I am so sorry for her," said the wife, and she let several tears fall. The pastor took up this "Look here, mother, we will talk with her, we two," and he moved heavily away. A moment or two later Magnhild stood within the study door wondering what they wanted 31 MAGNHILD with her. The pastor began : " Is it really true, Magnhild, that you have agreed to be the wife of this saddler fellow ? " The pastor often used this word " fellow," instead of speaking the name. Magnhild grew redder than she had probably ever been before. Both construed this as an admission. " Why have you not con- sulted us about a thing of this kind ?" said the pastor, annoyed. "It is so strange of you, Magnhild," said his wife, weeping. Magnhild was utterly dismayed. " Do you really want to marry him ?" asked the pastor, stopping with decision in front of her. Now the truth was, Magnhild had never been accustomed to expressing what she felt. Questioned in this tone she had not the courage to explain simply that the thing had at first been a joke ; that later she perhaps had suspected a strain of earnest in it, but that the matter was constantly mixed up afresh with jesting, so that she had not taken much trouble to protest. How could she, while the pastor stood over her, begin such a long story ? So she began to cry instead. Now, the pastor had no wish to pain her. 32 MAGNHILD What was done was done. He was sorry for her, and so in the goodness of his heart he tried to help her to find reasons for her choice. Skarlie was really a man in very good circumstances, he said, and she was a poor girl ; so far as that went, she could not certainly expect to make a better match. He was old ; but he had said himself that he regarded it more as an adoption than as a marriage ; her happiness was his chief object. But Magnhild could not bear to listen to all this ; she flew to the door. Outside in the passage she burst out crying as if her heart would break ; she was obliged to take refuge in the attic, so as not to disturb the house. There she began gradually to realise the reasons of her grief. It was not because the saddler wanted her that she was crying, but because the pastor and his wife did not want her. That was the construction she had put upon it. When the governess was made acquainted with the matter, she did not take at all the same view of it as the pastor's wife, who could not understand Magnhild. Now, the governess did, perfectly. He was a clever man, positively 33 c MAGNHILD witty. He was rich, full of spirits a little ugly ! Yes, but that didn't matter so much down at the port. (Her literal words.) And in this strain she talked to Magnhild too, when finally she succeeded in getting hold of her. Magnhild was red with weeping, and broke out afresh at this ; but not a word did she say. The pastor expressed himself rather curtly to the saddler, to the effect that, things being as they were, it was best that he should lose no time. This was the saddler's own desire. He had finished his work here too. However much he tried to get speech of Magnhild, he could not once manage to see her. So he was obliged to go away unsuccessful. Magnhild did not show herself on the follow- ing days either in the sitting-room or at the table. No one sought her out to talk to her ; the governess thought it so natural that she should wish to be alone at so serious a juncture. One day, to their surprise, the post brought a letter and a big packet for Magnhild. The letter ran : " In order to carry out our delightful joke to the end, dear Magnhild, I have come down here. 34 MAGNHILD My house was painted in the summer inside and out, a joke which now looks like earnest, eh ? " I deal in beds, furniture, bed-clothes, &c., so I can buy them of myself. When I think of the object of all this, it becomes the most amusing business I ever engaged in. " Do you remember how we laughed the time when I measured you to prove how much too short your dress was in the bodice, how much too wide across the shoulders, and how much too short in the skirt ? I happened, by chance, to write down your measurements, and according to them I am now having made for you : " One black silk dress (Lyons taffeta), " One brown (cachemire), " One blue (of light woollen material). As I have always told you, I think blue becomes you best. " These things are not ready just at the moment, so they will come at the earliest oppor- tunity. Other things you may perhaps need I telegraphed to Bergen for, the moment I came here ; there all such things are to be had ready made. You will probably get what I sent for, by the same post that brings you this letter. 35 MAGNHILD "As you see (and shall continue to see later on) there is a good deal of fun in being married. I have to-day drawn up my will, and have left everything to you. " With respectful greeting to the pastor and his honoured family, I sign myself your most obedient jest-maker. "T. SKARLIE." Magnhild had taken refuge in the attic with both the letter and the large parcel. She had devoured the letter, and came out of its perusal confused and angry ; then she tore open the parcel and found several sets of everything needed for a complete outfit of feminine under- clothing. She threw the things from her right and left, her face in a flame, indignantly ashamed. Then she sat down and cried bitterly. Now she had courage to speak ! She rushed downstairs to the pastor's wife, threw her arms about her neck, whispered "Forgive me!" then thrust the letter into her hand and vanished. Her mistress did not understand her "forgive me ! " but saw, of course, that she was crying, and was in great excitement. She took the 36 MAGNHILD letter and read it. it was singular in form, it seemed to her, but the contents appeared much clearer, for they indicated the care of a sensible elderly man, and that was worthy of all praise. This quality, of course, recommended itself to an old housewife, and she took the letter to the pastor. He felt the same : he began to think that Magnhild might quite well be happy with this singular man. His wife searched the house for her, to tell her that both she and the pastor thought things promised well. She was told that Magnhild was up in the attic ; so she put a shawl on (for it was cold), and went up to her. She met the governess and took her along with her. They did not see Magnhild, but they saw the things which were thrown about over the floor and over the boxes and trunks. They gathered them together, counted them, examined them, and pronounced them remarkably nice. They understood that a gift of this kind might make a young girl feel embarrassed. But, after all, he was an elderly man, who had a right to treat her in fatherly fashion. They said as much to her when at last they found her. And she had no longer the courage to confide in 37 MAGNHILD them ; because the pastor's wife, supported by the governess, gave her what they called rational advice. She mustn't be proud, but must remember she was a poor girl without relations and without a future. In the days that followed she went through a secret struggle. But she had no power of re- sistance. Where should she have got it from ? What was to become of her, since the pastor's family were so obviously tired of her ? A little while afterwards came a box, con- taining her dresses, &c. Magnhild would not touch it ; but the governess, who imagined that she thoroughly understood this shyness, took care to have it opened. She and the pastor's wife took out article by article, and before long they had Magnhild standing, first in one dress, then in another, before the great mirror in the sitting-room. The doors were locked, and the pastor's wife and the governess were much excited. At last came the black silk dress, and by this time Magnhild had, little by little, lost her indifference. She felt a blushing satisfaction at seeing her figure in the glass robed in fine stuffs. She discovered her own beauty, point 38 MAGNHILD by point. Even as to her face she had never noticed clearly, before to-day, how the faces of those whom she saw around her were more or less undistinguished, while hers she saw her own with the vision which a handsome, well-fitting dress had suddenly awakened in her. This image of herself stood before her for days. She took care not to disturb it by look- ing in the glass. Again the old dreams came crowding about her dreams that drifted over the sea towards something foreign and vast. But the marriage ? She cast the thought of it away from her in moods like these, as if it were nothing more than a gangway, which is drawn ashore when it has been used. How was she able to regard it so ? Ah ! how many times, in the years that followed, did she not pause to ask herself that question. But it always remained inexplicable. She was not to be persuaded to put on one of the new dresses the day that Skarlie was to come, nor to go out and receive him ; on the contrary, she went and hid herself. Later, and as if by chance, she made her appearance. She 39 MAGNHILD consistently treated both him and the marriage as matters that did not concern her. Skarlie was in high spirits, for both the pas- tor and his wife tried to make up for Magnhild's want of civility, and he met their advances in the most winning way. The governess found him positively lovable. Magnhild sat in the dining-room the next evening, putting in order some things belonging to the school of handicraft, which she was now to return. She was alone. Skarlie came in softly, and smilingly shut the door slowly be- hind him, and sat down by her side. She was conscious of the leathery odour of the saddler, but she did not raise her eyes. He talked at length of indifferent things, so that she began to breathe easily again. At last she even dared to look down at him, as then he sat leaning for- ward and smoking. She saw the bald head, a bushy eyebrow, and the end of the snub nose ; and then his great fists, and the characteristic nails shapely, and set far down into the flesh, which completely surrounded them, like a thick, round frame. There was dirt under the tips of the nails a thing that the governess, who, her- 40 MAGNHILD self, had pretty hands, had made her pupils regard as a deadly sin. She looked at the brist- ling reddish hair, which completely covered these fists. He had been silent a moment ; but, as though he were conscious of being scrutinised, he drew himself up, and, with a smile, stretched out one of the fists towards her : " Yes, yes, Magnhild ! " he laid it over both her hands. A shudder went through her, and the moment after she was sitting like one paralysed. She was incapable of any movement or any thought, other than that a great lobster had taken hold of her. His head came nearer : the eyes were those of a lobster, too they went through her. She had never noticed this look in them before. She sprang to her feet : he remained sitting. She did not look back, but busied herself where she stood with some other things belong- ing to the school of handicraft. Still, she did not leave the room : a moment after, he did so. The next day the governess decked her out in her bridal finery ; the pastor's wife was pre- sent, too it was a pleasure to her, she said. Magnhild allowed them to do what they liked 41 MAGNHILD with her, without moving, without uttering a word, and without shedding a tear. The same in the sitting-room. She sat motionless. There was something like defiance in her attitude, now. A group of servants and cottagers sat or stood by the kitchen door, and among them, peeping out, she saw the heads of children. The clerk started the singing the moment the pastor came down. She did not look at the bridegroom. The pastor pulled out the pathetic stop ; his wife wept, and so did the governess ; but Magnhild's coldness chilled both him and them. The ad- dress was short and commonplace. Afterwards came perfunctory congratulation, and a painful silence. Even the saddler lost his smile. The thought that dinner awaited them, came like salvation. During the meal the pastor tried to make a speech, and began : " Dear Magnhild, I hope you do not take it ill of us " he got no further, for Magnhild burst into such violent weeping that, by degrees, it infected the pastor's wife, the governess, even the pastor, and for a time everything was at a standstill. At length the 42 MAGNHILD pastor managed to add merely : " Remember us." But here again the same heartrending weeping interrupted him, so that no health was drunk. What was actually the matter was not clear to any of them, unless perhaps to the bridegroom ; he was silent. During dessert, one of the servants came in and whispered some words to the bride. Ronnaug was outside, she wanted to say good- bye ; she had waited ever since they had sat down to table, and she could not stay any longer. Magnhild went out. Ronnaug was standing outside the porch, numb with the cold. She had been afraid of being in the way if she went inside, she said. She looked at the bride's dress and considered it elegant beyond words. She drew off one mitten and stroked the gown with the back of her hand. " Yes, I suppose he's rich but not if he had given me a heap of silver would I have " and she added something which cannot be set down ; something on account of which Magnhild, with flaming face, dealt her a sound box on the ear. Her shawl protected her somewhat, but the blow was exceedingly well directed. 43 MAGNHILD Magnhild came in again and sat down, not in her place by the bridegroom, but on a chair by the window ; she wouldn't eat anything more, she said. In vain they begged her at least to sit with them till the others had finished ; she could not, she said. The party broke up soon after the coffee was served. But just then a circumstance occurred which relieved the strain of emotion, of whatever sort it might be. This was that the bridegroom, looking at first blush like some shaggy beast, came in carrying a fur cloak, a pair of lined shoes, a jacket, hood, fur gloves and muff. He dropped them all in front of Magnhild, saying, with dry earnestness : " I lay these at your feet !" A burst of laughter followed, in which even Magnhild was obliged to join. They all gathered round the things which lay scattered over the carpet, and were loud in praise of them. It was obviously not unpleasant to Magnhild either, facing a winter journey for which she had borrowed a quantity of things, to see such an offering laid at her feet, A little while after, she stood arrayed in her blue 44 MAGNHILD dress, and in so much was she child or woman, that she found the experience pleasant. Immediately after, the new travelling things were put on one by one, in the midst of general interest, which reached its height when Magnhild was drawn forward to the mirror in order to see herself. The horse was brought to the door, and Skarlie came in at that moment. He, too, was dressed for the journey, in dog-skin overcoat, with shoes and leggings of reindeer skin, and a flat fur cap. He was very nearly as broad as he was long, and just to make them laugh, he hobbled over to the mirror and placed himself, with a droll look, by Magnhild's side. They all laughed ; even she joined in, but instantly became silent again. This mood lasted through the leave-taking. It was not until the parsonage was finally left behind, that she burst into tears again. She looked at the snow-covered waste where her father's home had stood, but in a dull fashion, as though there were something in her, too, covered with ruins and with snow. The weather was cold. The valley became narrower, the road lay through a thick wood. One single star was in the sky. 45 MAGNHILD Skarlie had been cutting figures in the snow with the whip ; he pointed with it, now, towards the star, and began to hum, and then to sing ; it was a Scotch a Highland air. It followed them like a melancholy bird, from one heavily snow-laden fir-tree to another. Magnhild asked what it was about, and its meaning seemed to harmonise with a journey deep into the heart of a forest. Skarlie told her more about Scotland, its history, and about his sojourn there. Once started, he kept on, and, by-and-by, told her such lively stories, that Magnhild was surprised when they came to their first stopping- place surprised that she had been able to laugh, and that they had already driven nearly fourteen miles. He helped her out of the sleigh, and showed her into the sitting-room of the inn, but he went out again immediately, to feed the horse. In the room, by the fireplace, sat a young lady, warming herself. Scattered about on the benches were her wraps, made of so fine a fabric and fur, that Magnhild's curiosity could be satisfied only by feeling them. In cut and material, the lady's travelling dress produced 4 6 MAGNHILD something of an exotic impression : she sug- gested a creature from another part of the world. Her face showed she was young, and expressed a kind of gentle sadness ; she was fair, with languishing eyes, and a nose slightly aquiline. Her hair, too, was done up in an un- familiar fashion. A thin young man was pass- ing to and fro ; his travelling boots stood by the hearth, he wore little morocco-leather slippers, lined with white fur. His movements were graceful and easy. "Are you Skarlie's young wife ? " asked the landlady. She was an oldish woman, and was placing a chair for her by the fire. Before Magnhild could answer, Skarlie came in, bring- ing several articles out of the sleigh. The bald head, half emerging from the huge mass of furs, the reindeer shoes, spreading out like great roots over the floor, attracted the astonished gaze of the lady. " Is this your wife ? " repeated the landlady, turning towards Skarlie. " Yes, my wife," he said, gaily, and hobbled out again. The young man looked at Magnhild. She 47 MAGNHILD felt herself growing red as fire under his gaze. There was something altogether new to her in this stranger's expression. Was it scorn ? Now the lady was looking at her too. The hostess invited Magnhild to sit by the fire. But she remained on the bench away in the shadow. It was well past ten o'clock when they reached the port, and all the lights were extinguished, even in the house before which they drew up. An old woman, wakened by the ringing of the bell, came to the street door, opened it, peered out, and then went back and lit a lamp. She met Magnhild in the passage ; she held the light so that it fell on her face, and said finally : " You are welcome." A strong smell of leather filled the passage ; for the workroom and shop lay to the left. The disgusting odour prevented Magnhild from replying. They entered a room on the right. She began to take off her wraps hurriedly ; she felt a sensation of nausea. Scarcely had she got rid of her outdoor things when, without glancing round, or saying a word to the woman who stood behind the lamp, looking at her, she MAGNHILD went over and opened a door that she had noticed the instant she came in. She first held the light so that it shone into the room, and then went in herself. She closed the door be- hind her. The woman heard a rumbling noise, and went to the door. She could hear that one of the beds was being dragged across the floor .... Immediately afterwards Magnhild came out with the lamp. Her face reddened in the glare of the light. She wore a look of deter- mination. She told the woman she did not need her. It was not till long after that that the saddler came in, for he had been returning the horse which he had borrowed for the journey. The lamp stood on the table in the sitting-room. Every one had gone to bed. 49 CHAPTER IV SINCE that evening two years had gone by, and a good part of the third. Magnhild was as thoroughly broken in now to the new routine, as she had been to the old. The pastor came to see her three or four times a year. He slept in the room over the workshop where at other times Skarlie slept when he was at home. In the daytime, he was with the Captain or the Custom House Officer or the Bailiff. These visits were called the " Priest's Ride." There was chess-playing by day and cards in the evening. The pastor's wife and the young ladies had also paid her a visit. In the village itself there was scarcely any one with whom Magnhild associated. She and Skarlie had made one journey to Bergen. Whatever it may have been that 5 MAGNHILD happened or did not happen on that occasion, certain it is that they made no more excursions either to Bergen or elsewhere. Skarlie was oftener away than at home ; he was engaged in speculating ; his trade was almost abandoned, but still he kept his shop. Magnhild herself, shortly after her arrival, had probably at Skarlie's suggestion received an invitation from the school commission 10 under- take the management of a school of handicraft. Now she gave a lesson or two every day at the great public school, and besides this she gave special instruction to grown-up girls. Her time was taken up for the most part with walks, with singing, and with a little sewing ; she read almost not at all. It bored her. ROnnaug came down to the port directly after Magnhild's arrival. She had got employ- ment at the nearest posting-house in order to earn the money for the passage to America as quickly as possible. She was tired of being where she was regarded as the scum of the earth, she said. Magnhild received and took charge of ROn- naug's money, feeling dismayed at the rapidity MAGNHILD with which the sum increased ; for about this plan of going to America she had her own thoughts. Now the ticket was bought, and Magnhild was to be left utterly alone. She could not help brooding upon the idea that it should be so easy for one and so difficult for another to cross the sea, and seek out the strange and perhaps great things beyond it. One morning, after a sleepless night, she took her usual walk to the pier to watch the steam- boat come in. She saw the usual number of commercial travellers landing, the usual number of trunks being carried after them. But to-day she saw, in addition to these, a man with pale complexion, long soft hair, and large eyes, who was walking round a packing case, which he finally got lifted up on the wagon. "Take care! take care!" he repeated again and again. "It must be a piano ! " On arriving home, after having looked in at the school-house on the way, she saw the same man, with the box behind him, standing at the door of her own house. One of the hotel- keepers accompanied him. Skarlie had furnished the rooms above the sitting-room and bed- 52 MAGNHILD chamber for the accommodation of travellers when the hotels were full. This traveller was an invalid who preferred to live privately. Magnhild had not intended to let the rooms for any lengthened period, and so saddle herself with more or less responsibility. She was doubtful about doing so. The man came up to her. Eyes like his she had never seen, nor ever before so delicate, so intellectual a face. Absolutely irresistible was the charm of his eyes as they rested upon her. It was as if there were two expressions in this look, the one behind the other. She was powerless to fathom it more exactly, but it engrossed her to such a degree that she put her forefinger to her lips and forgot to answer. Now his face changed, it became observant. She was conscious of the change, came to herself, blushed, made some answer and went indoors. What had she answered ? Was it yes or no ? The hotel -keeper was following her. It was yes. She must first go up and see if all was in order, for she was not exactly proud of the way she kept things. There was a great to-do when the piano was 53 MAGNHILD carried up. It took some time, as it necessitated the moving of the bed and sofa and so on. But at last the disturbance came to an end, and everything was quiet. The pale traveller must be tired. Before long she heard neither step nor sound overhead. There is a difference between the stillness which is significant and that which is blank. She dared not move. She waited, listened. Should she hear the piano ? He was a composer, the hotel-keeper had said. It seemed to her, too, that she had read his name in the paper. What was it like when a man like that played ? It must be miraculous. At all events, a note was to be struck in her empty life, that should echo through the days that were to follow. She longed for some revelation of commanding genius. Her wandering glance fell upon the flowers that adorned her windows, and among which the sunshine played. With eyes fixed on " The Caravan in the Desert " which hung framed and glazed by the door, and which all at once seemed to her so animated and so beauti- fully arranged both as to the grouping and the individual figures with ears attentive to the 54 MAGNHILD twitter of the birds in the opposite neighbours' garden, and the magpie's chatter further away in the meadow she sat in rapturous expecta- tion. Straight through her joy the question clove its way : " Will Skarlie be satisfied with what you've done ? " The new sofa may come to harm and the new bed as well. The man is an invalid ; who knows whether " She rose, took pen, ink, and paper, and for the first time in her life wrote to Skarlie. The letter occupied her more than an hour. " I have let the rooms over the sitting-room and bedroom to an invalid who plays the piano. The terms are left to you. " I have allowed one of the new sofas to be carried up (the horse-hair one) together with one of the spring mattresses. He insists on having an easy bed. Perhaps I have not done right. MAGNHILD." She had struck out " Now I shall be able to hear some music." The opening formula had given her trouble ; she decided to use none. "Your wife" she had written for signature, but 55 MAGNHILD she struck that out too. In this condition the letter was copied and sent, and she felt relieved. She sat down again quietly, and waited. She listened he was having luncheon. Then she ate a little herself as well, and slept awhile ; she had really scarcely closed her eyes the previous night. She awoke ; still he was not playing ; she slept again, and dreamed that a bridge was thrown from mountain across to mountain. She said to herself that it was the bridge at Cologne, of which a large lithograph hung on the partition wall between the sitting-room and bedroom. This bridge extended from one high mountain across the valley to the other. The longer she looked at it, the more airy and many-hued it became, for behold ! it was woven of rainbow threads, and rose high up and soared aloft, radiant and translucent, until its coping formed a straight line from one mountain crest to the other. Then over this another bridge was stretched crosswise, and both of them seemed to vibrate in a slow double rhythm, and soon after the valley was an ocean of light in which 56 MAGNHILD every hue under the sun flashed and scintillated, but the bridges had vanished 1 Nor were the mountains there any longer flying colours filled all the imaginable distance. How vast the outlook was ! how far away she could see ! She grew frightened at the vision of infinitude and awoke There was the sound of music overhead ! A crowd of people stood before the house, silent, and with upturned faces. She did not stir. The notes streamed richly out, a luminous charm shone through his music. She sat listening till she felt as if the harmony were descending in drops over her head, her hands, her lap. It was a benediction over her little house, the mist of tears was shot with light. She pushed her chair further back into the corner. But where she sat she had a sense of being found out by the all-bountiful Providence which had her destiny in its keep- ing. The music seemed to speak from the depths of a knowledge that was not yet hers, to a passion born of the moment. She stretched out her arms, drew them back again and burst into tears. 57 MAGNHILD Long after the music had ended the crowd gone and no sound from the room above she still sat there. Life had meaning ; she too was finding access to a treasure-house of beauty. The songs that were singing within her now, should one day ring out audibly. She took more than half an hour to undress, wandering to and fro between the sitting-room and the bedroom. She lay down for the first time in her life with the feeling of having something worth rising for on the morrow. She heard his footsteps overhead, his tread was lighter than other people's. In all his movements he made but little noise. His eyes, with the subtle fascination behind their beaming kind- ness, were the last thing she saw with distinct- ness. Indescribable days followed. She went away to attend her classes, and then hastened home to be received by the sound of music, and find the house surrounded by a listening crowd. Except to the school she now hardly ever went out. Either he was at home, and she waited for him to begin playing, or he had gone for a walk and she waited for him to return. She 58 MAGNHILD blushed when he bowed to her, and shrank away. If he came into the sitting-room to ask for anything, she was stricken with trembling the moment she heard his footstep approach ; she stood covered with confusion when he appeared, and scarcely understood what he was asking for. She had not perhaps spoken ten words with him in ten days. But she already knew his smallest habit and every peculiarity in his attire. She noticed whether his soft brown hair was smoothed behind his ears or fell over his face ; when the grey hat was pushed back, and when it was drawn over the brows ; whether he wore gloves or not, whether or not he had a plaid over his shoulders. And as for herself? She had ordered two new summer dresses and was wearing one of them already ; and she bought a new hat. She believed that music was her destiny, but she felt no need of taking any sort of first step towards it. His playing and his presence were enough for her. Day by day fresh thoughts burgeoned in her mind. They sprang from seeds sown in her former day-dreams ; but if she was to live, 59 MAGNHILD music was the air she needs must breathe ; that she felt clearly now. She did not realise that his delicate personality (which ill-health had still further etherealised) brought a new quality into her life, tender and full of suggestion. The delight with which he inspired her and which made her blush, she attributed to music alone. At the school she interested herself in the pupils individually as she had never done before. She would even talk with the sailor's wife, who did her house-cleaning. Day by day, veil after veil fell away from her soul ; she became as tender as a woman at that transition stage, which she had never experienced. Books that she had read or heard read at the pastor's came home to her anew. Forms rose before her that she had never seen before, with blood in their veins, with colour and motion. In- cidents in life as well as in books, which had passed cloud-like over her mind, threw off their mist-wreaths and stood forth as pictures before her memory. She awoke, as an oriental girl shut up in a seraglio wakes one day at the sound of singing beneath the window, and at the glimpse of a turban. 60 CHAPTER V AFTER having finished dressing one morning Magnhild, humming softly the while, went gaily into the sitting-room to open the window that looked on the street. A lady was standing at the open window of a house across the way. The house was rather low and was surrounded by a garden. It was the property of an absent official. The windows were wreathed in creepers, and long sprays hung down over them here and there. The lady was just parting the tangle which was in the way. Her head was framed in curls of a shade nearer black than brown. Her eyes sparkled, her forehead was low arid broad, her eyebrows tolerably straight and the nose the same, but inclined to heaviness; the lips full and the throat so beautifully set on the shoulders that it attracted even Magnhild's attention. The open sleeves of her dress had fallen back as she busied herself at the lattice, 61 MAGNHILD and showed her arms. Magnhild could not take her eyes away. When the lady noticed her, she nodded and smiled. Magnhild was confused and drew back from the window. At that moment a child joined the lady, she bent down towards it and kissed it. The child had curls, too, but they were fair ; the face was not the mother's and yet it was like, too, in a way. It was the colouring that misled one, for the child was fair. It climbed up on a chair and looked out. The mother again turned her attention to the creepers, but she glanced at Magnhild. It was a strange look. Magnhild put on her hat ; it was time to go to the school, but that look had the effect of making her go out by the back door and come in an hour later in the same way. He was playing. She stood still a moment in her little garden listening. But presently she felt she must go in and see what effect this playing had on the beautiful lady. She went into the kitchen and thence to the sitting-room, but kept herself out of sight. No, there was no strange lady at the window over the way. Magnhild felt relieved and went forward. She 62 MAGNHILD wanted to move some of the flower-pots round to the sun a thing she did every day. She very nearly let the plant she held fall into the street, for the strange lady put her head in through the open window that very moment. " Don't be frightened," she smiled. There was a persuasive note of appeal for forgiveness in her voice, that exceeded everything in the way of gentle entreaty that Magnhild had ever heard before. " I may come inside, mayn't I ? " And before Magnhild could find an answer she was already on the way. The next moment she stood before her, tall and beautiful. Some rare perfume floated about her as she moved about the room, talking now about the lithographs on the walls, now about the valley, the mountains, or the condition of the people. The voice, the perfume, the way she moved, the eyes, even the fabric and fashion of her dress, and especially its bold colouring, took the senses captive. From the moment she entered the room, everything in it seemed to belong to her. If she smelt a flower, or in any way observed it, it became a flower twice over. 63 MAGNHILD Whatever these eyes looked at acquired exactly the value that she gave it. There was a sound of some one walking over- head. The lady paused, Magnhild blushed, the lady smiled. Magnhild hastened to say : " That is a lodger who " " I know ; he came to meet me yesterday evening at the pier." Magnhild's eyes widened. The lady came closer. " My husband and he are intimate friends." She turned away humming a little ; she looked at the clock in the corner. " Is it so late as that ? " She glanced at her watch. "We are going out for a walk at eleven to-day. You must go too, won't you ? And show us the prettiest places in the wood behind the church and over among the hills." Magnhild agreed at once. " Stay ! I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll run up to him and say that you're coming too, and then we'll set out directly, directly ! " She gave Magnhild's hand a soft pressure, opened the door and ran upstairs to his room. Magnhild remained behind ; she was quite pale. 64 MAGNHILD There was a noise overhead, the murmur of voices, and then a slight sound of something falling. Immediately after, blank silence. There were one or two creaking steps overhead and after that nothing. She must have stood there a long time. She heard some one at the door, and her hands flew to her heart. She wanted to run away, but the fair, curly head of the little child appeared, and with a soft seriousness in her eyes she said cautiously : " Is mother here ? " " She is upstairs," answered Magnhild, and at the sound of her own voice and the significance of the words themselves, she felt the tears start to her eyes and was obliged to turn away. The child had drawn back her head and shut the door. She had no time at the moment to get clear as to what had happened, for the child came downstairs again and joined her. " Mother's coming. I am to stay with you. Why are you crying ? " But she was not crying. She did not answer the child. " Here comes mother." 65 E MAGNHILD Magnhild heard her on the stairs, so she went into the bedroom. She heard the mother and child exchange some words in the sitting-room, and then, to her dismay, some one turned the handle of the bedroom door ; the lady came in. There was not the faintest shadow of guilt in those eyes, they shed a warm glow of candid happiness over the room. But when they encountered Magnhild's glance the expression changed, so that Magnhild was confused and looked down. The lady came forward ; she put one arm around Magnhild's waist, the other hand on her shoulder. Magnhild was obliged to look up again, and in so doing met the lady's pained smile. It was so kind, and at the same time so firm and consequently so persuasive, that she allowed herself to be drawn to her ; and after a moment she was kissed at first softly, as though it were only the lady's breath that touched her cheek, while the strange fragrance that always followed her enveloped them, and the silk gown rustled like a whisper. Then the lady kissed her impetuously, her breast heaving against Magnhild's and her breath coming 66 MAGNHILD in deep-drawn sighs as if from a life-long sorrow. Again silence and then a whisper, " Come now ! " She led the way, holding Magnhild by the hand. Magnhild was really a child yet in experience. With conflicting feelings she found herself in the pretty low house where the lady lived, standing before open trunks, looking at a wardrobe which was spread about in the two rooms. The lady was searching for something in one of the trunks and finally drew out a white lace fichu. " This will suit you better than the one you have on, for that doesn't suit you at all.' She untied the one Magnhild wore and knotted the other one in a bow. Magnhild felt, too, that it went well with the red dress. " How have you done your hair ? You see you have such a long face so that to wear the hair like this No, it won't do," and before Magnhild could offer any resistance, she was pressed into a chair. " Now I'll ! " The lady began to take her hair down. Magnhild rose, blushing furiously and frightened. She said something, but was met with a firm : " Certainly 67 MAGNHILD not ! " It seemed as if will-power radiated from the lady's words, her arms, and her* fingers. Magnhild's hair was loosened, let down, smoothed, and then gathered in a knot on her neck, the shorter locks being allowed to wave about as they liked. " Look now ! ' And a mirror was held before her. All this increased the younger woman's confu- sion to such a degree, that she scarcely knew whom she was looking at when the glass was held up. The stately lady before her, the per- fume floating about her, and the child at her knee, who was saying with an earnest look in its eyes : " Now you are pretty," and the man at the window over the way, looking down upon them, smiling. She felt like running away ; and stood up, but only to be embraced by the lady and drawn further back into the room. " Don't be bashful. We shall have a nice time together." In her friendliness, Magnhild was again conscious of that infinite goodness of heart which she had never experienced the like of before. " Run along now and get your hat, and we'll be off 1" 68 MAGNHILD Magnhild obeyed. She was no sooner alone, than she felt an uneasiness, a sadness tightening round her heart, and the lady seemed hateful and intrusive, even her kindness was distorted into a lack of moderation ; she couldn't find words for what was torturing her. " Well now, aren't you coming ? " It was the lady, wearing a turned-up hat with a nodding feather, and beaming in at Magnhild through the window. She threw back her curls and drew on her gloves. " That hat becomes you rather well. Come along ! " And Magnhild went. The child clung to her from the start. " I am going with you," she said. Magnhild did not hear, because she was listening to some one coming downstairs. Tande, the composer was to go with them, too. " Your hand is trembling," said the child. A rapid glance from the lady made the colour rush to her neck, cheeks, temples ; another glance from Tande, who was now standing on the steps of the front door, himself not altogether free from embarrassment. He bowed. " Are we going into the wood ? " said the child, still holding fast to Magnhild's hand. 69 MAGNHILD "Yes," answered the lady, "isn't there a short cut over the fields behind the house ? " "Yes." " We'll go that way, then." They went into the house again and out by the back way, through the garden across the fields. The wood was over there to the left of the church, and covered the flat bottom and the nearest slopes. Magnhild and the child went on before ; the lady and Tande came behind. " What is your name ? " asked the child. " Magnhild." "Oh how nice, for my name's Magda ; it's almost the same as yours." Immediately after- wards, she said : " Have you seen father in his uniform ? " No, Magnhild had not. " He's coming here soon, and I'll ask him to put it on." She continued to talk about her father, whom she seemed to love beyond every- thing on earth. Some things Magnhild heard, some she did not. The couple behind spoke so softly, that she could not catch a word, although they followed close. Once, glancing hastily back, 70 MAGNHILD she noticed that the lady's expression was troubled and his was serious. They reached the wood. " See ! here we are already in the most delight- ful spot possible ! " exclaimed the lady ; and now she was radiant again, as though she had never in her life been in any other than the most joy- ful mood. " We'll stay here ! " and as she spoke she sat down with a little exclamation and a laugh. He sat down with deliberation a little way off. Magnhild and the child were opposite them. The little girl was instantly on the wing again, for the lady wanted some flowers, grasses and moss. She began to make nosegays ; and it was evidently not the first time that the child had gathered flowers for her, for she knew all the different kinds by name, and burst into shouts of glee whenever she found anything that her mother had not yet seen, but which she knew was a prize. The lady's conversation flew from topic to topic some of her remarks, not all of them, were taken up by Tande, who stretched himself out on the grass, and seemed to want to rest quietly. But from the moment they touched MAGNHILD upon an incident that had taken place only a few days before that of a married woman who had left her husband and was afterwards abandoned .by her lover he took an ardent share in the discussion. He made a violent attack upon the lover, whilst Mrs. Bang excused him. It wasn't easy to go on pretending a love that no longer existed. " But duty, at least might have," Tande said. "Ah," replied the lady, "they had already said good-bye to duty," and she stuck some flowers in Magda's hat. Further, talk disclosed incidentally that the lady moved in the highest circles ; that she had travelled a great deal and had evidently the means to live wherever and however she liked. And yet she was full of quiet consideration for Magnhild, for Tande, for the child. For everybody who was mentioned she had an amiable word. The most trifling remark she would seize upon, turn it over in her mind, and make something out of it, just as she did with the stalk of flowering grass which she was putting into one of her posies, and doing it in such a way that it showed to the best advantage, instead of being lost in the mass. 72 MAGNHILD Tande's long pale face, framed caressingly in soft hair, and with its wonderful shadowy smile, had grown animated little by little. The ardent woman by his side, with her wealth of colouring, was she not part of the world he lived in, and interpreted in music ? The place where they sat was surrounded by birches and aspens. The fir trees had not yet succeeded in crowding them out, although seed- lings were already sprouting here and there. Until these grew up just so long had the flowers and grasses to live, not a moment longer. 73 CHAPTER VI MAGNHILD awoke the next day to no such joyous recollection as had come to her every morning during the preceding weeks. There was something in this new state of affairs that she had to rise and face, that frightened as well as pained her. And yet there was a fascination in it. What was she to pass through that day ? She had slept late. When she came into the sitting-room, she saw the lady at the open window, and instantly had a nod and a greeting from her. She was holding up a hat and turn- ing it about. It was not long before Magnhild was so bewitched by her kindness, her beauty, and her animation, that she had very nearly forgotten the lessons she had to give. A general shout greeted her at the school, when she appeared with her hair dressed in a new way, a new hat, and the white lace fichu 74 MAGNHILD over the red dress ! Magnhild had felt a little embarrassed in appearing in this new guise, and became still more so. But the genuine approval expressed on all sides soon consoled her, and she came away with the feeling of an official who has been promoted to a higher rank. On this day, too, the weather was fine, so it was decided that in the afternoon they should make a little excursion. In the morning Tande played. The windows everywhere were open, and the lady sat by hers and wept. People went by and stared ; but she paid no heed. There was a note of passionate feeling, and sometimes of pain, in his playing to-day. Magn- hild had never before heard him play like that, Perhaps he too felt that he was in danger of losing his self-control, for he rallied, and con- jured up a wealth of fair and radiant images, which seemed to dance in the sunshine and mingle with buzzing insects. It seemed as though all at once the dewy Indian summer day were rich with fresh discoveries ; in the street-dust, which was beginning to dry, there were glittering points of light, the meadows were clothed in green where a second crop of 75 MAGNHILD grass had grown, in yellow and brown where it had not. The play of colour over the woods, running through yellows, reds, browns and greens, was everywhere shifting and changing. The blue tone of the highest mountain range had never been deeper. It stood out clearly against the greyish tints of the fissured moun- tains by the sea. The music rose to a climax : again the sense of pain was present, but like an echo, or melted into raindrops, which now and then fell in showers down through the strong sunlight of the new mood. The lady had laid her head on her arm. Magnhild saw the convulsive movement of the shoulders, and turned away. She did not like such an exhi- bition. During the afternoon walk, Magnhild was again obliged to go on before with the child, and the other two followed, talking in whispers. Another place was chosen to sit in to-day, a little way up the hillside ; the lady had been crying. Tande was silent, but looked perhaps more spiritual than usual. The talk to-day ran on the Norwegian fjord scenery, and whether the mountains which 76 MAGNHILD hemmed them in on all sides left their impress upon character. They spoke of all the obstacles to the spiritual development of the people ; old conventions, the life of habit, and more particu- larly hypocrisy and routine Christianity, passed gaily under review. " Just look now, she's sitting with her finger at her lips again," laughed the lady. Magnhild was excessively startled, and that increased their gaiety. As Magnhild sat with Magda some little distance away from the others, she allowed the child to put flowers and grass in her hair. She was humming softly, as she had been in the habit of doing ever since the time she practised singing at sight at the pastor's. This time she put more spirit than usual into her somewhat formless song, for her thoughts filled it as the wind fills a sail. The higher up the scale she ran, the stronger her voice sounded until Magda said : " There comes mother." Magnhild was silent. True enough the lady was coming, and a little behind her came Tande. 77 MAGNHILD " Why, my child, is that you singing ? " In the course of the day, they had begun to say " du " to each other ; at least, the lady said " du " to Magnhild. Magnhild could not say it to her. " Yours is the highest and clearest soprano I have heard for a long time," said Tande, who had come up by this time flushed from having walked a few paces more quickly than usual. Magnhild rose, letting fall the grasses and flowers in her lap, and at the same time she put up her hands to her hair, in order to take off Magda's decorations ; whereupon the latter set up a terrible clamour. But Tande's words, his whole appearance, and the expression of the eyes he now fixed upon her, bewildered her, and she felt it kind of Mrs. Bang to make a move- ment as though to shield her. A moment afterwards, they were on the way home, and they went straight to Tande's room to try Magnhild's voice. The lady stood and held her by the hand. Magnhild struck all the notes with extraordinary certainty, and sang the scales in such a way that Tande paused and looked up. Little by 78 MAGNHILD little she gave herself up to a sense of happiness, for they were fond of her, there was no mis- taking that. And when they set to trying a little two-part song, and Magnhild was able to sing the soprano at sight, and the same with a second and a third, there was such delight in the little circle that Magnhild took fire at their enthusiasm, and revealed a beauty which she had certainly never before possessed at any moment of her life. The lady had a good alto; the voice was not so much cultivated as sympathetic ; it was not strong either, but so much the better did it go with Magnhild's, for though hers might be more powerful, she had never learned to make the most of it, nor did she use any greater volume now. As they grew more and more familiar with the songs, Tande put more character into the accompaniments. The street outside was full of people. Nothing of the kind had ever been heard before in the little village. A host of new feelings and ideas descended upon the people. They thought and spoke that evening with a delicacy unknown 79 MAGNHILD before. The children dreamed of foreign lands. A drizzling rain fell, the lofty mountains on both sides of the valley and circling the fjord stood with muffled crests, yet they rose before the imagination all the mightier for being half veiled. The tints of the forest, the unruffled surface of the sea, darkened by the rain, the fresh aftermath of the meadows, the mad rushing of the river, and, except this last, no sound to mar the evening's peace. Suddenly a carriage approached, and then stopped. The silence of the crowd in the street in- creased the exultation of the little group in the house. When at last the music came to an end, Tande declared that he must devote an hour every day to teaching Magnhild how to use her voice, so that she could practise by herself when they had gone away. For the rest, they must continue to sing together, because that gave one style. Mrs. Bang added that it would be pos- sible to make something out of a voice like that. Tande's eyes followed her searchingly, so she was glad when the time came to go. 80 MAGNHILD She forgot to take a sheet of music that belonged to her, so she turned at the door, and came back for it. Tande was standing by the door. "Thank you for to-day," he whispered, and smiled. In her extreme embarrassment, she stumbled at the threshold, and had almost made a false step at the top of the stairs as well. She came down utterly confused. The lady looked at her, for she was still standing there waiting to say "Good-night." She paused an instant before saying it, and then did so coldly and absently. But she had not gone many steps before she turned round, and saw Magn- hild still standing there in astonishment. She ran back instantly and embraced her warmly. A little while ago, there had been an evening that Magnhild had thought was the happiest of her life. But this one ? When she heard a movement overhead, all her body quivered. She saw again his wide- eyed gaze, as he looked up in the course of playing. The diamond on his left hand sending circles of light over the piano the blue-veined hands, the long hair that fell over his face his fine grey clothes, his whole quiet personality! 8l F MAGNHILD everything translated itself into melodies and harmonies. And then his whispered : " Thank you for to-day ! " All was dark in the lady's house. Not before midnight did Magnhild go to bed, and not even then did she sleep ; he was not sleeping either; on the contrary, he just then began to play. It was a simple, melancholy old song he played ; first, as if for a soprano solo, then as though for a chorus of women ; the harmony was very delicate. Unconscious of the train of association, she was sitting once more on the hill that afternoon of the confirmation, looking over to the place where her home had been. All her little brothers and sisters gathered round her. He was playing variations on the original theme, but it constantly presented the same images to her. At the school, the next morning, she was besieged with questions about the preceding evening whether she had sung with them and what had they sung, questions about the other two, and whether they were going to sing again. The questions filled her with delight ; a great 82 MAGNHILD secret, her secret, lay behind out of sight. She felt a strange tension. Never had she made such haste to get home as to-day. She was actually going, that very same morning, to have a singing lesson with him. And she did so. He sent a message down by the sailor's wife, that he expected her at twelve o'clock. Shortly before this hour she heard again the mournful little melody of the night before. He received her without speaking. He merely bowed, went straight to the piano, and turned his head as if inviting her to approach. She sang the scales he nodded, usually with- out looking up. The whole hour passed like an ordinary matter of business. She was grateful for that. After leaving him, she went across to see the lady. Mrs. Bang was sitting, or rather lying, on the sofa with an open book in her lap ; but Magda stood before her and she was talking to the child. She was serious, or rather melan- choly. She looked up at Magnhild, but talked on with the child quite as though no one had come in. Magnhild remained standing, dis- 83 MAGNHILD appointed at this reception. Then the lady pushed the child away from her and looked up again. "Come nearer," she said, languidly, and made a gesture with her hands which Magnhild did not understand. " Sit down on this footstool, I mean." Magnhild did so. " You have been with him ? ! ' Her fingers loosened Magnhild's hair. "The knot is not done rightly," and a moment after she said, patting her, " You are a sweet child." She sat up and looked her in the eyes, turn- ing Magnhild's face towards her. " I'm determined to make you pretty prettier than I am myself. Just see what I've bought for you to-day." Behind Magnhild, on the table, lay the material for a summer dress. " That is for you ; it will suit you beauti- fully." " But, Mrs. Bang " " Don't say a word, my friend ! I am not happy when I am not doing something of that kind, and for this I have my own reasons into 8 4 MAGNHILD the bargain." Her wonderful eyes were swim- ming. "There now," she said, and rose hastily. " Now we will dine together. But first a little walk, and in the afternoon a long walk ; and after that some singing, and after that a delightful siesta. That's what he likes ! " But they had neither the little nor the long walk, for it rained. The lady took Magnhild's dress in hand at once. She got a dressmaker close by to make it from her measurements. They sang together, a longer time even than on the day before. Some two-part songs had been telegraphed for, and a couple of days later they came. In the days that followed, most of the songs were gone over with great care. Magnhild had her regular lesson every day. Tande behaved throughout with the same busi- ness-like silence as on the first day. She began to take courage. Miraculous days ! Singing again and again and being with them, chiefly at the lady's house, where they usually both dined and supped. One day the lady would be in the most brilliant spirits, the next she would be tortured with 85 MAGNHILD headache ; and at such times she would wind a black, red and brown handkerchief round her head like a turban, and would sit or lie in a languid reverie. As they were all sitting together one day, Magda, who stood at the window, said : " There's a man going into your house, Magnhild ; he's lame." Magnhild got up, very red. " What do you say ? " asked the lady, who was lying on the sofa with a headache, and talking in a whisper to Tande. "Oh, it's only " Magnhild looked about after her hat ; she found it and went out. Through the open window she heard the child saying, " It was an ugly, lame man." Skarlie was working that year out on the coast. A foreign ship had been wrecked there. Skarlie and a couple of men in Bergen had bought it, because they saw that it could be repaired with far less outlay than was originally supposed. They had driven an uncommonly good bargain. Skarlie took in hand the car- pentering, painting and leather work necessary for the ship's repair. Now he had come home after fresh provisions for the workmen. 86 MAGNHILD He was more than a little surprised on enter- ing his house. Everything was in order and the rooms filled with fragrance. Magnhild entered ; it was a lady who walked in ! Even her face was changed ! It came upon him like a revelation. The waving hair over her neck and down her slightly stooping shoulders shed a bright radiance round her head and figure. She remained standing on the threshold in the corner ; he was wiping the sweat off his bald head. When his first amazement subsided, he said, " How do you do ? " No answer. But she came in and shut the door after her. " How fine we are here ! Is it your lodger " He pursed up his mouth, the eyes grew small. She looked coldly at him. But he continued good-humouredly : " Has he made you a new dress, too ? " She laughed. " How are things going ? " she asked, after a moment. " Oh, I'll soon have finished now." He had taken on some of the breadth 87 MAGNHILD of manner of a person driving a prosperous trade. " It is warm here," he said. The sun had just come out again after continued rain, and was scorching hot, as it can be only in Septem- ber. He stretched out his legs as far as their crookedness permitted and leaned back, letting both the great fists hang down over the arms of the chair, like the huge flippers of a sea-monster. "You're looking at me," he said, with his most comical expression. She turned with a searching glance towards the window. The room was already filled with the odour of leather, which always accompanied him. She had thought of opening the window, but changed her mind and came back. " Where is your lodger ? " "He is over the way." 41 Is some one living there, too?" " Yes ; a Mrs. Bang and her daughter." " Then it's with them you've struck up acquaintance ? " "Yes." He got up and took off his coat, and then his waistcoat and necktie. He filled his cutty-pipe, 88 MAGNHILD lit it and sat down again, this time leaning on one elbow and smoking. He looked at his better half with a whimsical smile. " So you want to be a lady now, Magnhild ? " She did not answer. "Well, then, I suppose I must begin to be a fine gentleman, eh ? " She turned and looked at him with a laugh. His breast, covered with thick dark red hair, was bare, for the shirt was open. The face was sun- burnt and the bald crown white. " The devil ! how you stare at me ! I dare- say I'm not nearly so handsome as your lodger ! " " Will you have something to eat ? " she asked. " I had dinner on board the steamer." " Something to drink then ? " She went out after a bottle of beer, and set it on the table, with a glass. He poured some out, drank it, and in doing so happened to look across the street. " That's a devil of a fine woman ! Is that the lady ? ? Magnhild grew red as fire, for she too could 89 MAGNHILD see the lady standing by the window, with wide eyes fixed on the half-undressed figure ! She rushed into the bedroom, and, through it, into the garden, where she sat down. She had not sat there more than a few minutes, when she heard the bedroom door opened, then the kitchen door, and immediately afterwards her husband appeared at the door leading into the garden. " Magnhild ? yes, there she is ! " Little Magda's fair curly head was thrust out and she looked about everywhere, till she dis- covered Magnhild, and then she came slowly towards her. Skarlie had gone back. "I've to ask if you won't come over and dine with us ? " "Say I'm very much obliged, but I can't now." The child stood still with an inquiring look, and asked : " Why can't you ? Is it because of the man ? " " Yes." "Who is he?" Magnhild had on the tip of her tongue: " He is my ," but she could not get it out ; she 90 MAGNHILD turned away instead, to hide her emotion from the child. Magda stood still a long time. At last she said : " Why are you crying, Magn- hild ? " It was said so sweetly ; it brought in upon her the recollection of the whole bright world which was closing its gates against her. Magn- hild pressed to her heart this little representative of all that she was losing, and the tears dropped over her. Then she whispered : " Don't ask me any more, little Magda. Go home again this way, through the garden gate and tell mother that I can't come any more." Magda went out, looking back every few steps. Magnhild brushed away all traces of tears, and went out to do the marketing, for her larder was nearly empty. When -she came home again and passed through the sitting-room, she found Skarlie still sitting in his chair. He had, no doubt, been having a nap. Now he was yawning and filling his pipe. 11 Did you say she was married, that woman over the way ? " 91 MAGNHILD " Yes." " Is he married, too ? " " I don't know." " I saw them kissing each other," he said. Magnhild grew pale first and then red. " I have never seen such a thing." " No, no ; they little thought I saw it either/' he said, and lit his pipe. Magnhild could have struck him. She went out into the kitchen, but she could not avoid coming in again. He said : "It's no wonder they're fond of you; you make a very good blind." She had come in with a cloth to lay the table, and she flung it straight at his grinning face. But he caught it and laughed the louder laughed till the tears stood in his eyes ; he couldn't restrain them. She had rushed back into the kitchen and stood before the butter and cheese and milk that she had been about to carry in stood there and cried. The door was opened ; Skarlie came limping out. " I have laid the cloth," he said, still not having quite got over his fit of merriment, " for 92 MAGNHILD that was no doubt what you intended." And with that he took up everything that was set out and carried them one by one into the next room. He asked good-humouredly for something that was lacking, and Magnhild answered. Shortly afterwards she roused herself and put on water to boil for the tea. Half an hour later they were sitting opposite each other having early supper. Not a word now about the people over the way. He was telling her about his work on the steamer, but stopped suddenly, for Tande began to play. Skarlie had a taste for music. The piece which was beginning was stormy, almost angry, but how serene it became ! And it ended in the little melody that always had the effect of trans- porting Magnhild in imagination to her parents' house and gathering round her the fair heads of all her little brothers and sisters. Skarlie was visibly delighted, and when the piece ended he praised the playing enormously. Then Magnhild said that she had been singing with Tande ; he had found she had a voice. She got no further, for the playing began again. When it came to an end for the second time Skarlie said, " I'll tell 93 MAGNHILD you what, Magnhild ; you just let the man give you all the instruction you can get out of him, because he's a master. As for the rest, you've nothing to do with that ! " Skarlie was still in excellent spirits, when, tired out after his journey, he went up to the big room over the workshop to go to bed. He filled his pipe and took an English book and the lamp along with him. Magnhild ventilated the place thoroughly after him, opening all the windows. She wandered up and down the room a long time in the dark before she went to bed. The next morning she stole out by the back way to school and returned the same way. There, at school, there was great rejoicing over a piece of news Skarlie had just brought them, that a quantity of hand-work, that he had taken upon himself to find a market for in the towns, had been sold at an unexpected profit. Indeed, he had told her as much in the course of the morning, but she had been so taken up with her own affairs that she scarcely noticed what he said. Hardly was this theme exhausted when one of the girls (in this class there were 94 MAGNHILD both children and adults) began to express sur- prise at Magnhild's appearance, so different from that of the previous days. They inquired if anything was the matter with her she was not wearing the dress either that had suited her so well, that is to say, the one the lady had given her. It was especially Mary the hunchback, and tall, big-eyed Ellen, who were loudest both in their joy and their surprise. Magnhild felt uncomfortable among them and went away early. The moment she got home the sailor's wife told her that Tande was expecting her. A short con- flict and she put on the dress again that was most becoming. He received her as he had done yesterday, the day before, and every day. He greeted her with a slight bow, sat down to the piano and struck the first notes. She was so grateful to him for his reserve, particularly to-day, that she could have done she did not know what in his service. When she came downstairs she saw Skarlie and the lady standing talking together over by the lady's door. They were both laughing. Magnhild stole in unobserved and watched them. There was great play of expression over both 95 MAGNHILD faces ; in that respect they were alike, but with that all likeness came to an end, for Skarlie had never yet been so ugly as he was now, contrasted with the lady. The shiny hat he wore covered his forehead into the bargain, so that the whole face seemed squeezed together ; for his forehead alone was almost as big as the rest of his face. Magnhild was conscious of him in that moment, down to the very tips of her fingers. The lady was all animation. She positively sparkled as she tossed her head so that her curls waved about her, or shifted from one foot to the other, bending over an instant or emphasised some thought with a gesture of the hand, or illustrated another with a spirited movement. The quick direct glances they exchanged gave an impression of conflict. He laughing and trying to circumvent her, she radiant with the joy of trying her mettle. There seemed no end to it. Were they amused with each other, or with their antagonism, or with their theme ? If Tande had not come down they would scarcely have left off that morning. However, greetings were exchanged, Skarlie came away hobbling and still smiling, and the other two went into 96 MAGNHILD the lady's house, she laughing as hard as she could. " She's a devil of a woman ! " said Skarlie, in high spirits. " She can certainly turn a man's head if she likes." And while he cleaned out his pipe he added, " If she weren't so nice there'd be something positively uncanny about her, she sees everything." Magnhild stood and waited for more. He looked at her once or twice while he filled his pipe. He looked as if he might be thinking " Shall I say it or not ? " She knew the expression and turned away. But possibly just that movement gave his inclination to tease the upper hand. " She had actually noticed that there was a light in the room over the work- shop last night. I thought she was just about to ask whether " Magnhild was already in the kitchen. At noon a carriage stopped before the door. Skarlie was to drive out into the country, in order to make a purchase of cattle for the supply of his work-hands out on the coast. After he had gone the lady came running across the street. It happened as it always did. She no sooner stood smiling there in the room 97 o MAGNHILD than all the evil thoughts that Magnhild had had about her crept shame-faced out of sight, and Magnhild, silently asking pardon, yielded to the cordiality with which the lady pressed her to her, kissed her and laid her head caressingly on her shoulder, this time without saying a word. But Magnhild felt sympathy in every stroke of the hand, just as she had previously in the embrace and kiss. When the lady released her, Magnhild turned away from her and broke several withered sprays off a plant in the window. Then she felt the lady's warm breath over cheek and neck. " My friend," is whispered softly at her ear, " my sweet, pure little friend. You are leading a beast of prey with the hands of a child." Magnhild quivered at the words, at the warm breath, which fell on her like witchcraft. The lady saw that tears were falling down over Magnhild's hand. " Don't grieve," she whispered. " In your singing you possess a magic ring that you have only to turn on your finger when you want to go away. Don't cry." She turned Magnhild to her and pressed her against her. 98 MAGNHILD "It's fine this afternoon. We shall be together in the woods and in the sitting-room, and we'll sing together and laugh together. Alas ! we haven't many days more." Magnhild felt a stab at her heart. Autumn was near, and then she would be alone again. 99 CHAPTER VII IN the afternoon they were standing upstairs by the piano when they heard Skarlie come home and enter the room below. But they did not exchange a syllable in reference to it, and merely went on. They kept on singing at the last with lamps lit, but with open windows. When Magnhild came down Skarlie had his windows open too he sat on the chair in the corner. He rose and shut the door. He pulled down the blinds, and after that he lit the lamp. But even while they were still in the dark he began to express his admiration of the singing he had heard, particularly of the accompaniment. He praised her voice too, as well as the lady's also, and repeated speaking of Magnhild's soprano " It is pure, like yourself, my child," he said. He was just holding the match to the candle, and stood over it looking almost attrac- tive ; so calm and serious was his shrewd face. IOO MAGNHILD But not long after other thoughts began to play over it. A reaction was about to take place. " While you were singing her husband arrived, Captain Bang." Magnhild thought he was joking. But Skarlie added, " He leaned out of the window and listened." Skarlie laughed. The news startled Magnhild so, it was long before she could get to sleep that night. For the first time she regarded the position from the point of view of the lady's possible aversion for her husband. If then these two really loved each other ! Suppose she were in such a position ! She felt herself blushing hotly, for suddenly Tande's image stood before her. When she awoke the next morning she began involuntarily to listen. Had the storm already broken ? She dressed herself hurriedly, and went into the room where Skarlie was finishing his preparations for his journey. Some of the things he expected to take along had not come he was obliged to go with what he had, and return again in a few da}'s. He said good-bye quite amiably. Magnhild accompanied him as far as the school. Scarcely had she reached home again before she 101 MAGNHILD saw a man with a red beard and light hair, coming out of the lady's house ; he was holding Magda by the hand. It must be Magda's father. The little girl's hair was the same colour as his, and she had something of his expression, but nothing of his manner or figure ; he was rather heavily built. They came across the street, entered the house, and went upstairs it was impossible there should be any quarrel when the child was allowed to come with him ! Magnhild heard Tande moving about as he dressed, and then she heard a loud " You here! How do you do!" in Tande's voice. Then nothing more ; no doubt they had shut the door. She was so full of fear that she listened for the least unusual sound overhead. But she merely heard them walking about, first one and shortly both of them ; now the door was opened, she heard voices, but no sound of disagreement. They all three came downstairs and went out. There in the street already was the lady gaily dressed, and wearing her brightest smile. Tande greeted her, she cordially gave him her hand. All four passed by the front door and through the garden in 102 MAGNHILD order to take the usual path across the fields to reach the wood and the mountain. At first they walked altogether and quite slowly afterwards the father went with the child who seemed to want to lead the way after them came the lady and Tande, walking very slowly, and with an air of familiarity. Magnhild stood looking after them stupefied with surprise. In the afternoon Magda came over with her father. The latter smiled as he approached Magnhild, and made an apology ; his little daughter had insisted that he should eome and make the acquaintance of her friend, he said. He was asked to sit down, but did not comply at once. He looked at her flowers, talked about them with an amount of information that she had never heard equalled, and asked to be allowed to send her several other kinds, and he explained what sort of treatment they required. " It is really little Magda who sends them," he said with a smile, as he turned towards Magnhild. This time she felt that he was observing her shyly. He looked at the pictures on the walls, the Bridge at Cologne, the Waterfall of Niagara, the 103 MAGNHILD White House at Washington, the Caravan in the Desert, and Judith, by Horace Vernet. He also examined several photographs of unknown, and for the most part, awkward-looking men and women, some of them in strange costumes. "Your husband has travelled, I suppose 1" he said, and his eye wandered from the photographs back to Judith, while he stood stroking his beard. " Have you been married long ? " he said, sitting down. " Very nearly three years." She blushed. " You must put on your uniform, so that Magnhild can see you in it," said the child. She had been standing between his knees, play- ing now with his shirt-studs, and now with his beard. He smiled. Some lines about his eyes and something about the mouth became more noticeable when he smiled, and bore witness to some sorrow. He caressed the little one's hair thoughtfully. She laid her head close against him, with an air of finding comfort and safety. He roused up out of his reverie with a quick, shy glance at Magnhild, and began to stroke his beard, and said, " It is very pretty here." 104 MAGNHILD " When will Magnhild get the flowers you spoke of?" the child interrupted. "As soon as I go back to town," he said, caressing her. " Father builds fortifications," the child ex- plained, not without pride. " Father is building a house for us too," she added. " Father is always building something, and now we've got a tower to our house, and the rooms have been made so beautiful, you just ought to see them ! " And she began to describe them to Magnhild, as for the matter of that she had already done before. He listened to her with that smile that some- how was not a smile at all. By way of changing the subject he said, hastily, " We were out for a walk this morning, and went a little way up the mountain " (Magda explained instantly where it was) " and from where we were " He cer- tainly intended to add something, but another thought must have put the first out of his head. He again became abstracted. Presently Tande began to play overhead. His face became ani- mated, he gave a wide startled glance, and then bowed his head and stroked the child's hair. 105 MAGNHILD " He plays very beautifully," he said, rising. The next day the Captain went away. He might possibly have to return, in order to meet the General with whom he was to undertake a tour of inspection. The life of those he left behind, flowed on in its accustomed course. One evening, at the lady's house, Magnhild met with a very noticeable accident in her dress. The moment the lady discovered it she made a sign to Magnhild and covered her retreat. Magnhild was so ashamed that she was unwilling to go back again. In the midst of the lady's laughing efforts to reassure her, Magnhild was suddenly touched by her unceasing kindness, her loving care. It was so unusual to hear Magnhild speaking out as she did that the lady embraced her and whispered, " Yes, child, you may well say I'm kind to you, for you're kill- ing me ! " Magnhild hastily tore herself free from her embrace. She did not in words ask for an explanation, she was altogether too astonished for that ; but her eyes, her general air and attitude ! The door was opened, and she lapsed from amazement into shame. 106 MAGNHILD Tande meanwhile hummed away, and turned away towards Magda, as if he had noticed nothing. He began to play with the child. Later he talked to Magnhild about her singing, telling her that she mustn't think of interrupting her studies again. If it could be arranged that she could live in the town (and that should not be difficult to arrange) he would both help her himself, and procure better help for her than his own. The lady went to and fro getting things ready for supper. The servant came in with a tray on which were cream, and other things. Somehow or other the lady knocked against the tray just in front of Magnhild and Tande, and her endea- vour to prevent the things from falling was frustrated by the other two not coming quickly enough to her assistance everything was over- thrown. The dresses of both ladies were covered with cream. Tande instantly seized his pocket- handkerchief and wiped Magnhild's. " You are less attentive to me than you are to her," laughed the lady, whose dress had suffered much more than Magnhild's. He looked up. 107 MAGNHILD "You and I are older acquaintances," he answered, and went on drying the dress. She grew ashy pale. " Hans I " she cried, and burst into tears. She hurried away into the next room. Magnhild understood all this as little as she had understood what had happened just before. Indeed months passed by before one day (while walking alone along the country road in muddy winter weather with her thoughts a thousand miles away from the lady and the whole scene) suddenly she stopped she under- stood in a flash the meaning of the lady's words. Tande had risen ; for Magnhild had drawn back in order not to accept his help any further. That she had been so carried away, and that his name was " Hans " that was all she as yet realised. Tande walked up and down the room. He was very pale as well as Magnhild could see, for it had begun to grow dark. Should she follow the lady or go home ? Magda was in the kitchen. At last she determined to go to her. She helped the child to take preserves out of some jars and put it in dishes. From the room adjoining the kitchen she soon heard low- voiced conversation and sobbing. When Magda 1 08 MAGNHILD and she went into the sitting-room with their dishes, Tande was not there. Supper was delayed so long that Magda went to sleep and Magnhild went home. Not long afterwards she heard Tande come in. The next morning she had her lesson with him ; he was exactly as usual. The lady met her by accident in the afternoon in the street ; she made some slight criticism of Magnhild's playing of the finger exercises which she had heard shortly before through the open window ; at the same time she adjusted Magnhild's hat it was not quite straight. Skarlie came back. He said that in a journey he had made to Bergen he had travelled with Captain Bang. " Some one at the table," he said, " knew of Mrs. Bang's relations with Tande, and introduced the topic." Magnhild had a strong suspicion that this some one was himself ; because after his last stay at home she had heard hints of these relations both from the woman who waited on Tande, the sailor's wife, and from several others. "The Captain was very nice," said Skarlie. 109 MAGNHILD " He considered himself altogether too unworthy to be loved by such a woman. Therefore he was glad that she had found her equal at last." Magnhild said, " You look delighted. Your looks are still more disgusting than your " She was on the point of going across to the lady, and went out without condescending to finish her sentence. She was to go with Magda to a " perform- ance " which was to be given by an old Swedish conjuror, assisted by his wife and child, in the meadow behind the house. When Magnhild came in, she found the lady ready too ; she was going with them. The explanation of this was close at hand, for Tande arrived to keep them company. He reported that the General had come. Then they set out, Magda and Magnhild, the lady and Tande. A number of people had col- lected, the majority as yet still outside the enclosure, the fact being that there every one paid what he pleased. Inside the enclosure was a " reserved place " that is to say, a few benches and towards these the lady with her retinue made their way. MAGNHILD The old " artist " was already at his post, where, with the help of his wife, he was getting his things in readiness. He bore a comical likeness to Skarlie, was bald, snub-nosed, strongly built, with a face not destitute of humour. And scarcely had Magnhild discovered this, before she heard Magda whisper to her mother, "He's like Magnhild's husband." The lady smiled. At the same moment the old man approached them. For among the " reserved " seats were some still more " reserved," that is to say, a bench with a back to it. He was very hoarse, and his speech, in so far as it was audible, was such a queer mixture of Swedish and Norwegian that those in the front rows laughed, and the burlesque politeness with which he retorted upon the laughter made those who were farther off join in it. The moment the laughing began, Tande moved back a step or two. The lady went forward, Magda and Magnhild followed. The old " artist " had a wife much younger than himself, a black-haired, hollow-eyed lean creature, with a certain air of refinement about her. Now a boy sprang out of the tent a boy with curly hair and bright eyes, who conveyed an in MAGNHILD impression of something refined, delicate in face and figure, which he did not get from his mother, and still less from the old clown. He wore the fool's dress, but had little of the fool in his com- position. He stood quietly by his mother and asked her about something, speaking French. The lady, who was displeased at Tande's self- conscious shyness, spoke to the child in his mother tongue. The boy came forward, but only just far enough to look at her with a superior air. This amused her, and she took out her purse and gave him a good-sized coin. " Merci, madame," he said, and bowed. " Kiss the lady's hand," commanded the old showman. The boy obeyed with shy haste, and ran back to the tent, whence came the sound of several dogs barking. A commotion arose in the crowd behind where they sat. It turned out to be a woman with a three or four year old child in her arms, who was trying to get to the front. She couldn't stand and hold the child to all eternity, she said ; she wanted a seat. She was as good as any- body else. But there seemed to be no vacant place, except MAGNHILD on the front bench. So she made her way to the front row amidst the merriment of the crowd, for everybody knew her. It was no other than " Machine Martha." Two years before she had come to the village with a child and a big and a little sewing machine, by means of which she supported herself for she was clever. She had left her husband, and gone off with a travelling trader, who among other things dealt in sewing machines. He had de- serted her. Since then she had taken to the unfortunate habit of getting drunk now and then, and in her cups she was a coarse and hardened creature. At the present moment her face and hair bore evident signs of disorderliness. But she seemed to have a good deal of strength left to work off. She plumped herself down beside the lad}', who moved a little, for the woman reeked of Bavarian beer. The old " artist " had observed this involun- tary movement of the lady's, and was instantly on the spot, ordering Martha hoarsely and roughly to take another seat. She was perhaps frightened at finding herself 113 H MAGNHILD in the company of all this silken magnificence, for she actually got up and went away. Magnhild looked after her and discovered Skarlie. Just beside him the woman stopped. Presently she came forward again. She said, " I don't care, I'm going to sit here." She sat herself down and found the child a place at her side. The old man interrupted his prepara- tions ; he was angry. " You confounded " He probably re- membered the distinguished company before him, for he continued, " It costs money to sit here ! " " Here's a mark," said the woman. She held out the coin. " Very good," he croaked ; " but sit here on another bench. Will the distinguished company sit closer together ? " he asked of those who sat on the nearest seats. Whether this was done or not Martha did not stir. "The devil take me if I'll go," she said. "Let her be," whispered the lady. " On no account," answered the obsequious old showman. "This place is reserved for the distinguished company," and he seized hold of n 4 MAGNHILD the child. At that Martha got up, looking like one possessed. " You Swedish troll ! Will you let my young one alone ! " At this the crowd shrieked with laughter, and that encouraged her so she went on. " Distinguished company ! rubbish ! She is a just as much as I; that's what she is ! " The name is not to be written down, but she looked at the lady. A great burst of laughter from the crowd, and then, as if at a word of command, a deathly stillness. The lady had risen looking proud and beauti- ful. She glanced round for her escort. She evidently wished to leave the place. Tande was standing not far off between two tourists who had asked to be allowed to introduce them- selves to the well-known composer. The lady's blazing eyes met his. He looked steadily back at her. All eyes were fixed on him, but no one saw any further into that look of his than into a polished steel ball. But however unfathomable the look was, one thing it said plainly enough, " Madam, I don't know you." And his delicately arched brow, the regular lines of the nose, the close shut "5 MAGNHILD expression of the mouth, the slightly hollowed cheeks, even the sparkling diamond studs in his linen, the whole impression of distinction given by the man's attire said : " Do not come near me ! " Veil after veil seemed to drop over his eyes. It had all happened in no time. The lady turned to Magnhild as though to call her to witness, and yet that couldn't be ! For no one in the world beside him and her could know what sacrifices he was at that moment allowing to consume away in smoke, and how great a love he was putting away. Again she turned towards him, so abruptly that it seemed all to pass in a flash. What indignation, what protests, what a rush of memories, what pride, what contempt, did she not hurl at him in that look. The last gleam of it fell on Magnhild as she turned to what was she to do ? Her face showed all at once the most pitiable sense of desertion, and with it a look of touching appeal such as a child's might wear. The tears trickled down. Magn- hild, entirely swept along with her in her emotions, held out her hand to her. She 116 MAGNHILD grasped and pressed it, so that Magnhild had difficulty to keep from crying out. The insulted and repudiated woman summoned all her strength with an obvious effort, and then drew herself up, smiling at the same time. Look there ! Across that part of the field over which the company's thin line was extended and which was to be kept clear, a couple of officers were advancing, observed by every one, for who could be bold enough to bar the way before a general's uniform ? And that was what the tall man wore who came forward with long strides and a swing of the arms, as if he were both Commander of the Army and the army itself, with his adjutant on his left wing. Already even in the distance he was bowing most respectfully to his Captain's beautiful wife. She hastened to meet her deliverer. She was conducted back to her place on the General's arm, and he took a seat by her side. The adjutant fell to Magnhild's share after an introduction by the lady. The General glanced frequently at Magnhild, and the adjutant was civility itself; that was about the only thing she was conscious of. She was trembling. 117 MAGNHILD The lady scintillated with wit, gaiety and beauty. Only now and then she seized Magnhild's hand and pressed it with the same almost unendurable strength. She fortified herself with a moment's assurance of some one's integrity. The physical pain she caused Magnhild corresponded to the mental anguish the girl was undergoing. She heard the adjutant talking at her side, and Magda's cries of wonder. She herself saw several balls twinkling in the air, and she saw the weight of a large one tested by an on-looker, and then saw it thrown by the old athlete like a child's ball in the air, and caught again on his arm, his shoulder, or his breast but at the same instant, she heard the lady say to the General that when he left the next morning she would accompany him ; she had merely been waiting for him since her husband was unable to come for her. Of course Magnhild had realised now that everything was over but so soon as to-morrow ! A shout, chiefly from the boys, pierced through her sense of pain. The old juggler had thrown up the heavy ball with quite a little one, and kept them going in the air 118 MAGNHILD with both hands. In Magnhild's fancy the little one stood for herself, and the big one ? It was not that she was on the look-out for this simile, and she did not carry it out in detail, but everything seemed to her symbolic ; the constant twinkling of the balls in the air came to be like the icy glance that a little while before had made her shiver. "The old man has extraordinary strength," said the adjutant. " I saw a man once in Venice who stood with another man on his shoulders, and this fellow who was being carried bent down and helped another one to balance himself on htm ; and fancy ! they took a fourth who balanced himself on the shoulders of the third. The first man walked about carrying them all, while the fellow on top kept balls going in the air. " If I were to die this instant," the lady was saying on the other side, " and my spirit lost remembrance of everything here, and entered upon a new range of marvellous problems and limitless possibilities, so that I was transported from one discovery to another could anything more glorious happen ? " 119 MAGNHILD " I don't think so far ahead as that," answered the General's steady voice, " but I would wager my life that to live and die facing one's duty, is the greatest happiness that a well-organised human being can experience. All the rest is a matter of indifference." Magnhild felt a burning hand clasp. " Applaud, ladies and gentlemen, applaud," the clown said, with hoarse good humour. The people laughed a little, but did not disturb themselves. " Aren't the dogs coming out soon ? " asked Magda ; she heard them barking impatiently inside the tent. The mountains stood with their summits wrapped in fleecy clouds ; a faint stir in the air betokened change of weather ; the fjord was darkening already as gust after gust swept over it. There was something inimitably vast hover- ing over the landscape, something that inspired a sense of dread. It began to turn cold. They felt the sombre depression of the people behind. Now the clown's wife was coming forward ; she was to walk the tight-rope. The emaciated beauty of 120 MAGNHILD other days wore a low cut gown with short sleeves. The lady shivered as she looked at lier, complained of having cold feet and rose. The General and the adjutant got up with her and were of course followed by Magnhild ; only Magda remained in her seat looking very appealing ; she was waiting to see the dogs. A single glance from her mother was sufficient ; she rose without a word. They went out the same way the officer had come ; not one of the party looked behind. The lady was laughing in her clearest note, the harmony rippled out over the crowd. Every one's eyes followed her. The General walked rapidly so that her light elastic gait showed to the best advantage. The General's stature seemed to lend hers a peculiar charm, his stiff carriage and outlines brought into strong relief her willowy grace. The contrast of colours in her dress, the feather in her hat and the impression left behind by her laughter, gave to one man in the crowd a sensation as of receding music. When the officers said good-bye at the lady's door she said not a word to Magnhild, she did not look once in her direction as she went 121 MAGNHILD indoors. Magnhild felt that her intense sym- pathy was repulsed. She went across to her own house in distress. Tande came in late. She heard him pacing up and down, up and down, with a more rapid step than usual. The light footfall over her head seemed to say those same words, " Don't touch me ! " At last they kept time to the phrase. The shimmer of the diamond studs, the distinction of his dress, the intense reserve in the face pursued her. The lady's devotion seemed to cry out under these footsteps. What must she not be suffering now ! " That she should think of me in the midst of the thunder and lightning of her pain," thought Magnhild, "would be unnatural." In her first terror she had hastened to her as to some shelter, but of course in the next moment all that was forgotten. Some one was coming into the passage. Was it a message from the lady ? No, it was Skarlie. She recognised the step in triple time. He glanced quickly and searchingly at her as he came in. " I supposed it's time for me to go," he said. 122 MAGNHILD He was cordiality itself and began to get his things together. " Have you been waiting for the carriage ? " she asked. " No, for the meat I had ordered and had to leave behind last time ; it came a little while ago." She said no more, and he was ready. " Take care of yourself." He had taken up his belongings and was looking at her. " Skarlie," she said, " was it you who gave Machine Martha the money ? " He blinked several times. "Dear me, what harm was there in that ? " Magnhild grew pale. " I have often despised you," she said, " but never so much as at this moment." She turned away and went into her bedroom, bolting the door after her. She heard him go, and then threw herself down on the bed. Several bars were played on the piano over- head, but no more followed ; probably he him- self was frightened at the sound. These few measures had acted as an involun- tary check upon her thoughts. She was once more obliged to follow the sound of the footsteps, which began again. 123 MAGNHILD A new suggestion of the mysterious, the incalculable, had enveloped Tande. She had grown afraid of him. Even heretofore she had felt herself trembling in his presence. Now she was conscious of the same sensation when she merely thought about him. The footsteps stopped, and her thoughts glided from the unfathomable back to Skarlie, for on this subject she was clear. How she hated him ! And when she remembered that in a fortnight he would come back again and behave as if absolutely nothing had happened, she would clench her hands with fury and open them again because she knew just as it had been a hundred times before, so would it be again. She would forget everything because, after all, he was kind and allowed her to live as she pleased. A keen sorrow at her own unworthiness shrouded her thoughts in darkness. She burst into tears. She was in no condition to think clearly about anything, whether it concerned others or herself, nor to arrive at any helpful resolution. Indeed, what resolution was possible ? The footsteps began again, still more rapid, still softer. And again she was overtaken by 124 MAGNHILD this inexplicable and yet not unpleasant trem- bling at the thought of Tande. At last it grew dark; she rose and went into the next room. Over at the lady's house there was a light, the blinds were down. Magnhild also was obliged to light the lamp. She had no sooner done so than she heard a step in the passage, and some one knocked at the door. She listened. The knock came again. She went to the door herself. It was a message from the lady that she must come over to her. She put out the light and went. In the lady's house everything was changed. Open cases, already packed, trunks, boxes, bags, and Magda sleeping on top of her own little basket, a hired woman, busied, as well as the maid, in further preparations. The maid got up and said : " Madam went into her own room a moment ago to lie down. I'll let her know." Magnhild simply knocked at the door and went in. The lady, wearing a lace trimmed nightdress, lay behind white bed curtains. She wore the Turkish handkerchief on her head ; it was indissolubly associated with her headaches. 125 MAGNHILD The lamp stood a little behind, covered with a soft red paper shade which vibrated. She lay supporting herself on one elbow, deep among the pillows ; she gave Magnhild her free left hand languidly ; a weary look of pain accom- panied the action. How beautiful she was ! Magnhild again fell under her fascination, indeed to such an extent that she flung her arms around her and burst out crying. As if the invalid had received an electric shock, she lifted herself up in the bed, and with both arms she pressed Magnhild close to her full warm breast. She seemed to wish to draw understanding and sympathy to her with all her might. " Thank you ! " she whispered over Magnhild's head. Her despair could be felt by the tremb- ling through every portion of her body with which Magnhild came in contact. The embrace relaxed ; Magnhild rose, the lady fell back and made Magnhild take a chair and sit down beside her. " We may be overheard," she whispered, indicating the door. Magnhild brought the chair nearer. " No, sit here on the bed," said the lady, and she made room. The chair was 126 MAGNHILD again put back. She took Magnhild's hand and held it between both of hers. She looked her in the eyes, which were still full of tears. How good, how true, how full of understanding she looked. Magnhild bent down and kissed her. Her lips were languid. " I have sent for you, Magnhild," she said. " I have several things to say to you. Don't be afraid " and she pressed her hand, " it isn't my personal history and it won't take long either, for I feel the need of being alone." As she spoke the last word, the tears trickled down her cheeks. She realised she was crying and smiled. " You are married I don't understand how, and I don't wish to know." A shudder ran through her ; she stopped short, and turned her head away a moment. Then she went on ; " Don't try to ," but she could get no further. She covered her face with her hands, turned quite over to the other side and cried with her face buried in the pillows. Magnhild saw the convulsive movement in her back and arms. She herself sat up again. "That was stupid of me," Magnhild heard at 127 MAGNHILD length. The lady had turned aside, and bathed her eyes and brow with toilet water which filled the room with fragrance. " I have no advice to give, and besides, what would be the use of it ? Sit down again." Magnhild sat down ; the lady put down the scent-bottle and took her hand with both of hers. She patted and stroked it, with a long questioning look. " Do you know that you are the cause of what happened to-day ? " Magnhild flushed up as though she stood before a great fire ; she tried to rise, but the lady held her fast. " Sit still, my child. I have been conscious of his thoughts when we have been together. You are pure and I " She closed her eyes and lay motionless as the dead. Not so much as the sound of her breathing was heard, until at last she drew a long, long sigh, and looked up with a glance so full of suffering. Magnhild heard the beating of her own heart ; she dared not stir, she tried to draw her breath softly. She felt herself perspiring. "Well, well, Magnhild take care of your- self ! " Magnhild stood up. The lady turned 128 MAGNHILD her head towards her. " Don't be proud," she said. " Have you any place you can go to now ? " Magnhild did not hear what she said. The lady repeated quite calmly, " Have you any place you can go to now ? Answer me ! " Magnhild could hardly collect her thoughts, but she answered " Yes," merely out of habitual obedience to the lady. She did not think of going anywhere, except of getting out of that room, now, instantly. But before she could do so, the lady who had watched her the whole time said, " I will tell you one thing you don't know. You love him." Magnhild drew herself up as quick as light- ning, returning the lady's look steadily. There was a brief conflict during which the lady's eyes seemed to breathe upon hers. Magnhild grew confused, reddened and bowed her head in her hands. The lady sat up and seized her by the arm. Magnhild still resisted, her breast rose and sank, she tottered as though seeking support, and at last she leaned over in obedience to the pressure of the lady's hand. She lay on her breast and wept bitterly. 129 CHAPTER VIII TANDE had not risen the next morning when the sailor's wife brought him a letter. It was enclosed in an elegant, old-fashioned, yellowish, glazed envelope, and the address was in an unpractised feminine hand with delicately formed letters ; and each letter that went below the line had a little superfluous flourish, afraid of being round and yet trying to be. " Who can it be ? " He opened it. At the bottom was written. " Magnhild." He felt a little glow run through him, and read : " HERR H. TANDE, " I thank you very much for your kindness to me, and for the lessons you have been so good as to give me. My husband says he will accept no rent for the rooms. " I am called away, and shall have no oppor- 130 MAGNHILD tunity of saying this to you. Once more my best thanks. " MAGNHILD." He read it five or six times. Then he studied every word, every letter. There had been ten rough drafts and rejected copies of this note, he felt sure of. " Magnhild," was more freely written than the rest. That must be the result of practice. But with such minor discoveries he could not deaden the great accusation that stared at him out of this letter. He lay still for a long time after letting it fall. Presently he began to drum on the sheet with his right hand ; it was the treble of an air. If it had got as far as the piano, and Magnhild had heard it, she would have known it again. Suddenly he sprang out of bed and into the next room. Standing behind the curtain he looked cautiously over the way. Just as he expected : all the windows were open and two women were engaged in cleaning. The house was empty. He walked up and down and whistled. MAGNHILD He kept pacing to and fro till he was chilled. Then he began to dress. Usually this process occupied an hour, during which he went now and again to the piano. To-day it took two hours, yet he did not touch the piano. He went for a very long walk that morning, but visited none of the places where they had all been together. In the course of the walk the whole experience already began to adjust itself in his mind, so that he did not seem so much to blame. The next day he felt he was not to blame at all. On the third day towards evening he felt less at his ease, but the next morning he was able to look back with a smile upon the whole adventure as a thing of the past. The first day he had twice begun a letter to Magnhild, but both times tore it up again. On the fourth day, the idea of the letter gave place to a musical motif. He saw in the thing a rich, many-hued piece of instrumentation, full of splendid unrest. A few bars of the strange delicate melody that had conjured up pictures of her childhood before Magnhild's imagination, should be scattered through the main theme. Did they not seem to struggle with each other ? 132 MAGNHILD But as the thing obstinately refused to take proper shape, he saw that this was not the time and place to work it out. He stayed on for about a week, and then he packed up his things. He left the piano behind with the key in the lock. He went to Germany. 133 CHAPTER IX WELL on in the fifth year after these events, one Sunday evening in spring, a party of young girls took their way up the one street of the little sea- port. They walked arm in arm, and as they went others joined the procession. They were singing a part song for eight voices. Outside the saddler's house (from which the sign and the shop window had disappeared) they slackened their pace as though they were anxious that just here their singing should be thoroughly well heard. Perhaps, too, they expected to see a face at one of the low windows ; but none appeared, and the procession went on its way. When the last stragglers had passed by, a woman got up out of the big chair in the corner. She was not more than half dressed, and had on a pair of slippers down at the heel, and her hair was in disorder. Knowing that she had no opposite neighbour, and seeing no one in the 134 MAGNHILD street, she ventured over to the window, and there fell into a reverie, with her head leaning on her arm, and her arm against the window frame. She listened to the harmonies which now and then floated back to her. Their singing reminded Magnhild of how she once had loved song, and thought to find in it her destiny. For it was Magnhild herself who stood there, and who, in spite of its being Sunday, or perhaps just on that account, had not thought it worth while to dress herself. It was six o'clock in the evening. She was roused by the sound of carriage wheels from the other direction. The steamboat had evidently come in. She was so accustomed to this single break in the dreary life of the village, that she forgot that she was not dressed. She must see who was arriving. It was two ladies, one with a child in her arms and a parasol, the other with a fluttering veil and bright eyes set in a roundish face. She wore a travelling dress of Scotch plaid. As the carriage went rapidly by she nodded toward Magnhild, the travel-browned face beaming : now she was turning round and waving a gloved hand. MAGNHILD Who in the world could this be ? Magnhild was so taken by surprise (and with her that always meant an attack of shyness as well) that she drew far back into the room. Who could it be ? There was something familiar about her that she was trying in vain to get hold of, when the same lady came running down the street again. Her dress allowed her to move quickly ; now she was springing up the steps and stood in the open doorway. They looked at each other. " Don't you know me ? " said the fine lady in the broadest dialect of the district. " Ronnaug ! " " Of course ! " and they embraced. " My dear ! I am here for no reason in the world but to see you. 1 assure you that all these years I have often thought of this moment. My dear Magnhild ! " She spoke three languages ! English, the local dialect, and a few words of ordinary Nor- wegian. " I have spoken Norwegian only a couple of months and I can't talk very well." Her face had altered for the better ; her eyes 136 MAGNHILD sparkled even brighter than ever, her full-lipped mouth had learnt to express every shade of humour, kindness and determination. Her figure had grown even more exuberant ; but her energetic movements and handsome travelling costume tended to conceal the fact. Her broad hands broad from her days of toil grasped both of Magnhild's very warmly, and presently the two were sitting side by side, while Ronnaug told hurriedly the strange story of these last four or five years. She had not cared to write, for if she had done so no one would have believed what she had to tell. And the reason she hadn't kept her promise of writing as soon as she reached America, was simply that already in the course of the voyage she had been promoted from the third to the first class, and the circum- stances that brought about that result would have been misconstrued by every one. As they steamed out of Liverpool she had gone forward and sat by the big ship's bulwark. A man came up to her and said in bad Norwegian that he knew her ; for just as she sat there so she had sat behind his carriole a moment before. ROnnaug remembered him too, and they talked 137 MAGNHILD together that day, and the next, and the next again. One day he brought a lady with him. The day following he came again with the same lady and asked ROnnaug if she wouldn't go back with them to the saloon ; whereupon there ensued a conversation in English between her and the lady with the help of the man. There was a great deal of laughing, others joined in, and the end of it all was that Ronnaug was to join them and travel first class, though she didn't really know who they were. She took a bath and was given new clothes from top to toe, several of the ladies contributing, and from that time forward she was treated like a guest by them all. Every one was kind to her. When they left the ship, she accompanied the lady, who was an aunt of the man who had first spoken to her ; and she soon discovered it was he who had paid her passage, and was now paying for the educa- tion and the lavish maintenance she received. He bore the expense, too, of the long tours they afterwards made all together. Two years ago she had become his wife, and she had now brought with her her child, a little over a year old. And Magnhild must see the child not 138 MAGNHILD " to-morrow " and not " after a while," but now, this very instant ! Magnhild was not dressed. Well then, she must put on her things with all possible speed. Rennaug would help her and in spite of Magnhild's resistance, they presently found themselves in the bedroom. As soon as Magnhild was well advanced in her toilette, Ronnaug made a tour of the rooms, asking Magnhild meanwhile only a single question, namely, why she was not dressed at that time of day, receiving only a long-drawn "Oh " for an answer. Ronnaug began to hum softly as she walked about the outer room. Presently she began talking to herself in English, but Magnhild heard one word distinctly it was " disappointed." Magnhild understood English ; during the last three winters Skarlie taught her the language. She was already able to read to him out of the American weekly paper, which ever since he had been in America he had come to regard as one of the necessaries of life. She consequently knew the meaning of " disappointed." What a change it will sometimes make in our mood, when the sun which has been flooding the whole room is suddenly hidden, and the air, indoors and out, 139 MAGNHILD becomes cold and grey ! In the same involuntary fashion Magnhild was seized with an indescribable fear; and sure enough, the next the time Ron- naug, still humming, passed the open door (examining the pictures on the wall) she threw a quick side-glance in at Magnhild. It was not exactly unfriendty, but Magnhild felt it as though it had been a pistol-shot. What on earth had happened, or rather what had been discovered ? She could not conceive. When she was dressed, she went into the next room and looked round with close scrutiny, but in vain, for the least sign of anything that she could have wished to con- ceal, or anything that could raise disapproba- tion. What was it ? Ronnaug's expression had certainly altered. What could it be ? They went out ; both were now silent. Even out in the street, where there was so much that must have been familiar and suggestive, she who had just been chattering away in three languages, managed to hold her tongue in them all. They passed a man in a carriole who was talking vehemently to a younger man whom he had stopped ; both of them greeted Magnhild, the elder with indifference, the younger with a look 140 MAGNHILD of triumph in his pimply face, and sparkling eyes. Then and not till then, did Ronnaug rouse herself. Although nearly five years had passed since she had sat behind the carriole of the stranger who had talked about Magnhild's destiny, and who had seen herself under conditions she blushed to remember, she recognised him instantly. She seized Magnhild's hand hastily. " Do you know him ? What is his name ? Does he live here ? " she cried in English, for- getting in her eagerness to try to speak her mother tongue. Magnhild answered only the last question. " Yes, since last winter." " What is his name ? " " Grong." " Have you ever had any talk with him ? " " More with his son that was he standing there." Ronnaug looked after Grong, who at that moment drove rapidly, one might even say angrily, past them. They came to the second hotel on the right- hand side of the road and asked a servant whether a lady with a child had not put up there. They 141 MAGNHILD were shown upstairs. There they found the lady who had accompanied Rfinnaug. The latter asked her in English how the child was, at the same time introducing Miss Roland to Mrs. Skarlie, whereupon they all three went into the next room to the sleeping child. " Oh, have we really got a cradle ! " exclaimed Ronnaug in English, and threw herself on her knees beside it. Magnhild stood facing the cradle at some little distance. It seemed a pretty child, so far as she could see. Ronnaug bent over it ; she neither looked up nor spoke. But Magnhild saw that great tears were dropping over the fine counterpane that covered the cradle. The silence was painful. Ronnaug rose, and with a side glance at Magnhild, passed quickly by her into the adjoin- ing room, whither Magnhild at last felt she must follow her. There stood Ronnaug by the window. At that moment a carriage stopped outside. Magnhild saw that it was pulled along by three men. It was a handsome new travelling carriage, the handsomest she had ever seen. " Who does it belong to ? " " To me," answered ROnnaug. 142 MAGNHILD Betsy Roland came in and asked some ques- tion. R6nnaug followed her out of the room. When she returned the moment after, she went straight over to Magnhild who was still sitting and looking out at the carriage. Ronnaug put one arm round her neck. " Will you make a tour with me in this carriage, Magnhild ? " she asked in English. The moment Ronnaug touched her, Magnhild had a sense of dread ; Ronnaug's eyes pierced her, she could feel her breath, her arm weighed on her like an iron bar, though there was pro- bably no real pressure. " Will you travel about the country with me in this in this carriage, Magnhild ? " Ronnaug repeated in patois ; and her voice trembled. " Yes," whispered Magnhild. Rdnnaug released her, went to the other window and looked out. " Did the carriage come from America ? " "From London." "What did you pay for it?" " Charles bought it." " Is your husband with you ? " " Yes yes ; " and she added, " not here MAGNHILD Constantinople delivery of guns September we are to meet Liverpool." And with that she gave a wide-eyed look at Magnhild. What did she mean ? Magnhild said she must go. Ronnaug accom- panied her downstairs. They both went out to the carriage, around which several people were standing, who now drew back a little. Ronnaug showed Magnhild some of the conveniences it contained, and while she had her head inside the carriage she asked : "Your rooms upstairs, are they to be let?" " No, it's too much trouble." RSnnaug said good night abruptly, and ran upstairs. Magnhild had not gone many steps, before she felt that she certainly should have offered to let Ronnaug have those upper rooms. Should she turn back ? No. No. That was one of Magnhild's sleepless nights. Ronnaug had frightened her. And this journey ? Never in the world would she undertake it. 144 CHAPTER X THE first thing she saw when, some time after ten o'clock, she came out of her bedroom, was ROnnaug again, who had at that moment come down from the village, and just looked in to see her no, not to see her, but the pastor, the young chaplain who lodged in Magnhild's house, occupying the room that had been the workshop. RCnnaug with the pastor ! When the clock struck eleven she was still there, and when she came out accompanied by the pastor, who was a bashful young man, she merely put her head in at Magnhild's door, said " Good morning," and disappeared again, still in company with the pastor. Magnhild's wonder did not end here ; for later in the day she saw Rfinnaug with Grong. It vexed her ; she could not quite tell why. The next day ROnnaug came to see her ; but only in passing. They talked about different MAGNHILD people in the village with whom it amused ROnnaug to renew acquaintance ; but not a word was said about the tour. Several days went by, and still it was not mentioned. Perhaps she had given it up. But soon Magnhild began to hear of this journey from others, first from the sailor's wife who did the cleaning, then from the person she bought her fish of, finally from every one. What pretext should she have recourse to ? For on no account would she make one of the party. ROnnaug told her she was reading Norwegian with Grong, and with the Pastor too, in order not to bother either of them too much at one time ; she wrote exercises too, she said, laugh- ingly. In the same brief fashion she would touch upon people and things, dwelling an instant upon some salient characteristic, and then off instantly to something else. Magnhild was not invited up to the hotel. ROnnaug often wheeled her child about in a little perambulator she had bought; she would stop and show the child to every one she met, but she never brought it in to Magnhild. 146 MAGNHILD Rdnnaug created the most extraordinary sensation in the village. It was not unusual in a seaport town to meet with singular ups and downs of fortune. But to judge by the presents Ronnaug made, and by her proceedings in general, she must be very rich indeed, and yet she was the most unaffected, sociable person in the village. Magnhild heard her praises sounded perpetually. It was only the pastor who re- marked incidentally that she certainly had all the impatience that characterised the child of fortune. And what meanwhile did Ronnaug hear of Magnhild ? For there could be no manner of doubt that she made inquiries elsewhere, if she did not question Magnhild herself. And this, as a matter of fact, she did, but very cautiously. There were, indeed, only two people to whom she put direct questions ; one was the pastor, the other was Grong. The pastor said that in all the time he had been there, and that was nearly a twelvemonth, he had never seen or heard anything that was not to her credit. Skarlie was a more dubious character; according to universal testimony he M7 MAGNHILD had taken up his abode here merely in order to make a thorough study of the situation and then turn his knowledge to account "without com- petition and without control." He was "an ironical creature and a cynic ; " but the pastor could not deny that it was sometimes amusing to talk with him. The pastor had never had any reason to doubt that Skarlie was considerate to his wife or rather his adopted daughter, for they could scarcely be said to stand in any other relation to each other. And the bashful young pastor seemed greatly discomposed at having to say even as much as that. Grong, on the other hand, called Magnhild an idle, selfish, pretentious hussy ; she could not bring herself to garter up her stockings properly he had noticed it himself. The school of handicraft she had started had long been handed over to a hump-backed girl called Mary, and a tall girl called Louisa. Magnhild now and then taught them something new, but not even for this were they indebted to Magnhild herself, but to her husband, who came across these ideas in the course of his travels, and spurred her on to carry them out here at home. Skarlie was on 148 MAGNHILD the whole a clever go-ahead fellow, who had put life into the whole of this ignorant idle com- munity. Perhaps he had cheated a little too, but people can't expect to learn without paying for it. Magnhild's destiny ? Bah ! He had long ceased to bother about destinies ! Three years ago he had seen an old man in the North who in his childhood was the only one saved in a little parish, an avalanche having disposed of the other inhabitants. The man was a great donkey. He lived to the age of sixty-six without making a farthing except by rowing a boat and he had died last year in the workhouse. What kind of a destiny was that ? Very few people are destined to anything at all. Grong was at that time in a bad humour, he had thought his gifted son was destined for something. He lived only for him and the boy couldn't think of anything better to do than to go and fall in love. But Ro'nnaug, who knew nothing about Grong's own history, was greatly horrified at his severe verdict. She could not thresh the matter out with him either, for he declared point blank that Magnhild bored him. 149 MAGNHILD So she went again to see Magnhild herself, but found they were so out of touch with each other that it was impossible really to get at her. If Ronnaug was to hold fast to her purpose, then there was nothing else for it but to worm herself into Magnhild's confidence by degrees. In the most indifferent tone in the world, therefore, she one day announced that the day after to-morrow, she intended to set out on her journey. Magnhild need not take many clothes with her, for when they stopped anywhere, they would buy her what she required. That was what Ronnaug herself did. This happened about nine o'clock in the morn- ing ; until mid-day Magnhild was struggling with a telegram to her husband, who had just announced that he had arrived in Bergen. The telegram in its final state ran thus : " Ronnaug, married to rich American, Charles Randon of New York, is here ; wants me to accompany her on long tour. " MAGNHILD." She felt guilty of treachery as, just on the stroke of twelve, she handed in the telegram. 150 MAGNHILD Treachery ! Towards whom ? After all she was accountable to no one. In the afternoon she went out, so that no one might find her. In the evening when she came home there lay the telegram. " Home to-morrow by steamer. Skarlie." Ronnaug came to see Magnhild at eight o'clock the next morning. She wanted to surprise her with a ready-made travelling dress which was waiting for her at the hotel. But everything was shut up at Magnhild's. She went round, and looked through the window of the bedroom where a blind was drawn up. Magnhild had gone out. She who rarely got up before nine o'clock ! Never mind ; back again at nine. Door still locked. Half past nine : locked. Ten o'clock : the same. After that, back every quarter of an hour, but always to find everything shut up. Then she began to suspect something, and at eleven o'clock she paid a couple of boys handsomely, to keep watch and let her know when Magnhild came home. She herself waited at the hotel. One, two, three o'clock came ; no tidings. She suspected 151 MAGNHILD her sentinels : no, everything all right. Four o'clock came, then five. A second inspection. Six o'clock struck, then a boy came tearing along, and Ronnaug, with her hat in her hand, flew down the steps to meet him. She found Magnhild in the kitchen, bustling about so that Ronnaug could not draw her into conversation. She flitted to and fro unceasingly between the kitchen, the back-yard and the other rooms. She went down into the cellar, too, and stayed there a long time. Ronnaug waited ; but seeing that Magnhild was never likely to have done, she followed her into the dining-room. She asked her whether she could not come to the hotel with her a moment. Magnhild had no time. She was in the act of putting butter on a plate. " For whom are you preparing ? " "Oh " The hand that held the butter spoon trembled. Ronnaug saw that. " Is Skarlie coming by the steamer to- night?" Magnhild could not deny it, because she would have been so soon convicted of untruth, so she said " Yes." 152 MAGNH1LD " Then you sent him a message ? " Magnhild laid down the spoon and went into the next room. Ronnaug followed. It now became apparent how much good sturdy Norwegian Ronnaug had learned, though it was still not quite pure or correct. She first asked whether this meant that Skarlie would prevent her from going on the tour ; and whereupon Magnhild, instead of answering, took refuge in the bedroom. Ronnaug followed : she said that to-day she should not escape her. This "to-day" told Magnhild that Ronnaug had long wanted to see her. If the window before which Magnhild now stood had been somewhat larger, she certainly would have made it a means of escape. But before Ronnaug had fairly begun some- thing happened. From the street were heard noise and laughter, and mingled with them the voice of a man in a hurry. " And you want to prevent me from taking the Sacrament, you hypocritical devil ! " All at once there was silence, and then a roar of laughter. Apparently the man had been seized and carried off. Hooting and laughter 153 MAGNHILD of boys and old women was heard, growing more and more distant. Neither of the two in the room had gone out. They had both looked through the doorway towards the sitting-room windows, but had both turned back, Magnhild towards the garden. But the interruption reminded Ronnaug of Machine Martha, who in her time had been the laughingstock and terror of the village. No sooner had the noise ceased than she said : " Do you remember Machine Martha ? Do you remember I said something to you about your husband and her ? Now I have made inquiries, and I know more. It is unworthy of you to live under the same roof with a man like Skarlie." Magnhild turned round pale and proud, " It doesn't concern me." " It doesn't concern you ? You live in his house, eat his bread, wear his clothes, and bear his name it doesn't concern you ? " But Magnhild swept past her into the next room without vouchsafing her a reply. She took up her stand by one of the windows that looked out into the street. 154 MAGNHILD "Yes, if you aren't ashamed of it, Magnhild, then you have fallen lower than I thought." Magnhild had just leaned her head against the window frame. She now raised it far enough to look up at Ronnaug and smile ; then she resumed the same position. The smile brought a blush into Ronnaug's cheeks, for she read in it a comparison between Magnhild's youth and her own. " I understand what you're thinking " her voice trembled ''' and I couldn't have believed you were so wicked, though I saw perfectly well when I first came that I had been mistaken in having longed so to see you again." This seemed to Ronnaug herself too strongly expressed, and she stopped. Besides it was not at all her intention to break with Magnhild ; quite the contrary. And now she was hurt that Magnhild had been able to make her forget herself to such a degree. Had it not been just the same from the first ? With what enthusiasm she came and how coldly she had been received ! Following out this train of thought she began to speak aloud. " I could imagine nothing lovelier in the MAGNHILD world than to show you my child. I had really no one else to show it to. But you didn't even want to see it, you didn't want the trouble of dressing for so little." She had begun quite composedly, but before she ended her voice was quivering, and she burst into tears. Suddenly Magnhild started up from her place and made first for the kitchen door but that was just where Ronnaug was then towards the bedroom door, but she remembered it was of no use to take refuge there, so she turned back, confronted Ronnaug, couldn't make up her mind what to do, and finally returned to her old place. But Rftnnaug scarcely saw all this, for she was struggling with her own strong emotion. " You have no heart, Magnhild, though it is terrible to say so ! You've let yourself be trailed through the mire so long that you've lost all feeling yes, that you have ! When I dragged you to see my baby, you didn't even care to kiss it. You didn't even bend down over it, you didn't say a word, no, not one single word ; you did not see how pretty it was ! " Once more her tears forced her to pause. 156 MAGNHILD " But that's easily understood," she went on ; "you've never had a child yourself. And I thought of that, or else I would have gone away again instantly, I was so disappointed. Well, I wrote that to Charles too ! " She interrupted herself with a different and a stronger emphasis. " I don't know what you can be thinking about. Everything must surely be dead within you, when you have complete freedom offered you, and you choose Skarlie. To think of writing for Skarlie ! " She paced rapidly up and down, and then said, " Well, well ! So this is Magnhild, who used to be so fine and pure that she could rescue me." She paused and looked at Magnhild. " But that I can never forget, and so you shall go away with me, Magnhild ! " Then with a sudden movement, " Haven't you a word to say to me ? Can't you understand that I love you ? Have you utterly forgotten, Magnhild, how I've always loved you ? Doesn't it matter at all to you that I've come all the way from America ? " It never occurred to her that she was letting out her whole secret ; she stood waiting to see Magnhild wake up, and turn to her. She was not near enough to see that there were tears 157 MAGNHILD dropping there within the window-frame. She saw only that Magnhild did not stir, did not make the slightest movement. This exasperated Ro'nnaug, and being hasty in her resolves when her heart was full, she turned and went .out. Magnhild saw her hurry along the street, weep- ing, and without looking in as she passed. And ROnnaug's weeping did not cease, not even when she threw herself down by her child and kissed it. She pressed it against her again and again, as if she wanted to assure herself that, after all, her life had not been fruitless. She had expected that Magnhild would follow her. It was eight o'clock no sign of Magnhild ; it was nine, and she did not come. Ronnaug threw a shawl over her head and stole past the saddler's house ; Magnhild's husband must have arrived long ago. The house was quite quiet, and there was no one at the windows. She went home again and pondered as she went to bed what she should do now, if she really were obliged to go away without Magnhild. It was only for a moment that her thoughts took this turn. No ! she would stay and summon pthers 158 MAGNHILD to help her. She would risk a battle even with Mr. Skarlie, supported by the pastor, and Grong, and other worthy people. She considered the affair perhaps from a somewhat American stand- point ; but her mind was made up. She lay and dreamed that Mr. Skarlie and she were fighting ; with his great hairy paws he had taken hold of her by the head, the shoulders, the hands ; his disgusting face with its toothless gums, looked laughing into her eyes. She couldn't get away from him he had her again by the head then Magnhild called to her repeatedly and loudly and she awakened. Magnhild stood beside her bed. " Ronnaug ! " " Yes, yes ! " " It is I Magnhild." ROnnaug sat up in bed half drunk with sleep. " Yes, I see you is it you ? Really you, Magnhild ? Are you coming with me ? " " Yes." And Magnhild threw herself into her arms and burst into tears and what tears they were ! Like a child's who after long-continued terror finds its mother at last. " Good Heaven ! What has happened ? " 159 MAGNHILD " I can't tell you ! " and again the long bitter weeping, and then she quietly disengaged herself and withdrew a little way. " But now you're coming with me ? " " Yes," she was heard to whisper, and upon that she began to cry again. And Ronnaug stretched out her arms, but as Magnhild did not come into them, she jumped up and gave expres- sion to her joy by dressing herself in a tearing hurry. There was gladness, there was triumph, in her heart. As she sat on the edge of the bed dressing herself, she looked more closely at Magnhild. The summer night was quite light enough to see distinctly, and Magnhild had raised one of the blinds, opened a window and stood there. It must be about three o'clock. Magnhild wore a long cloak over her petticoat. A bundle lay on a chair it was her dress, perhaps. What could have happened ? ROnnaug went into the big sitting-room to finish her toilet, and when Magnhild followed, there lay her new travelling dress, which ROnnaug presented to her. She did not say " Thank you," she scarcely looked at it, but sat down by it and began to cry afresh. 160 MAGNHILD Ronnaug was obliged to put on the dress for her. While she was doing so she whispered : " Did he want to use force ? " " He has never done that," said Magnhild. " No, there are other things," and such a violent fit of weeping seized her that Ronnaug said nothing more, and soon had got both Magnhild and herself ready. She hurried off again to wake her American friend, and then went down- stairs to rouse the hotel people ; she wanted to start in an hour. On her return she found Magnhild in the same position in which she had left her. " Come now, pull yourself together. In less than an hour we shall be off ! " Magnhild sat unmoved. It was as though her strength was exhausted by the mental conflict which had preceded her resolution. Ronnaug let her alone. She had quite enough to see to. Everything was already packed, and last of all the child was wrapped up in its travelling rugs, still sound asleep. In less than an hour, as Ronnaug had said, both they and their luggage were comfortably stowed away in the beautiful travelling carriage. All the world was asleep. 161 L MAGNHILD Away they went in the clear morning light, past the church. The sun was not visible, but the sky over the mountains in the east was redden- ing, and the landscape lay swathed in dark shadows, the higher mountain slopes being of a deep blue-black hue. The river, without a ray of light over its seething surface, clove its way forward, like an army of wrathful and savage visitants from the mountains, who had chosen this moment of awakening to invade the valley, rushing on without pause, without pity, laughing loudly over their wild purpose, and over the fortune that followed them. Any impressions and emotions which Magn- hild might otherwise have felt during this drive (as she left behind the scene of many years' suffering and sped over the first miles of her new life-road in the beautiful carriage belonging to her childhood's friend), all drowsed away into a weary vacant doze. Her daily life had for so many years been one long rest in unbroken routine, that a single evening's excitement had absolutely drained her strength. She longed for nothing so much as for a bed. And Ronnaug, bent on carrying the miracle of contrast to its 162 MAGNHILD highest pitch, was determined not only to arrive in her own carriage and pair (when they came to the steep inclines she wanted four horses) but had also made up her mind to sleep in one of the guest chambers at the posting station where she had been in service as a girl. She carried out her plan, and they had three hours' sleep there. The woman of the house recognised Ronnaug, but as Ronnaug had not liked her, they had not much to say to each other. After having slept, they had something to eat and paid the bill, and then ROnnaug must needs write with her own hand in the register. It was too delightful. Then she read the last entry before her own, which ran, " two persons, horse next station," and in the margin of the book was written : Two birds we met by the way, twit-twit ! Think ye with us to stay, twit-twit ? Dear birds, we think of naught, tra-ra ! We love beyond all thought, tra-ra ! "What foolishness is this ?" she said. Both of the others looked at it. It had to be trans- lated for Betsy Roland. Now they all remembered that just as they 163 MAGNHILD drove in they had seen a lady and gentleman in a carriage drive out and pass by at a rapid pace. The gentleman had turned away as if he did not want to be seen ; the lady was veiled. They were still talking over this circum- stance as they took their seats in the carriage and drove away, all the people about the place assembling to witness their departure. The travellers came to the conclusion that the verses must have been written by some happy bride and bridegroom, and Magnhild (by that associa- tion of ideas that is so utterly beyond one's control), found herself recalling those two young people, the man in the morocco shoes, the girl with the oddly dressed hair, whom she met that evening on her wedding journey at the next posting station. This led her to think of her marriage, and what she had gone through in all these years, and to remember how aimless her life stretched before her, aimless whether she looked backwards or forwards. It had meanwhile turned out a marvellously fine day. The sun had risen above the moun- tains, which were very high at this point. The valley, though narrow, was so situated that it 164 MAGNHILD caught the full flood of light. The river here flowed in a more contracted and stonier channel, foam-white where it met with any obstruction ; grass-green, where its brawling ceased ; blue, where the hills overshadowed it; and grey where it eddied over a clayey bottom. The grass along the bank was coarse and stubbly, and further up, the slope was dotted with yellow buttercups, the largest they had seen. The highest mountain peaks were glittering. The dark firwood on the bosom and in the lap of the range produced such an effect of serene luxuriance, that whoever viewed it aright must inevitably be refreshed. Close by the roadside grew deciduous trees, for here the firs had been cut down, but nevertheless there were some which forced their way victoriously forward again from the vast army in the rear. The road was free from dust. On the outskirts of the wood grew mountain flowers, glittering with the last remain- ing dewdrops. The travellers bade the driver stop that they might gather some of them: after that they sat and amused the child with the posies, weaving garlands, and twining them round the little one. A short distance further 165 MAGNH1LD up, where the stream had sunk so far beneath them that its roar no longer drowned all other sounds, they heard the jubilant chorus of the birds. The thrushes, now singly, now in flocks, flitted from tree to tree, it was re- freshing to hear their lusty piping. A startled wood-grouse with strong beating pinions flew away through the branches. A dog that had been following the horses started some ptar- migan ; they made shrill cries, flapped their wings and hid in the heather ; then were startled afresh and sought by roundabout ways to get back to the spot they just rose from (no doubt they had their nests there), where a rich growth of birches surrounded a little patch of heather. "Ah! how I've longed for this journey! And it is Charles who has given it to me ! " The tears stood in Ronnaug's eyes, but she checked herself after kissing her child. " No tears ! why should I cry ? " And she began to sing: Shed no tear ! Oh, shed no tear ! The flower will bloom another year. Weep no more ! weep no more ! Young buds sleep in the root's white core. 1 06 MAGNHILD " This is our summer outing, Magnhild ; our summer journey in Norway. So we must go on too." But Magnhild bowed her head and covered her face with her hands. " You shall live happily, Magnhild. Charles is so kind. There's nothing he won't do for you." But here she heard Magnhild sobbing, so she said no more. The sunny day, the strong aromatic mountain air, the rapture breathed forth from the forest, bringing childhood's memories in its train it all acted on Ronnaug like a powerful tonic. She forgot Magnhild, and began to sing again. Then she turned to the child, and chattered away to it in the most exuberant spirits, and to Miss Roland. She was taken by surprise when Magnhild asked, " Do you love your husband, Ronnaug ? " " Do I love him ? Well ! When Mr. Charles Randon said to me, ' I will take charge of your education, RCnnaug ; I look forward to taking great pleasure in your progress,' well, it did give him pleasure. When Mr. Charles Randon said 167 MAGNHILD to me, ' My dear Ronnaug, I am considerably older than you, but if nevertheless you con- sented to be my wife, 1 am certain that so far as I'm concerned I should find happiness,' well, he found happiness. And when Mr. Charles says, ' My dear Ronnaug, see that you take good care of little Harry, and see that I meet you all in Liverpool in September, and your Norwegian friend with you,' well, he will meet us in Liverpool in September, little Harry well, and my Norwegian friend at my side ! " And she kissed the child and made it laugh. They changed horses at the inn. Miss Roland and Magnhild remained in the carriage. Ronnaug got out partly in order to look once more over old haunts, partly because she wanted to write in the register. " It was the proper thing to do," she said. The next moment she came out laughing and bringing the book. Under the same entry, viz., " two persons bound for the next post station," (how charac- teristic of these two persons in their relation to the practical concerns of life that they had not troubled to ascertain the name of the next station !) the following lines were written ; 1 68 MAGNHILD Love's at once the end of May, Summer's flower and Autumn's store. Iron Winter's ice-clad hoar Fain would break the branch away. " Stop," we cry, " kill all the tree, Half life were but misery." Ronnaug translated it for Betsy Roland, and they all three made different guesses about it. They agreed that it must be a case of two lovers taking a journey under exceptional circumstances ; but what kind of people could they be ? Were they newly married, or merely lovers were they running away, or only having a bit of fun, perhaps, after some happily ended crisis ? There were all sorts of possible theories. Ronnaug wanted to copy the verse, and Magnhild offered her a leaf out of her pocket-book. As she took it out of her pocket to her astonishment a letter fell out. Then she remembered that she had received it by post an hour after her husband arrived the previous evening. Absorbed in the struggle with him, she had put it in her pocket-book for the time being. She never received letters, so she could not imagine from whom this could be. The other two did not discover that the letter bore foreign stamps, but Magnhild noticed it at 169 MAGNHILD once. She opened it ; it was written in a delicate hand on fine paper a long letter. It was dated Munich, and signed could she have read aright ? Hans Tande ! She refolded the letter hastily, without being conscious of what she did, while a deep flush overspread her face and neck. Both her companions behaved as if they had observed nothing. Ronnaug busied herself with copying the verse. They drove rapidly on and meanwhile left Magnhild to herself. But her embarrassment increased to such a degree that it was painful to her to sit there in the carriage with the others. She begged humbly to be allowed to get out and walk a little way. Ronnaug smiled and ordered the coachman to stop ; there was a stretch of level ground here where the horses could rest awhile. When the travellers had alighted, Ronnaug took Magnhild and led her a few steps toward the wood behind them. " Now then," she said, " go there and read your letter." When Magnhild got a little way into the wood she stopped. Her emotion overmastered her. She peered about, as if even here she dreaded 170 MAGNHILD the presence of people. The sunlight flickered here and there over the fallen yellow pine needles over the prostrate and decayed tree trunks, over the dark green moss that covered the stones and over the heather in the glades. All around her was absolutely still. From the sunny margin of the forest there floated to her the twittering of a solitary bird, the babble of the child, and Ronnaug's laughter, which ran clearly through the trees. Magnhild roused herself again to take out the letter. She unfolded it it had been folded wrongly. She laid it open before her, and regarded it as an older woman might a bridal dress that had long been folded away. A single fleck of sunlight falling through the branches lay across the letter, shifting now round, now oblong. She saw within this ring of light a word, two words, more plainly than the others : " great hopes " and " failed " stood there "great hopes" and "failed." She read and trembled. Alas ! alas ! alas ! Over and over again she read it, becoming so filled with expecta- tion, with fear, with memories of blessedness and conflict, she could no longer remain sitting still. 171 MAGNHILD She rose, but only to sit down again and try to command herself. A long gay peal of laughter from Ronnaug reached her like a staff held out ; she grasped it and leaned upon it. She took courage from Ronnaug's courage, and glanced through the letter here and there, not in order to read it, but to form an idea as to whether she dared read it. But she was too over-wrought to be able to piece its broken sentences together, and glided unwittingly into reading straight on. She did not follow all she read ; but still it was a communion it was like the touch of a hand. There was a sound as of music in the air ; his music ; she was in his presence again she was conscious again of the perfume, the glance, the bashful silence in which, at his side, she had tasted the supremest joys of earth. The diamond cut rings of light across the piano, his delicate hands played " Flowers in the meadow." Com- pletely under his influence again, she gave her- self up to a second reading, understanding it better pausing, exulting silently and reading on again, while the tears streamed down her face. She paused unconsciously, merely because she could no longer see, began again not knowing 172 MAGNHILD she began broke off, had her cry out, and read on to the end, only to begin all over again, three, four, five times over and over, till she could read no more. Meanwhile she was going through an endless succession of thoughts and feelings that she had had thousands of times before, and of thoughts and feelings she had never dreamt of till that moment. Her first distinct impression, as she sat there hidden in the humid forest shadows, was as of a sheaf of quivering sunrays. It was the divina- tion that came over her it was not expressed, and yet it breathed forth from every line of the letter (sweeter so, a thousandfold !) the divina- tion, the certainty rather, that he, yes, he had loved her ! And then to think of the full under- standing he had had of her love for him long, long before she herself had been aware of it ! And to think, too, that he had never hinted at it, never by so much as a glance. How for- bearing he had been ! And yet, what had he seen in her ? Was it true could it be true ? Ah ! it was all one now ! But that she should at last come to realise to the full all that he had MAGNHILD felt this it was that shone through her sorrow like the sun behind the humid air penetrating the vapour veils one after another with a thousand iridescent glories, never so much as dreamt of before. It was like drawing a long free breath again after years of emptiness, longing, brooding ! It was not for some time that distinct thoughts stood out in her mind not really until Ronnaug came to her. The letter read so stiffly, too ; it sounded here and there like a translation from a foreign language. But now the letter itself: " I am on my way back from the south. I thought I was strong enough. Alas ! The papers have no doubt told you that I am ill ; but the papers do not know what I know now. " In my new certainty, the first thing I do is to write to you, dear Magnhild. "You will naturally feel a pained surprise at the sight of my signature. I awakened great hopes, and failed at the moment when they should have been fulfilled. "A thousand times since I have thought how you must have shrunk from the thought of going to the piano, and trying a song over that we three had studied, or an exercise that we two had 174 MAGNHILD gone through. It would be nothing less than a miracle if you could bring yourself to do it. " A thousand times I have turned the question over in my mind whether I should write to you, and say what I now at last am saying, that this has been the heaviest sorrow of my life. " You released me from a once beautiful but afterwards unworthy entanglement, and that was the saving of me. The germs of innocence were no longer stifled. The whole extent of this emancipation I did not realise as long as we were together. "And in gratitude for what you have done for me, I have shattered your life, so far as I had the power. But I have also longed to tell you what I now believe, and that is that our destiny on earth is not only that of which we ourselves are conscious, not only that which we believe is the main object of our life. When you, without knowing it yourself, gave me a purer, loftier impulse, you fulfilled a destiny, dear Magnhild ; it was perhaps a little thing, but perhaps too it was only a hundredth part of a wider influence which you have exercised over a great many others without suspecting it. 175 MAGNHILD " Magnhild, I can say it now without being misconstrued, and moreover with'out doing any harm, because you are four years and a half older and I am going away yes, I believe it will be a help to you to hear it. So let me tell you. In the midst of your strange fortunes, the innocence of your soul had grown into a purity, which in you, more than in any one I ever met, proclaimed itself a power. It was so much the more beautiful, in that it was unconscious of its manifestations. It spoke in your every move- ment, in all your shy awkwardness. It was apparent to me not only in your blushes, Magn- hild, but in the tones of your voice as well, in the direct relation you assumed towards every- one you spoke to or looked at, or merely greeted in passing. At your side the woman who was not pure became detestable. You taught even the fallen the beauty of purity. "You have a perfect right to rejoice over what I am telling you here. Would that it might do more than gladden you ! It is not good to brood over a lost destiny, Magnhild, and from letters received from Grong, I can see that that is what you are now doing. For he 176 MAGNHILD who does not attain his first and greatest ambition must not directly relapse into careless inactivity, for in that way he nips in the bud the thousand-leaved destiny that belongs to the tree of life. Perhaps the very disappointment was necessary to him. " Five days later. 11 Magnhild, I do not say this to excuse my- self. Whenever I think of your singing, I know what I have destroyed. It had purity untouched by passion, so that it swept through my soul leaving it cleansed of vileness. It brought with it the perfume of fair memories memories of my childhood, my mother, my kind teacher, my first conceptions of music, my first love, longing or thirst for the beautiful. I saw life again in the, first pure colours it had worn in my eyes hues, not deep, but at least uncon- taminated. "I think of the perfection of art in your singing, of the spirituality shining through it what did it not prophesy ? And this I have destroyed ! " While we were together, I bought several brooches which your father had made. I let no 177 M MAGNHILD one see them. In my surroundings at that time it would have given rise to suspicion and reproaches. But I felt, Magnhild, that these brooches indicated the mission of a race a mission which it should be yours to carry forward. In your father's workmanship there is innocent fancy and patience, in its very imperfection one seems to hear a sigh from still higher but imprisoned power. "Has all this come to nothing now, because you have come to nothing you who are the last of your race and without children ? No, I cannot forgive myself. "(Again I have been at a standstill for many days. Now I must try to finish). " Do not let the wrong I've done you (and through you unhappily to many others, both now and hereafter) do not let it stand as an excuse to yourself for doing absolutely nothing more with your life. I assure you, you can, if you will, bring out what powers you have, if not in one way then in another. And now do this, if for no other reason then because I beg you to. You can make my guilt less of a murder to my mind, just in these last hours of life. 178 MAGNHILD "Even as I write these words my spirit is eased. The kind feeling which in spite of all, I am sure, you entertain for me (I feel it) brings me a message from you. " In so far as you can, you will preserve the labour of my life even where it did not carry out the thing begun. You will build higher and build better, Magnhild ! " Do you not feel even in this prayer a certain consolation ? "(I could get no further. But to-day I am better.) " If this letter helps to open the world to you again, so that you enter into it, and take hold of it yes, if all the things that you quite neglected, or only half did, can come to serve as a link in the chain of your life-work, and thus become dear to you then I too am the happier for it. Remember that ! Farewell ! " Alas ! yes, farewell ! I have other letters to write and little strength. Farewell 1 " HANS TANDE " Eight days later. " I copy into my letter to you the following from another letter to another person: 179 MAGNH1LD " ' It is not true that love is for all the entrance into life. Perhaps it is not that, for one-half even of those who attain to a real life. " ' There are many who waste their existence in craving for love, or in following where love leads. Some of them, perhaps, could not do otherwise (people are so different circumstances so often alter cases). But those I have seen under these conditions could undoubtedly have obtained mastery over themselves and thereby gained fresh strength. As a matter of fact, they abandoned all attempt in this direction, under the influence of a literature and art whose short- sightedness arises from an infected will.' " 1 80 CHAPTER XI MAGNHILD and RSnnaug came arm in arm out of the wood, whence ROnnaug had finally been obliged to fetch her, and where so much had been told, discussed and weighed. They came out into the open. In what depths of blue ether the mountains seemed steeped ! and within their frame, as it were, they saw the firwood yonder ; the heather nearer at hand, and the level fore- ground where Miss Roland and the child were seated on blue and red rugs beside the carriage. From this foreground the mother's vision, quickened by imagination, roved over the scene with a yet stronger impression of contours, light and colouring. " Our summer tour in Norway ! Our summer tour in Norway ! " she said to herself in English. One could divine from every word, that they said more to her imagination than all the rest of her English vocabulary. 181 MAGNHILD Slowly they walked about. To Ronnaug, Magnhild appeared a new creature ; she saw the complexity of her mental state, and that a light shone out of her face which seemed to trans- figure it. Had not she for nearly five years been brooding over her lost destiny and her lost love, those twin brethren who had lived and died together ? She had now laid open her soul to another ; and that had already produced its effect. They had the horse put to and continued their journey. But nature's midday rest was unbroken by them scarcely disturbed even by the rattling of the carriage ; for they drove slowly along the grassy slopes. At the next posting station they read in the Register the following : A croaking raven met us on our way, We both knew well the evil augury Yet to the angry gods nought offered we, Nor to the kind ones are we wont to pray. Not much cared we. There's one God ; we adore him ; Him have we with us. Innocent before Him At omens laugh we, and no haste betray." These little verses came to seem like a choir of birds over the heads of the travellers. 182 MAGNHILD But gladness in different keys makes discord, and here, too, there was a premonition in the verse ; for they had gone only a little way from the inn, before they saw the church spire on the height, beneath which Magnhild's parents and brothers and sisters lay, and the moraine to the left on the mountain where her childhood's home had been. The barren moraine had risen up in Magnhild's memory as an image of her long wasted life- journey. It was in this mood that she looked at it again. The voice of comfort she had recently heard was for long struck dumb within her ; there was so much to haunt her that was unsolved, uncertain. She was now nearing the starting-point of her whole story; from the height the pastor's house could be seen. It was agreed that they should stop here. The carriage moved easily along towards the hospitable house, through an avenue of birch trees. Ronnaug described the pastor's family circle, for Miss Roland's benefit, in humorous fashion. They were all startled at that moment by the threatened overturning of the carriage. Just at the sharp turn leading up to the door the 183 MAGNHILD coachman had driven over a large stone which la}' in the way and offered its lowest side at just that point. Both RcMinaug and Miss Roland gave a little shriek, and when the incident came to an end without further peril they laughed. To their delight Magnhild laughed with them. Small as the event was, it helped to rouse her. It showed her that she had indeed returned to the parsonage. That stone ! How many hundred carriages had not been driven against it but who had ever thought of taking it away ? There stood old Andreas, old Loren, old Knut. There was old Ane looking out too. A dog's bark sounded from the sitting room. Magnhild asked, " Have they got a dog ? " ROnnaug answered, " If so, I'll wager that he strayed here of his own accord." Old Ane took the wraps, Ronnaug took the child. They all went from the passage straight into the sitting-room. But there was no one there but the dog, a great, shaggy creature, who at the first friendly word abandoned his angry intentions, and went about lazily from one to the other snuffing and fawning, and then retired to the stove, laid himself down, fat and prosperous ! 184 MAGNHILD There was a creaking and cracking overhead. It was the pastor getting up off the sofa. Well Magnhild knew this music of the sofa springs. The dog knew it too ; he got up and showed that he wanted to go out, and bear his master company. But the latter, who was heard coming down the groaning staircase did not go out, but came in, so the dog merely acknowledged his presence, wagged his tail and went back again to the stove, where he threw himself down pant- ing after so great an exertion. The pastor was just the same as ever. He had heard about RQnnaug and was glad to see her. His fat hands held hers in a long and friendly clasp. Magnhild he held even longer. He welcomed Miss Roland, and amused himself with the child. There was lively comment on the new things in the room, particularly the dog. When he had lit his pipe, and got every one, himself included, comfortably seated on the embroidered chairs and sofas, he was constrained to tell them the very first thing (because it was only a month since the matter had been so for- tunately settled) that " the little girls " had 185 MAGNHILD been provided for in other words they had each received an annuity. It was extraordinarily well secured. God in his infinite mercy had been so good to them. They had been more troubled on account of Mademoiselle (as the former governess was called.) It is true they had thought of doing something for her, although what they could have done would scarcely have been adequate, their means hardly sufficed and she was no longer able to earn anything because she had grown so unwieldy. But God in His inscrutable mercy had thought of her too. She no longer needed any provision. She had been making a visit to a relative not many miles from here ; while there God had called her to Himself; she had not been able to bear the journey. The news had reached them a few days before and the pastor was in great doubt as to whether he could go to the funeral it depended upon a young bridal pair, and whether they could postpone their wedding for a few days. " So it goes, dear Magnhild, from one extreme to the other in this life. One to the grave, the other to the altar. Alas, yes ! That's a handsome dress you're wearing, my child. 1 86 MAGNHILD Skarlie is a truly good husband to you. No one can deny that ! " At last the pastor's wife came in, and the two daughters. The slightly wet hair, the clean cuffs, the freshly ironed dresses, showed that they had stopped to make their toilet. They did not talk the pastor looked after that detail ; they only curtseyed as they shook hands, found their embroidery, and sat down each on her embroidered chair. One of the daughters, however, soon got up, and whispered to her mother. One could understand from the direction of first her own and then her mother's glance that it was a question of whether the gauze over the mirror, the pictures, and a couple of plaster casts, should be taken off. When the girl sat down again, it had evidently been decided that they should remain. " And so poor Mademoiselle is dead ? " said Magnhild. All three let drop their embroidery suddenly and lifted their heads. " She died of apoplexy," said the pastor's wife. They sat motionless awhile, then they went on embroidering. The pastor got up to put the dog out. The 187 MAGNHfLD beast obeyed, excessively ashamed, which state of feeling won him the pastor's praise. Thereupon followed a tedious narrative of several of the dog's good traits. He had come to them three years before. God alone knew where from; but He alone also knew why he had come, for it was no later than the next summer that he had saved the life of the governess, when Ole Bjorgan's mad bull had confronted her on her accustomed walk to church. The third great piece of news, that old Andreas had cut his foot, came next in an equally tedious story. The pastor repeated exactly what Andreas had said when he had carried him in and put him on his bed, and then the story was inter- rupted by a humble scratching at the door of course it was the dog. The ponderous pastor rose at once to let him in, and administered a few kind words of advice which were received with reserve and a wagging of the tail. The dog looked round, and as the eyes of the pastor's wife obviously regarded him more mildly than the rest, he went over to her and licked the hand she held out to him. At the same moment Magnhild rose ; she went 188 MAGNHILD to the pastor's wife and stroked her hair. She felt that every one, most of all the pastor's wife, was looking at her in embarrassed surprise, and Magnhild had not the power to make more com- prehensible what she had intended to convey by the action, so she hurriedly left the room. There was silence in the sitting-room after this incident. What was it ? What had happened ? This had happened, that Magnhild had that morning received a letter, as we know. After that she looked at the life of the parsonage with new eyes. She saw behind what had been tedious, and into a goodness of heart and an innocence she had always overlooked, and she began to have a new vision of things. In the pastor's stories, from first to last, not a word that indicated a recollection that he or any of them had done anything praiseworthy. People were obliged to discover that for them- selves. The dog had discovered it before Magn- hild had. The dog had rendered thanks ; had she ever done as much ? And it was powerfully borne in upon her, that she too had a debt of gratitude to 189 MAGNHILD pay. Not until she set about it did the general surprise make her conscious of how unaccustomed they were to thanks, or any sign of gratitude from her, and this frightened her so that she left the room. She went along the road to the church, perhaps because the church had just been spoken of. For her own part, she was entirely engrossed by her new faculty of sight. It is true, she had up to that moment seen clearly all their foibles. They had annoyed, amused or bored her. But she had not seen before this moment that those qualities in her nature, which had recently been praised, she had acquired in this house. Their influence had spread itself protectingly over her soul, as did the embroideries over the furniture in their rooms. If Skarlie had been able to utilise all the foibles of the family to steal a march upon her, she, nevertheless, had gained in this house the strength whereby she had held out against him to this day. If she had lived here without making ties, it was due not merely to the quiet routine of the house, but chiefly to her own habits, which had already in those early days shut her into her 190 MAGNHILD world of dreams. In the face of this, it required all the forbearance which was peculiar to the house to bring her to the point of development she attained. In another house she would have been turned out of doors gloomy, unlovely, ungrateful as she had been. Yes, ungrateful ! Whom had she ever thanked ? Yes, there was one he who had done her the most harm but the most good too. Because she loved him. That couldn't be counted. But who else ? No one here. Not Skarlie, though even he had been perseveringly kind to her in many ways. Not Mrs. Bang, and how good she had been ! Not Ronnaug ! No, not even Rflnnaug ! She was appalled ! She really communed face to face with herself for the first time in her life, and yet in a sense she had done little else than commune with herself. Now she understood for the first time (although it had once before momentarily dismayed her) now she understood what it must have been for RSnnaug to have longed to see Magnhild for years, in order to tell her of the fortunate change in her life to show her her child, to set Magnhild 191 MAGNHILD herself free and make her happier and then to find a woman who did not even want to accom- pany her to the hotel a hundred steps away, because she could not trouble to dress herself ! She sat down again on the high ground opposite the ruined home of her parents, and covered her face in shame. Out of the thoughts that were born in her sitting there she did not rouse herself until towards evening, when she returned to the pastor's, weary in body and soul. When she said good night to Ronnaug, late that night, she put her arm round her and leaned her head against her. But she could not find a word to say ; one does not the first time one tries. 192 CHAPTER XII IN her dreams the next morning Ronnaug heard a sound of singing. She still heard it when she awoke, and in a little while she had collected her thoughts sufficiently to ask herself if it really could be Magnhild who was singing ? This thought made her wide awake she sprang out of bed. She had no sooner slipped on her dressing- gown than she opened the window. From the sitting-room, that is to say, from downstairs at the other end of the house, came up the sound of singing to a soft piano accompaniment. The song was pure and high. It must be she ! Ronnaug hastened to dress and go down, She took up her boots, which were outside in the passage, intending to put them on out there, for fear of waking Miss Roland and the child. Some one was coming upstairs. She put the boots down hurriedly, and stood in front of them. 193 N MAGNHILD The head that appeared was Grong's. What was he doing here ? He bowed to her with a keen quick glance, and without a word went into an adjoining room. RSnnaug sat and listened to the singing while she went on with her toilet. It flowed along so smoothly and softly ; there was certainly joy in it, but repressed, one might almost say purified. She kept quite quiet till Magnhild had finished, and even then paused for a moment or two. Then she went downstairs. The door was half open ; that was why she had been able to hear so well. Magnhild had turned round on the piano stool and sat talking with the two friends of her childhood, who were placed one on either side of her. She had been singing for them, it appeared. They all rose as Ronnaug came in. Magn- hild pointed to the clock. It was actually ten o'clock. Magnhild had been up a long time, and she had been singing ! The pastor's daughters withdrew to see about breakfast. The moment they were alone Magn- 194 MAGNHILD hild hastened to ask ROnnaug if she knew that Grong was there. Ronnaug told her she had just met him. "Yes," Magnhild said in a whisper, "he is going after his son. " Just think, he has run away with the girl he was engaged to. He is twenty years old, and she is perhaps sixteen ! " " The verses then ? " " Were of course by him. Grong is furious. He wanted to educate him for a poet." They both laughed. " The boy was really exceed- ingly gifted," Magnhild continued, " and his father had for his sake read everything he could lay his hands on, and had travelled with him in Germany, France, Italy, and England. Now he wanted him to get an impression of the scenery and life of his own country, when lo and behold ! away he goes." Grong was heard on the stairs, so no more was said. But he gave them a sharp look as he came in. He walked to and fro, hidden in his beard as in a forest, and concealed behind his spectacles like a reflection in a pool. They sat down to the late breakfast, to which the pastor's wife welcomed them one by one 195 MAGNHILD with friendly embarrassment. The pastor was attending a meeting down at the school-house. After breakfast, during which Grong had not opened his mouth except to eat and drink, he went through the sitting-room and the passage, straight out to the front door steps. Ronnaug went bravely after him, for she wanted to talk to him. He observed this, and wanted to escape, but he was overtaken and obliged to walk along the road with her. But when he heard what it was she wanted to talk about, he cried out : " Deuce take it, I'm so weary of that gawky woman and her tiresome destiny that you won't get a word out of me. Besides, I'm expecting my carriage." He wanted to turn back, but RSnnaug took hold of him laughing, and led him back to the subject. But before she suc- ceeded in telling him what she wanted him to know, he interrupted her : "She has simply no destiny whatever, that is the secret of the situation. Her singing ? Tande has written me so often about that sing- ing. Now, I listened to it this morning, and do you know what I think about it ? It has cer- tainly precision, technique, purity of tone ; but 196 MAGNHILD no imaginative quality, nothing in it to carry one away, no substance. For that matter, where the devil should she have got these things from ? Had she had imagination, then she would have had energy ; and with her musical endowment, her sense for technique, she would have been a great artist whether there had ever been such a person as Tande or not whether she had married Skarlie or Farlie ! " In spite of the harsh and rude way he put it, there was enough truth in what he said to make it worth while to unfold Magnhild's history fully. Grong could not withstand the attraction a spiritual experience had for him. He became all ears, forgetting both his annoyance and his carriage. He heard of the Magnhild who would scarcely take the trouble to dress herself, and who allowed Skarlie to do and say what he liked ; but who, the moment Skarlie couples her name and Tande's that is to say, the moment he intrudes upon her privacy that instant flies from him away to America ! Perhaps there was no energy in that ? He came to hear of the Magnhild who, arrested 197 MAGNHILD in the greatest things of life, cared for nothing more. Her relation to Tande was laid bare to him ; indeed Grong knew something of it from Tande himself. Ronnaug thought it right, too, to tell him about Tande's letter. She remembered it, for it had made a strong impression on her. What an impression it made now upon Grong, too ! What must it not have cost this man in his day to give up what he had believed himself destined to achieve, and now again to give up his son ? How could she and Magnhild have laughed at such a struggle as they had done that very morning ? "There is a comfort in thinking that our destiny is greater and more complex than we ourselves see. Yes, for any one having no will of his own, submits himself blindly to the unknown providence. I can't do it." He raised his clenched fist, but let it drop again quietly. " Is it a crime to steer straight for a definite goal to fix one's will, one's sense of responsibility upon it ? See this insect here. It is going straight ahead its will is bent to some definite end. Now I'll crush it 198 MAGNHILD under foot. There it's done ! " After a little he continued. "You should have seen my wife She was a creature of light and vivacity her eyes, her very thoughts sparkled. Just as with my help she was beginning to be mistress of her powers she was snuffed out. A shooting star ! I had a friend. What gifts and what ambition ! How beautiful he was 1 At twenty or a little more he fell in the Danish war hardly men- tioned, hardly remembered. A shooting star ! But what care is taken of lives that neither wish to, nor can come to anything ? That fisherman in the North was saved he alone when the people of a whole district met their death. And he managed to live over sixty years, stupid as the codfish he hauled up out of the sea. For the sake of others ? To serve as an educative influence ? For the benefit of posterity ? Oh yes, console yourself with that ! What I am to believe I must see, I must feel. I can't live a mole's life in darkness at the mercy of chance, even with the assurance that sometime the light will break in to wit on the other side of eternity. I admire the people who can ! " 199 MAGNHILD " That is to say you despise them," Ronnaug interjected. He looked at her but did not answer. Ronnaug wanted to know what one ought to advise Magnhild to do now. He answered quickly : " Advise her to go to work." "Without any object ? To work for the sake of work ? " He stopped. " I'll tell you one thing, my dear lady. Magnhild's misfortune has been that all her life long she has had everything she wanted provided for her every meal, every dress. Had she had hard work to do, or to bring up children, then she would not have dangled after dreams." " Then you recommend work without any object," repeated Ronnaug. " There are so many kinds of objects," he said crossly, then relapsed into silence. It was obvious that he had passed round the circle of feeling, and come back again to his annoyance at what had befallen himself. They had retraced their steps, and were in the pleasant birch avenue leading to the house. MAGNHILD From the house came the sound of singing. They went nearer, stood still and heard dis- tinctly ; for the windows were open and every note came to them with equal distinctness. " Yes, there is innocence in that voice," he said, " that's true. But innocence is a passive quality." They walked on. " You recognise more than mere technique ? " asked Ronnaug. He made no answer to this. He had dropped into another vein of thought. As they stood in front of the house he stopped. " She, like my- self, is in reality the inheritor of a half- perfected race-mission. Yet her family race dies out with her and mine ? Bah ! One could easily go mad thinking of it ! Where is my carriage ? " He marched past the house and went towards the courtyard behind, ROnnaug following at a slower pace. The carriage had not come. He grumbled a little and sauntered up to the coach- house, the door of which stood open. In it he saw Ronnaug's carriage. She came up and he talked about it. It was too light for a travelling carriage, he thought. One of the fore-wheels 2OI MAGNHILD must have already got injured, for it had been taken off. Consequently it depended on the blacksmith how long the ladies would have to remain here. But he was going to set off instantly for there, at last, was his conveyance coming. He said good-bye indifferently, as if he were only going round the corner, and went into the house after his things. Ronnaug, however, made up her mind to wait till he came out again. She felt kindly towards him. Perhaps, after all, the son had not made such a mess as the father thought. Grong had such an unquiet nature. Perhaps that was because he had many sorts of ability, but no particular gift. She had once heard him use this expression, half in jest, about another. But she felt it was essential that ability should be concentrated in one particular direction. This was Magnhild's case ; but perhaps she had too little ability. Technique ? Well, if that was her chief gift, that, too, could no doubt find its expression in song. The matter grew no clearer for her, and it MAGNHILD was very disheartening ; for here was a case where advice should be given, and a resolution taken. She prayed to God to help her friend, and to help that melancholy man who was now coming out of the house followed by the pastor's wife, the only one to whom he seemed to have said good-bye. " Remember me to my old teacher," he said, leaning over the side of the carriole as he took his hostess's hand. " Tell him no, tell him nothing." He cut at the horse with the whip so suddenly, the post-boy nearly fell off behind. The pastor's wife said something to the effect that he did not seem to be happy ; and then re- mained standing there looking after him. At that moment a woman came towards them from the same direction. She nodded to the pastor's wife with a smile as she passed by on her way to the kitchen. " You were able to sell it ? " " Yes." " I can see it in your face," and turning to Ronnaug she said, " I can assure you that woman made Magnhild happy this morning." " How was that ? " 2Oj MAGNHILD " She was on her way to the storekeeper's with the work she had done ; he is agent for a dealer in the town. At that moment Magnhild came down into the kitchen. When the woman saw her she recognised her she's a great one for talking and she began to cry and to tell us how poor she used to be, but how comfortable she was now, she and her children too. Magnhild, you see, had had a school of needle- work up here for several years and this woman was one of the cleverest pupils. I can tell you this needlework business has taken hold of the people ; there are hardly any poor people to be found about here now." " But Magnhild was she happy over it ? " " She was very happy, for soon afterwards we heard her singing. And when she was here last three or four years ago we were never able to get her to touch the piano." Ronnaug spoke to Miss Roland and her child, who came up at that moment. A little while after- wards she was about to go from the passage into the sitting-room when she heard singing going on again. The pastor's daughters were singing a duet with thin voices, one a little less 204 MAGNHILD clear than the other. They sang in very slow time : All are in the Father's keeping. The door stood open. One of the girls sat at the piano and the other stood by her side. Magnhild sat opposite them, leaning on the piano. Peace radiated from the little hymn, because they who sang it had peace in their hearts. The small yellow heads above the dress collars were motionless, the piano almost whispered. But the sunshine that played over the embroidered furniture and embroidered covers was like an accompaniment from afar. When they had finished, one of them told how a lady who was travelling in that part of the country had taught them the hymn, the other added that the governess had set it to music. Magnhild, without speaking or altering her position, held out one hand, which was taken by the nearest of the girls. A voice was heard outside ; it was the pastor's, who had returned accompanied by several men. They were coming straight to the front entrance, 205 MAGNHILD so ROnnaug went into the sitting-room. Soon a stamping was heard on the front steps. Those in the sitting-room rose to their feet. Magnhild went over and joined Rfinnaug. First the dog appeared, then the pastor made his ponderous entrance, and after him came in slowly one man after another, stolid work-worn people, six or seven of the farmers belonging to the little mountain parish. Magnhild shrank closer to Rdnnaug who also retreated a little, so that they found themselves standing before the great gauze- covered mirror. The pastor said good-morning first to Mrs. Randon, then to Magnhild, and asked how they were. Afterwards one peasant after another went round the room shaking hands with every one. " Call mother in," said the pastor to one of his daughters, and cleared his throat. His wife came in ; again the peasants one after another went up and shook hands and retired again. The pastor wiped his face, placed himself in front of the dismayed Magnhild, bowed, and said : " Dear Magnhild, do not be alarmed. The representatives of our little parish have chanced 206 MAGNHILD to meet to-day in the school-house, and I happened to say that you were stopping here on your journey through this part of the country, and some one said, ' We owe it to her that the poor- rate is so low,' and then several others made the same observation. So I said that they ought to say that to her in person, and they all agreed. We feel that you have never been really thanked, my dear child, neither here nor down at the port, although down there the results of your labour are still greater, and have extended to the parishes on both sides of the fjord. Dear child, the ways of God are inscrutable. So long as we see his hand in our little destinies we are happy ; when we cannot see His hand we are miserable. (Here Magnhild burst into tears.) When you, with the rope of your sled in your little hand, were carried in safety out of the landslip, it was in order that you should be a blessing unto many. Do not despise the gratitude of this poor parish it is a prayer for you in the ears of the Almighty. You know yourself what He has said, ' Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren ye have done it unto me.' May it be granted you to realise that." 207 MAGNHILD The pastor turned away, and in the same solemn tone in which he had been speaking he said to his wife, " Let these men have some refreshment." He went about among them with pleasantries which re-echoed through the whole house. The greater Magnhild's emotion, the happier he seemed. Magnhild wanted very much to say something to the pastor, for if she had not been received into his house, none of these things would have been done for which she was now receiving un- deserved thanks. But his boisterous geniality held her back. The men were given some refreshment. Again they shook hands with every one present, and took their leave, conducted by the pastor, the sound of whose voice reached them almost as far off as the schoolhouse. 208 CHAPTER XIII LATER in the afternoon the post came in from the port, bringing a letter for Magnhild. She was afraid to open it, and gave it to Ronnaug, who soon returned it with the information that this she could quite well read. " It will show you what has been the effect of your journey," she added. The letter was from the tall Louisa. " DEAR MAGNHILD, " I looked in to see you to-day to get the pattern which you promised to explain to us, but I found Skarlie at home alone, and he was not exactly well, how shall I put it, for I have never seen a man so miserable. He said you had gone on a journey. " I heard later that you had gone away with JVIrs. Randon, and so I thought that by now you must be up at the pastor's, so I write to 209 o MAGNHILD you there. For you must not go away from us, Magnhild ! or else go if you must, but come to us again. " We have understood quite well all of us that you were not happy, but you never seemed to wish to speak of it, so neither did we. But can't you stay with us ? " How are we to get along with the new kind of work that we've just been beginning ? We can't get it right alone, and the singing too ! Dear Magnhild, Maria and I are always getting thanks, for of course we are at the head of the thing now. But we all know to whom we are indebted for being able to make a comfortable living, for being so happy together, and able to stand by one another. Now that you have gone we feel so dreadfully that you have never had any real satisfaction out of your work for us, that you don't really know us. "We could do much to make you happy another time, you may be sure, if only you would let us try. Don't go away from us ! Or at least came back to us when your journey is over. " Your deeply, deeply grateful, LOUISA." MAGNHILD Then followed an exceedingly neatly written postscript from Maria : " I was so distressed when Louisa told me. She has more energy than I, poor humpback ! In what she has written she has said what we all yes, every one of us think about that matter. "But I have the greatest reason for writing. What in this world would have become of me if you had not come to the school and made me skilful in just the work I was fitted for ? But for you I should have been a burden upon others or I should have had to work at something I could find no happiness in. As it is, I have a share in an ever-growing industry. Yes, 1 am happy now ! " Well, I have told you at last ! How often have I not wished to do so, but I did not quite like to, you were so reserved. " I'm sure we could have been such good friends. Might it not still be possible V "Thy MARIA. " Postscript. You will perhaps think that I mean that you have overlooked us. No indeed. 211 MAGNHILD You have been too patient towards us for one to think that. "But it seemed as if everything was in- different to you, people as well as the rest ; that is what I mean. " Can't you, as Louisa says, stay with us ? We will gather round you like a swarm of bees about their queen. Dear Magnhild ! " There is no better way of expressing what had just befallen Magnhild, than to say that new sources of life were opened up. This help, coming to her from something she had never thought of otherwise than as a way of passing the time, and as a matter of habit, had its effect. She must try to deserve this affection ; she knew now what she ought to do. She went out into the court-yard, and talked with ROnnaug. The evening was drawing in. The hens had gone to roost and were ranging themselves, cackling, on their perches ; the cows went by driven home from the fields. The fragrance of the hay which was being carted was wafted into their faces. Ronnaug felt so confident of her position that 212 MAGNHILD she ventured to tell Magnhild what the same post had brought, namely newspapers containing telegrams from Munich announcing Tande's death. The news had no other effect on Magnhild than to make her pause a moment, and then walk on in a long silence. She had really never thought of him except as something far off; she felt him rather nearer now, and what he had recently sent her by way of guidance became a deeper truth. When next she began to speak it was not about Tande but about Skarlie. It was perhaps best to send a message to him so that they might come to an understanding before she went away. Ronnaug was inclined to agree to this only she desired that it should not be Magnhild, but herself, who should undertake to arrange matters. There was really nothing to do but to tell him what Magnhild had now determined to do with her life. The conversation strayed here and there, like their footsteps. All the pastor's household were out haymaking, and Miss Roland and the child had gone with the rest. They thought they would follow too. Just then a boy came into the garden, whistling, and with both hands in his 213 MAGNHILD pockets. On catching sight of the two ladies he stopped and left off whistling. He struck an attitude which brought the weight of his body on the right foot he stuck the left out and rested it on the heel, while he moved his leg so that the foot waggled back and forth. Presently he approached. " Is your name Magnhild ? " he said, in the sonorous dialect of the district. He chose the right one to put the question to, and she answered " Yes." " I was told to ask you to come down to our place, Synstevolden ; for there's a fellow sitting there waiting for you." " What's his name ? " asked Ronnaug. " I wasn't to tell," said the boy. Again he put forward the left heel, waggled his foot backwards and forwards, and stared up at the barn. Then RSnnaug relapsed into dialect as she asked if the " fellow " wasn't lame. " Well, I don't say he isn't," answered the boy, and laughed. Ronnaug ran to old Andreas, who was just coming out from the barn with an empty wagon and preparing to drive off again. The rattling 214 MAGNHILD of the cart prevented him from hearing her call ; she was obliged to run after him. " Is it you who have taken the forewheel off my carriage ? " she asked. " Forewheel off the carriage," queried old Andreas; "is it taken off? Stand still, you fool," he cried, jerking so hard at the reins that one of the horses, being young, began to back instead of going on. But meanwhile Ronnaug saw her course clear, and she turned away and left him. She told Magnhild what she believed she had discovered, in slowly enunciated English, so that the boy, who still stood there, should not understand. Andreas drove away. Magnhild laughed. " Yes, he has come. It is he ! " and she turned to the boy and said that she would go with him at once. Ronnaug tried to get Magnhild to stay behind, and allow her to go. But no, Magnhild would go herself. She had already started off, when Ronnaug called after her that she was coming presently to see how things were going. Magnhild turned and smiled. "That you are welcome to do." 215 MAGNHILD Some time afterwards Ronnaug took her way towards Synstevolden. She knew well enough that Skarlie could not offer Magnhild anything that would tempt her ; but he might be disagree- able, perhaps rude. The incident of the fore- wheel struck a note of warning ! There was probably no one to whom Skarlie was so repugnant as to Ronnaug. She knew him ! No one but Ronnaug had any idea how he had tried in every possible way, coward as he was, to infect Magnhild's imagination, in order to break down her sense of honour. Magnhild's frequent blushes told their story. What was it that bound him to her so closely ? At first of course it was hope that was baffled. But afterwards ? The pastor had said on the previous evening, when the talk turned on the Catholic converts, that Skarlie, who was a travelled and thoughtful man, had remarked that in the monasteries the monks prayed night and day, in order to make up for the frequently neglected prayers of the rest of the world. That was why people were so willing to give money to convents. It was paying off by instalments their debt of sin. 216 MAGNHILD Ronnaug had sat and turned this over in her mind. What if Skarlie had confessed in these words his own relation to Magnhild ? He was paying for her by instalments. And so he grudged her to any one else. If only he had been severe and impatient with her, Magnhild would have left him instantly. It was just the unfortunate part of it that he was cowardly, and that he'could never bring himself to give her up altogether. He would be depre- catory after having been intrusive, and would become quite friendly and interesting the moment after being malignant. And this was how he had managed to keep things going. Reflecting on these, and kindred subjects, she had made her way over the fields in order not to be seen from the place of meeting. Here the grass was not mowed, she trod it down unmerci- fully but paused before a patch of flowers whose variety of colouring attracted her notice. At that moment she heard voices. In front of her were some bushes. Through them she caught sight of the two people she was looking for. There sat Skarlie and Magnhild in the grass, he in his shirt sleeves and without a hat. 217 MAGNHILD Half alarmed on Magnhild's account, and without the least regard for him, she at once began to spy upon them. She was concealed between two bushes ; but the couple were in full view, for the ground behind them was open. " Then I'll shut up shop down at the port. I'll follow you." " That you are quite welcome to do. But have done now with all these threats. For the last time I tell you I'm going ! I am doing so that I may see and learn. Then I shall come back and teach others." " Will you come back to me then ? " " I don't know." " Oh, you know very well." " Yes, maybe I know that too. For if you have altered I may come back to you yet, but I don't believe you can alter ; so I may as well say at once that I will not come back to you." " You don't know all I will do for you." " You're saying the same thing over again ! Let us drop all that." She sat and twisted a flower, looking down at it. He had doubled the shorter leg under him, his face was contracted ; his eyes gleamed. 218 MAGNHILD " You have never appreciated me." " No, that is true. I have much to thank you for which I have accepted without thanks. With God's help I shall yet show my gratitude." " Couldn't everything be made right ? What do you want ? To travel ? We will travel ; we have means enough." "As I've said, let's have done with all such talk." He sighed, he took up his pipe and laid his forefinger over the bowl of it. It was filled ; he took out his match-box. " If you can smoke, there's not so much amiss with you," she said. " Oh, I don't care for smoking, it's only an old habit." He sighed heavily. " No, Magnhild, there isn't any hope left for me, if you're going away. It's practically shutting my door in my face and driving me away. People's gossip will be too much for me." He was looking really miserable now. Magnhild reached after more flowers ; but if he expected an answer it was in vain. " It is a bad thing to have so strong a nature as I have," he said. " The devil gets the upper hand in many ways. I thought you would 219 MAGNHILD have helped me. I can assure you if we had had a comfortable home and a child " She rose hastily and the flowers slid off her lap. " I tell you, have done with that sort of talk. No one with good intentions begins as you did, and in spite of the beginning . . . you might still have . . . But how did you behave ? I tell you, say no more ! " She walked away a few steps and came back again. " No, it was not when I married you, that I made the mistake, for you promised that I should live and do exactly as I liked, and I was such an inexperienced child that I did not at all under- stand that you had taken me in. The mistake was, when I learned how matters really stood, I did not instantly leave you. And even after- wards I did not. I let things go. But there were many reasons for that . . . and about them we must not talk now. Now, the only thing is for each of us in his own way, to make good what has been ill done. Let me go, and do you try to do your duty towards others." " What do you mean by that ? " His eyes blinked, and his face grew sharp. MAGNHILD " I mean that I have heard that you have outwitted others here for the sake of gain. Try to make it good again, if you are really so bent on turning over a new leaf." " That is not true. Besides, that doesn't concern you." " No, no ; I suppose that is all your ' turning over a new leaf will come to in this as in other things. So good-by. It will be as I've said." He looked up and contracted the muscles of his face into a grin, so that the eyes almost dis- appeared under the heavy eyebrows. " You can't go away from here if I refuse to let you." Oh " " Besides, have you considered what you are doing ? Have you any right in the sight of God ? " ' You know how I feel on that point." ' Pooh ! All that about immoral marriages is downright rubbish. There isn't a word about it in the Bible. I've looked to see.' She happened to be just stroking her hair away from her forehead. " Then it's written MAGNHILD here," she said, and turned as if to go. At that Skarlie began to get up. He was greatly ex- asperated. Ronnaug at once rose and came forward ; or now they might see her at any moment. Suddenly they all three found themselves face to face. Ronnaug went straight up to Skarlie with a gentle and amiable expression, took him cordially by the hand, and said in English that she was really delighted to see him, he had frequently been so excessively kind to her. Then she began to jest ; her talk was at once insinuating and daring ; he was obliged to laugh, and made some answer, also in English. Then she made some humorous remark, for which he had a reply read}', and soon they were laughing heartily. Under the influence of this hand- some, finely developed woman he was as if transported to another place before he knew it, and fresh images filled his mind. The fun became still livelier. The talk was in English, which it amused him to speak ; it amused him too to show his ready wit, for that he certainly possessed. She held him in a kind of fine MAGNHILD enchantment, thereby making a not wholly favourable impression upon Magnhild. It alarmed Magnhild to see the powers Ronnaug had at her command. She seemed to wind herself around him by her glances, by what she said, by the seductiveness of her figure, but there was an ominous gleaming in her eyes underneath the laughter : she was itching to give him a box on the ear ! There is an esprit de corps among women, when it is a question of defending or avenging one another. In the midst of the stream of talk, Ronnaug got him to hobble after her round the bushes ; when they reached the other side she turned towards the bush behind which she had hidden herself while she was eavesdropping. Then she pushed aside a couple of branches and asked him, laughingly, if he was not gallant enough to help them to trundle home the wheel that lay hidden there. He could not possibly stand by and see the ladies do it by themselves. He joined in with her laugh but did not stir to render any assistance. He was in his shirt sleeves, he said ; he would have to fetch his 223 MAGNHILD coat if he was to go into the house with them. Oh, some one could be sent after the coat and he could roll the thing best in his shirt sleeves, said Ronnaug. She began to hoist the wheel up by herself, singing out, " Ahoy ! " The moment she got it up, down it fell on the other side. " Now see it takes two to do it." She bent down again and in that position glanced up at him with roguish eyes. Like magnets they drew him towards her laughing face and rounded figure. Without a moment's delay he took hold of the wheel and lifted it upright. They rolled it along, each one giving it a push in turn ; she skipping along, he hobbling. Gay words and laughter in plenty accompanied the proceedings. Magnhild fol- lowed them slowly. Ronnaug sent her a glance over Skarlie's bald head ; her eyes flashed lightnings of merriment and triumph ; they might well have left two stripes of scorn branded down the flesh of his neck and back. The road could scarcely be called short ; he began to groan. Presently Ronnaug felt the perspiration dropping from his forehead upon her hands. But so much the faster did she 224 MAGNHILD trundle the wheel. His sentences became words, his words became syllables ; he tried to laugh in order to disguise his exhaustion. Finally he could no longer propel either his own body or the wheel, and fell flat in the grass as red as a bunch of rowan berries. His eyes were fixed and staring, his mouth wide open. He gasped for air and tried to collect his scattered senses. Ronnaug called out to old Andreas, who was just passing along the road with a load of hay, and told him to come and take away the wheel. Then she slipped her arm in Magnhild's, bowed to Skarlie, thanked him a thousand times (still in English) for his invaluable assistance, now they would be able to start on their journey early to-morrow morning good-bye ! When they had gone a little way along the road, they stopped and looked back. From Andreas' attitude they could see that he was asking Skarlie how the wheel had come there. Skarlie made an angry gesture with his hand as if he would have liked to sweep both Andreas and the wheel to the ends of the earth, or perhaps he wished them both in that place to 225 p MAGNHILD which in Norway it is not unusual to consign unpleasant acquaintances. They saw Skarlie turn towards the road. Ronnaug instantly waved her pocket-handkerchief and called out good-bye. An echo answered through the evening air. They had gone only a few steps further on, when Ronnaug stopped again to give expression to the rest of her indignation. She poured forth a stream of words for the most part in a whisper. Magnhild heard very few of the words, but those she did catch were survivals from the time when Ronnaug was playing the part of post-girl on the roads hereabouts ; they bear the same relation to the usual vocabulary as the hippopotamus to the fly. Magnhild drew back. Ronnaug was staring at her wildly, then she recovered her self-control. " You are right," she said in English, but a brisk outburst of wrath and disgust followed. She was overcome by her memories of the time when she had struggled as best she could down among the slimy creatures in the blackness of that social abyss. She remembered how such wretches as the man down there on the hillside 226 MAGNHILD sat on the brink of the pit and fished , she felt in her pocket for Charles Randon's last letter, which she always carried about with her till the next one came. She pressed it to her lips, and burst into tears, and kept on crying till she was obliged to sit down. It was the first time in their lives that Magnhild had seen her cry. Even on the deck of the steamer as she was leaving for America she had not cried ; indeed quite the contrary ! 227 CHAPTER XIV THEY remained at the pastor's for several days. For when they heard that Magnhild was going away to America, the good people were so alarmed, that it was necessary to give them time to get accustomed to the idea. Magnhild too wanted to remain with them for a little while. One day all the ladies went for a walk. Ronnaug and Miss Roland had little Harry between them, so they did not get on very rapidly. On the child's account they all gave a wide berth to the great travelling carriage that was coming along behind them ; for the motion which one makes, others are apt to imitate in sympathy. " Magnhild," some one called out from the carriage before the pedestrians had quite turned round to face it. Magnhild looked- up. A lady dressed in black was smiling to her. Instantly Magnhild rushed 228 MAGNHILD towards her. The coachman drew up. It was Mrs. Bang. She clasped Magnhild in her arms and kissed her. A stout military man who sat by her side bowed. The lady was thinner. She was fashionably dressed in mourning. Her dress was embroidered with jet, which shone with every motion she made. From the turned-up hat with its floating feather a black veil dropped down over her face and was wound round her neck. Her eyes seemed to flash from the depths of night ; in this setting they acquired an enthralling lustre. It seemed as if a melancholy resignation held command over her face, governed her nerves, formed the smile on her lips, and languished in her eyes. " Yes, I am altered," she said, faintly. Magnhild glanced from the lady to the stout military man. The lady's eyes followed her. " Don't you recognise my husband ? Or did you never see him ? " He sat there, pillowed as it were in tenfold layers of fat, taking up three parts of the carriage. The lady was squeezed into the corner. One of his shoulders and one arm lay over hers. He 229 MAGNHILD looked good-natured and thoroughly contented. But when one looked from his podgy face and great body to the lady, she seemed etherealized down to the very hand from which she was now drawing off her glove. Constantly following Magnhild's eyes, she stroked from her forehead a lock of hair which had escaped and she let her hand glide slowly and softly over her cheek. "You are in mourning," said Magnhild. "So ought the whole country to be, my child." A moment after she said in a lower tone, " He is dead." ' ' Remember we must make haste, if we are to catch the steamer." She did not look up as her husband spoke ; she was still occupied with the lock of hair which she had a moment before put back. Her husband gave the coachman a sign, the carriage began to move. " I'm going to America," whispered Magnhild, as she left the carriage steps. The lady looked after her and then seemed to comprehend the meaning of Magnhild's speech in all its bearings. Skarlie's wife was going away, 230 MAGNHILD far away ; what must have preceded such a resolution, and what might result from it ! Her face took on something of the old fervid look, her limbs the old strength. In an instant she had risen in her seat and turned quite round, and waved back to them. What grace there was in the action ! Her husband would not let the carriage stop again. He merely stretched out one hand to steady her. The movement must have been accompanied by an admonition to sit down ; for she did so instantly. The feather could be seen waving close by his shoulder. Nothing more of her was visible ; she must have slipped back into her place. 231 DUST DUST CHAPTER I IT was about a two hours' drive at a steady pace from the town to Skogstad, the Athing's great property with the mills along the Skog river ; but for a sleigh, in the present condition of the snow, it took barely an hour and a half. We followed the highway along the fjord. Driving from the town, I had the fjord on my right, and on my left broad meadows sloping gradually down from the hills. Dotted over them lay villas and farms surrounded by groves and approached by avenues of trees. Farther on the hills became mountains, and skirted the road more closely. Here, too, the way became rougher and rougher, until at last there was nothing but pine woods from the top of the ridge straight down to the fjord, nothing 235 DUST but woods, woods. They belonged to Skogstad, and provided the mills along the river with their raw material. The Athings were a French Huguenot stock, and of humble origin ; but they had risen in the world by intermarriage with the once powerful family of Athing, and had taken that name, which sounded something like their own. I enjoyed my drive. It had just been snowing, and the snow lay on the trees ; no breath of wind had left its trace in the wood. On the other hand, there had been a little thaw, and the deciduous trees, which here began to appear among the pines, had been cleared of their burden. The snow that lay on them now was only that which had freshly fallen during the morning. Between the two stretches of white shore, and in the snow-laden air the fjord seemed black. It was not far to the opposite side, where higher mountains rose, white now as well, yet with the subdued tone imparted by the atmospheric distance. Here, where I was driving, the sea came close up to the snow. Nothing but seaweed and a few slippery stones, and, in some places, not 236 DUST even that, divided the two forms and colours of the same element, the reality from its transfigura- tion, which indeed is as real as the reality, only not so lasting. As soon as I entered the forest, it absorbed me entirely. The fir trees held great burdens of snow, in some places almost more than they could bear ; yet enough remained uncovered to give the wood, as a whole, a dark green tinge in the midst of the whiteness. As you looked more closely, you saw here and there a solitary uncovered branch jutting defiantly forth, with its reddish limbs thrust through the snow sheet. Underneath stood the mighty trunks, most of them dark but some younger and lighter-coloured, like a company of caryatids, and this made it sombre deep there in the thicket. The nearest trees, which one could see best, and which in growing up had been injured by men and animals (perhaps also by their having served to break the force of storms), were not so regular in their growth as the others. They were more gnarled, so the snow had lodged in them at will. Their lower branches were in some places quite bowed down to the ground, so that the tree looked like 237 DUST a white heap. Others were fantastically trans- formed into clumsy dwarfs with bodies only and no legs, or into other kinds of mannikins with white sacks over their heads, or shirts which they had put on awry. By the side of these monsters, deciduous trees would, as it were, trip along, wearing the merest suspicion of snow. Here and there a single tree, standing out free against the sky, seemed, as its topmost white branches tapered ever finer and finer, to melt away in the air. Then there would come young fir trees in regular snow terraces, pyramid on pyramid. Down by the sea, where it was more stony, a few briars grew here and there. On every spine the snow had lodged, so the bushes looked as though sprinkled with white berries. I drove round a point of land adorned with a pier, and here began Skogstad proper. The ridge of hills falls back and leaves an open space below, which is divided by the river into two parts. Again we come among gently sloping meadows, and here lies the Athings' house. The river winds away to the other side of the house and dis- appears in the distance. A number of red roofs 238 DUST are seen along its course, and a row of buildings on the opposite side. Separated from the great house by fields on this side and by a wood or park on the other, the labourers' cottages and farm buildings lay to the right and left of the manor. Once in the park, I forgot everything else. This was originally designed to extend down to the sea, but the stony character of the soil here had no doubt made this impossible, so at the lower end a rectangular space has been cleared, but in the course of years, instead of the pines, a luxuriant growth of deciduous trees had sprung up, and these trees, all dating from the same year, were of uniform height and grew close up to the huge old pine trees of the park. It made a beautiful effect, this delicate fringe round the sombre centre, this airiness contrasted with density, this even diminutiveness crouching under gigantic strength. The eye wandered over it, trying to distinguish forms. Either I gathered many boughs together in one general survey because they ran in the same direction to the same height ; or I chose out a single branch from the others, followed it 239 DUST from the trunk in its first division, and from division to division on to the last twig. It seemed an outstretched transparent white wing on an enormous fern sprinkled over with white down. Finally, I gave up tracing outlines, and turned my attention to the colouring. The uneven sprinkling of snow brought out a myriad nuances. I turned my back on my travelling companion the fjord, and swung round towards the house. Where the park ended the garden began, the road skirting it in an easy ascent. This also had once been woodland with a path leading through. But scarcely more than a yard or two of the ancient forest remained on either side, forming an avenue. The great old trees were being gradually supplanted by the younger growth ; and that so thickly that in some places I could scarcely see through. But here too the snow told its fairy tale. Decaying giants were draped with white flags ; the young and hale stood snow-powdered ; the hunchbacks seemed bent on Yule-tide mummery. 240 CHAPTER II COMING events are foreshadowed in external nature. What thing then, white and delicate was I to encounter here ? Memory did not picture her as dressed in white, this fair-haired creature whom I was about to see again. It was on her wedding journey in Dresden, something like nine years ago, that we had last met. Every day she used to be in gala dress ; it was a caprice of the love-intoxicated young bridegroom. She was oftenest dressed in blue, but never once in white indeed, it would probably not have become her. I remember them specially as they sang at the .piano ; he sitting to play the accompaniment ; she standing, and generally with her hand on his shoulder. But what they sang was in truth a white song a hymn of praise. She was the daughter of a dissenting pastor, and they had 241 a DUST just come from the parsonage and from the wedding festivities. I had since heard of them now and then at the parsonage, and had received repeated invitations to come and see them the next time I was in their neighbourhood. Now I was on my way. I had heard their manor-house spoken of as one of the largest wooden structures in Norway. It was grey, and immensely long. One Athing had never been content with what the former Athing had built, so the house had been added to in each generation and partially rebuilt, in order to make the new harmonise with the old. I had heard that by a number of long corridors (celebrated over and over again, it would seem, n the family feast songs) an attempt had been made to unite the interior parts with the same success or unsuccess with which the outbuildings, sloping roofs, balconies and verandahs main- tained the harmony of the exterior. I have heard how many rooms there are in the house, but I have forgotten. The last addition has been made by the present owner, and is an attempt at a kind of modernised Gothic. Behind the main building 242 DUST lie the offices and dependencies in the form of a crescent, which, however, bulges badly on one side. I drove on between these houses and the main building, and by the post-boy's advice, drew up at a porch in the Gothic wing. I did not see a living creature about the place, not even a dog. I waited a little, but in vain, and then went through the porch into a passage, where I took off my things ; and thence to the right into a large bright ante-room. Not even here did I see any one, but I could hear the voices either of two children and a woman, or of two women and a child. I knew the song, for it had travelled the country over, this little girl's lament that everywhere she was in the way except with God in Heaven, who was glad to have unhappy children with Him. Such a doleful ditty sounded somewhat strange in that bright, cheerful room, full of guns and other weapons of the chase, reindeer horns, fox and lynx skins, and similar objects, arranged with scrupulous taste. I knocked, and entered one of the most beautiful morning rooms I have ever seen in this country, spacious and luxurious, with a bright 243 DUST outlook over the fjord. The highly polished panels of the wainscot were divided by carved designs, each of which supported a bust or small statue. Tasteful furniture was carelessly dis- posed over the Brussels carpet. Moody and Sankey's moonstruck song flowed over the room like a whitish yellow sheet. Some Christian songs are among the most beautiful things I know, but this one produced the same sort of impression as if there had been a mediaeval crypt under that modern chamber, where prisoned nuns by the light of smoking lamps held services for the dead, and whence the smoke and the sound, indissolubly blended, stole upwards into the luminous atmosphere and pleasant art of the nineteenth century. It was a woman and two boys who were singing, the elder seven years old or thereabouts, and the other a year younger. The woman turned her face towards the door and paused in astonishment at my entrance. The boys had turned away to the window and did not observe her ; they were absorbed in their singing, and kept on a moment or so after she had stopped. ^44 DUST One of these two boys resembled the father's family, the other the mother's ; but her large eyes lit up the faces of both. The elder boy had a long face with high forehead and reddish hair, and his skin was freckled like his father's. The younger had his mother's figure slightly stooping on account of the head's not rising straight from the shoulders ; and, as a conse- quence, being carried a little tilted back, as though to readjust the body's balance. Another result was, the mouth stood a little open, while the great questioning eyes, the fair curling hair over a delicate arched brow, were the mother to the life. The eldest was tall and thin, and had the father's loose-limbed gait and small feet, well turned out. So much I saw in a moment, while the boys were going over to the table by the sofa, as the lady turned away from them. After a little hesitation, she came towards me. She was clearly not sure whether she knew me or not. On hearing my name, she discovered smilingly that it was only my portrait she had seen, the portrait in the album which my hosts had brought home from their wedding journey. She said that Athing was over at the 245 DUST works, and came home to dinner; that was to say, in an hour's time, and that Mrs. Athing was in one of the cottages I had seen from the road ; she had gone to see an old man who was dying. She said this in a pleasant though somewhat thin voice, and with a pair of searching eyes fixed on me. She had evidently heard some- thing about me. I had never thought to see one of Carlo Dolci's Madonna's step down out of her frame and stand talking with me in a modern drawing-room, so that my eyes were probably no less searching than her own. The pose of the head on the shoulders, its droop to one side, the outline of the face, and, above all, the eyes and eyebrows, even the bluish-green head-dress drawn well forward, and from which the pale face took something of the same hue altogether genuine Carlo Dolci ! She went out noiselessly and left me behind with the boys, to whom I immediately turned my attention. The elder was called Anton and could walk on his hands, at least very nearly. The younger, Storm, narrated this and much more of his brother, whom he admired without 246 DUST reserve. The older, on the other hand, said of his little brother, that he had not outgrown a certain infantine weakness, and on that account he had been whipped to-day by father. Stina had told father about it. She who had just left us was called Stina. After this not very discreet prelude to acquaintance, they presently came and stood one on either side of me, and told me what for the time being was occupying their minds to an absorbing degree. Both, the elder in particular, but with explanatory additions from the younger, told how over there in one of the workmen's cottages that I had passed there Hans lived, little Hans. That is to say, he had lived there because the real true little Hans was with God. He used to come here to the big house to play with the boys nearly every single day. Still, sometimes they had been allowed to go over to the cottages, which I could see was to them the Promised Land here on earth. Hans was to have gone home one evening in the twilight now a fortnight ago. That was before the snow came, and in the park he was to go through was the fish-pond, very black and 247 DUST shining. So he thought he would like to have a slide, and went from the footpath on to the pond ; for the footpath skirted it. But that same da} T they had cut a hole in the ice to catch fish, and had forgotten to mark the place ; so little Hans slid straight into the hole ! They had heard a child's cry for help down at the house ; the milkmaid had heard it ; but only once, and she had not thought very much about it, for all the boys used to play there in the park. So little Hans had gone away, and no one could say where he was. Then the ice in the pond was broken up, and they found him, but the boys were not allowed to see him. On the other hand, they had been allowed to go to the funeral with the little bo} r s and girls of the factory school. But he was not buried in the chapel where grandfather and grandmother lay, he was buried in the churchyard. Oh, it had been so beautiful when the children sang. The schoolmaster had sung bass, and the old brown horse had drawn Hans, who was in a white painted coffin that father got from town, and there were wreaths on it. Mother and Stina had made them. All the children got cakes 248 DUST before they went away, and currant wine. But the song : that was it that the boys had just been singing. Stina had taught it to them. Hans had been so poor, but now he was very well off indeed ; he was with God. It was only the coffin that went into the ground. What was there in the coffin ? Oh, that was not the real Hans, for Hans was made all new, you see. Angels came down to him in the pond with all the things that the new Hans ought to have on, so he didn't feel cold. He wasn't really in the pond. All the children who died went to God. They went up with a hundred thousand million tiny little angels. The angels were here all round us, too, only we couldn't see them, because they were invisible ; and Hans was among them now. The angels could see us and were very kind to us, particularly to children ; and the most miserable children of all they were glad to have with them, and so they took them away. It is much, much, much nicer to be with the angels than to be here. Yes, indeed it is, for Stina says so. Stina too would rather be with the angels than be here. It was only for mother's sake that Stina didn't go to them ; for, if she 249 DUST did, mother would be so lonely. All the angels had wings. Now Hans' father lay ill and he was going to God, he too. He would have wings like the rest, and become a little angel and fly about here and wherever he liked, even up to the stars. For the stars were not only just stars, they were so big, so big when we got near them, as big as the whole earth, and that was tre- mendously big, bigger than the biggest mountain. There were people in the stars, and there were many things we didn't have here. This after- noon Hans' father would be allowed to go there straight up to God. For God was up in the sky. They would like so much to see Hans' father get his wings, but mother wouldn't take the boys with her. And now already Hans' father had grown so beautiful as he lay there, that he looked almost like an angel. Mother had said so, but they weren't allowed to see him. Stina came in as they were telling me about this. She told them to come with her and they obe3 r ed. A door stood open on the left. I could see bookshelves within, so I supposed it must be 250 DUST the library. I thought I would like to discover just what the father of these boys read, supposing he read at all. The first thing I found, open on the writing- table by the side of a letter, account books, and samples of manufacture, was a book of Bain's and Bain's English friends were the first things my eyes fell upon on the nearest shelf. I took out a volume, and I saw it had been read. This tallied with what I had heard of Athing. At this moment a bell sounded in the house. I thought Mrs. Athing had come home, and I put back the books in the same order in which I had found them. As I did so, some of those behind fell into disorder, for they were ranged in a double row ; and these (which were thus hidden) I also wanted to look at. Doing so took time. I came out of the library at the moment Mrs. Athing entered the drawing- room. 251 CHAPTER III MRS. ATHING was obviously glad to see me. She had a peculiar gait, much as though she never quite straightened her knees. She came quickly up to me and seized one of my hands with both of hers and gazed long into my eyes, till her own filled with tears. It was, of course, the wedding journey I recalled to her the fairest days of her life but tears ? No, unhappy she could not be. She looked so nearly the same as of old, that had she not filled out a little, I should not have detected the slightest change in her at least, not at once. The expression was just the same, innocent and questioning. There was not the suggestion of a harsh line, or of any loss of colour. Even her hair lay in the same ringlets on the head that was held well back as of old, and the mouth with parted lips had the same softness, untouched by strong purpose. Her eyes had 252 DUST in them the old gentle gladness ; even the slightly veiled tones of her voice were as child- like as ever. " Life seems to have left no trace on you since I saw you last," was the first thing I felt impelled to say. She smiled up at me without a shadow of denial in her face. We each drew forward a chair and sat down near the library door. We turned our backs to the windows and faced a wall, where among the busts and statuettes, supported by carved designs, a picture or two hung here and there on the polished panels. I gave an account of my journey, and she thanked me for having found my way to them at last I gave her a message from her parents, of whom we talked a little. , She said she had been thinking of her father that day she would have been so glad to have had him with her ; for she had just come from the bedside of a dying man, whose end was the most beautiful she had ever seen. While saying this, she had assumed her favourite attitude ; that is to say, she sat bending forward a little, with the head well thrown back and her eyes fixed high on the wall, or as far up as the ceiling. She sat pressing one finger 253 DUST against her underlip, repeating the same move- ment at intervals. Now and then she rocked her body slightly to and fro. The eyes were as though fixed ; they never sought mine either in asking or answering a question, unless some- thing quite unusual induced her to relinquish her attitude. And even then she resumed it instantly again. " Do you believe in immortality ? " she asked, without looking at me, and as if it were the most natural question in the world. When I, astonished, turned to look at her, I saw that a tear was trickling down her cheek and that her wide eyes were swimming. I felt instantly that this question was a conversational short-cut. She was thinking of her husband's belief, and I thought I would spare her the trouble of leading up to it. "What does your husband think?" " He doesn't believe in personal immortality," she answered. " He says we live again only through our influence on other people, through our work, and especially through our children ; and that immortality, he says, is enough for him." 254 DUST Her gaze was fixed as before, and the tears were still in her eyes ; but the voice was gentle and calm, without a trace of discontent or reproach behind the simple statement. No ; she is not one of your simple child- wives, thought I ; and if she has the same innocent questioning expression of nine years ago, it is not because she has never thought or put life to the test. " So you discuss these questions with Athing ? " " Not now." " In Dresden you seemed to be quite of one mind about such matters. You sang to- gether . . . ." " He was under father's influence at that time. And I don't think he himself was quite clear about things. That has come by de- grees." " I've noticed that some of the old books are shifted into the back rows now." 14 Yes, Albert has altered." She sat quite still as she made these replies, except that one finger played upon the under- lip. 255 DUST " Then who has charge of the children's education ? " I asked. At that she turned half towards me. I thought for a time she was not going to answer ; but as last she said : " No one." " No one ? " " It's Albert's wish that they should not learn anything for the present." " But, my dear Mrs. Athing, even if they're not taught anything, they're told this and that." " Yes, if any one cares to. As a rule it's Stina." " Then the whole thing is left to chance ? " She had turned away from me and was sitting as before. "Quite to chance," she said, almost indiffer- ently. I told her briefly what Stina had said to the boys about the life beyond, angels and so forth, and asked if she approved of it. She turned and faced me. " Yes ; why not ? " The great eyes looked innocently at me, but when she saw I did not answer at once, she grew slowly red. DUST " If they are to be told anything about these matters," she said, " it must be in a way that takes hold of a child's fancy." " That blurs reality for them, Mrs. Athing ; and to do that is to blur all their faculties." "To make them stupid, do you mean?" " Well, if it doesn't make them stupid, it pre- vents them from using their faculties aright." " I don't understand you." " When you teach the children that the life here is nothing compared to the life hereafter, that the visible is as nothing to the invisible, that to be a human being is nothing compared to being an angel that to live is nothing compared to being dead all that is not the way to make them look rightly at life or to love life, or to find the proper spirit to meet it, the strength to work, the love of their country . . . ." " Oh, that's what you mean. Well, we shall have to see to all that later on." " Later on, Mrs. Athing ? After all this dust has settled on their souls ? " She turned away from me, resumed her old attitude, and gazed upward at the ceiling lost in thought. 257 R DUST " Why do you use that word dust ? " " By dust I mean something that has existed, but now is disintegrated, and which drifts about and gathers into empty corners." She was still an instant. " I have heard of dust that carried poison germs from diseased tissues I suppose you don't mean that kind ? " There was nothing mocking in the tone, nor angry either, so that I did not know what she was driving at, and half evaded the question. " It depends upon where the dust falls, Mrs. Athing. In the case of healthy people it creates only a fog, a haze so they cannot always see clearly." I paused that she might throw in something about the sick ; but she said nothing, so I continued to speak of the healthy. " If there is no movement then the dust will often gather an inch thick, until it is difficult for the machinery to keep going." She turned towards me more than usually animated, leaned against the arm of the chair, and put her face nearer to mine. " How have you come to think of that ? Is 258 DUST it because you have noticed how much dust there is in here ? " I confessed I had noticed it. " Yet the parlour-maid and Stina are for ever trying to get rid of the dust, and I used to do nothing else when I first came here. I don't understand it. At home with mother I heard nothing talked of so much as dust. She used to follow father about with a damp cloth ; he used to be so annoyed because she disturbed his books and papers. But she insisted that he gathered the dust about him more than any one else. He no sooner came out of his study than she was after him with a brush. Then my turn came. I was like father, she said, and trailed dust wherever I went, and I could never do the dusting well enough to please her. I was so tired of hearing about dust, that when I married I thought it would be heavenly to have nothing to do with it and to get others to do the dusting. But in that I was disappointed. Now, however, I have given it into other hands ! It's no use. I probably have no talent for keeping clear of it." " It is strange," she continued, as she let 259 DUST herself slip back in the chair, " that you too should bring up the subject of dust." " Indeed I hope I haven't hurt you." " How could you think so?" and she added in the calmest and most innocent tone in the world, "one who has lived nine years with Albert has no over-sensitiveness left." I was excessively embarrassed. Why the devil had I mixed myself up in all this. I had been foolish to use the simile, but why admit that I had noticed the dust, and as to that, it was in Albert's library. I said not a word more. She too sat, or rather lay, quite a long time without speaking, and drummed with her fingers on the arms of the chair. At last I heard as from a long way off: " But still the dust on the butterfly's wings is pretty," and so, long after, through many by- ways of thought to which she gave but little clue, a question would slip out. " The broken ray of light . . . ? the different broken rays . . . ? " She left the sentence incomplete ; she listened and stood up, she had heard Athing's step in the ante- room. I rose at the same moment. 260 CHAPTER IV THE door opened wide ; Athing came lounging in. The tall thin man in loose clothes (whose condition betrayed the fact that he had been visiting the mills), bore in face, movement, and carriage the easy self-assurance born of long descent. The grey eyes under the imperceptible eye- brows blinked a little when he saw me, and then over the long face- came a genial smile. His fine teeth gleamed between the full short lips, as he cried out, " Is it you ? " He took both of my hands between his hard freckled fists, and then, releasing one of them, he put his arm round his wife's waist. " Isn't it delightful, Amalie eh? The days in Dresden, dear eh ? " When he released us, he inquired eagerly about myself and my journey ; he knew I in- tended taking a short trip abroad. Then he 261 DUST began to tell me what was chiefly busying him at the moment ; meanwhile sauntering up and down the room, taking up some object between his fingers, fiddling with it, then putting it down, and taking up another. He did not handle a small object as we would, with the tips of the fingers. With capacious grasp he took the thing in his hand, so that his fingers quite enclosed it. Whatever he talked of, too, he seized in much the same way, and with a kind of superabundant vigour, as a rule, only to cast it aside again for something else. Mrs. Athing had gone out, but came back directly announcing dinner. At the same moment my host flung himself down at the piano, where a new piece of music lay open, and proceeded to characterise its features in a word or two. Then he began to play and sing verse after verse of a long song. When he had finished, his wife reminded him that dinner was waiting. It was only then he seemed to notice that she was in the room. " I say, Amalie, let us try this duet," and he began the accompaniment. She smiled across at me, but took her place beside him and began 262 DUST to sing. Her sweet, somewhat veiled soprano, melted into his warm barytone just as I had heard it nine years before. Both voices had acquired that richer quality which comes of a life that has itself been rich in experience ; their technique, on the other hand, was about the same. Any one who a moment before might have been at a loss to understand how these two had come together, needed only to stand beside them while they sang. There was in both temperaments a strain of lyrical self-abandonment, and in their different ways were entirely at one in following the impulse of the moment. Like two children in a boat, they went gliding away, letting their dinner get cold, the servants grow impatient, their guest think what he liked, and upsetting the order of the house and their own engagements for the day. There was no force in their singing, no evidence of training, no delicate finish about this simple number which they were perhaps trying over for the first time. There was simply an even, indolent, happy, gliding along together over the melody. The bright colours 263 DUST of the voices met and mingled like a caress, and over the whole there was a certain charm. Verse after verse they sang, and the longer they went on, the better and more joyously did their voices blend. When at last the song was over, she took my arm, and with that somewhat heavy gait of hers led me to the dining-room. Athing meanwhile went swinging on ahead to give the key of the winecellar to Stina. There was no longer any questioning in the wife's eyes, only gladness, gentle, beautiful gladness : and the husband was whistling like a canary bird. We sat down to the table before he came back, and waited an interminable time for him. Either he had not found Stina, or else she had not understood him. He had gone himself to the cellar, and came back so cobwebby in conse- quence that we shouted with merriment. Mrs. Athing, however, stopped in the midst of the laughter, and then sat silent until he returned having washed and changed his clothing. He swallowed spoonful after spoonful of soup with voracious haste, and his good humour 264 DUST returned when the edge was taken off his hunger. He talked incessantly, and suddenly, while he was carving the joint, he inquired about the boys. They had had their dinner ; they couldn't wait so long. " Have you seen the boys ? " " Yes," I answered, and I spoke of their naturalness, and of how strangely one of them resembled his family and the other his wife's. "The unfortunate thing is," he interrupted, "that in both families the imagination is dis- proportionately developed. That is an element of weakness, and the boys have inherited it from both sides. A fortnight ago, a distressing event happened here. One of the boys' playmates was drowned in the fish-pond. What the boys (with Stina's help, of course) have made out of this is simply incredible. I've been thinking about it to-day. I have said nothing heretofore, because it was amusing in the main, and I've not wanted to disturb their relation to Stina. But it is stupid, that's what it is ! Fact is, Amalie, it would be almost better to have them away at school than let them go on drinking in all this nonsense." 265 DUST His wife made no answer. Anxious to turn the conversation, I asked if he had read Spencer's " Treatise on Education." He became animated at once. He was just about to try some dish, but he forgot it, finally took a bite or two, and forgot it again. I think we must have sat an hour over that one dish, while he descanted upon Spencer. That I, having asked if he had read the book, was very likely to have read it myself, concerned him not the least. He detailed to me the contents of the book, for the most part item by item, adding comments of his own. One of those was that if, as Spencer would have it, the science of education were introduced into schools and made a subject of almost supreme importance, most people notwithstanding, will still be able to bring up their children properly, because the educa- tional faculty was one possessed by few. He, for his own part, intended, the moment his boys were big enough, to send them to a lady who he knew had this talent, and who had the indis- pensable knowledge as well. He was an enthu- siastic adherent of Spencer. He said this as though it were a plan formed 266 DUST and settled long ago. His wife listened" as if to an old story. I was much surprised that she had said nothing of all this to me a little while before, when we had spoken of the boys. I do not remember now just what subject we were on when he suddenly snatched his watch out of his pocket. "I have utterly forgotten Hartmann. I ought to have gone into town. Yes, yes, there's time yet. Excuse me." He laid down his napkin, drank another glass of wine, rose and left the room. Mrs. Athing explained apologetically, that Hartmann was her husband's agent, that there was unfortunately no telegraph out here, and that probably something required an answer within an hour or so. At least an hour to the town, at least a second hour there for the sake of the horse, if for no other reason ; and then an hour and a half back, for one could not well drive so long a distance with the same horse at the same pace there and back. I sat thinking this over while I went on with my dinner, and came to the conclusion that my visit was inopportune. So I thought I would take my leave after the coffee. 267 DUST We both finished and left the table. She excused herself on the plea of having something to attend to in the kitchen ; and I, now I was alone, thought I would stroll about the place. When I got as far as the steps of the porch, I was met by the sound of loud laughter from the boys, immediately followed by a word that I would never have expected to hear uttered by them, still less screamed out with all their strength, and that in the most open fashion. The elder shouted it first, and the other repeated it after him. They were standing on the barn bridge, and the word was meant for a servant-maid who was busied over a little sledge in the wood-shed opposite. The boys then shouted another word worse, if possible, than the first ; and another and another without intermission and amid peals of laughter. It was clear that they were being prompted from behind the barn door. The girl did not answer. She glanced up from her work every now and then, not at the boys, but at some one behind the barn where the carriage- house was. 268 DUST Soon I heard a jingling in that direction. Athing appeared, ready for his drive, and lead- ing his horse. Consternation seized the boys when they saw their father. In a flash they either comprehended what they had been saying, or if they did not quite realise it, they, at all events, saw that they had been behaving badly to some one. Their father called out : "Just you wait, boys, till I come home. Both of you shall certainly have a thrashing." He took his seat in the sleigh, and let the horse have the whip. He saw me as he drove past, and shook his head. The boys stood a moment petrified. Then the elder took to his heels with might and main. The younger tore after him : " Wait and take me with you. Do you hear ? Don't run away from me, Anton ! " He began to cry. They disappeared behind the wood-shed ; but for long after I heard the younger crying. 269 CHAPTER V I FELT ill at ease, and thought of taking my leave at once. But when I went indoors I found Mrs. Athing sitting on the large Gothic settee or sofa over by the door of the dining-room ; and no sooner had I appeared than she leaned across the table in front of her and asked : " What do you think of Spencer's ideas about education ? Do you think we can put them into practice ? " I did not wish to be drawn into this discus- sion again, so I merely answered : " Your husband's method, at all events, does not coincide with Spencer's." " My husband's method ? He has none." She said it as any one else might say : " That's nice stuff your coat is made of." "You mean he doesn't trouble about the boys ? " "Oh, he's like most men about that," she 270 DUST answered. " They amuse themselves with their children now and then, and whip them now and then, too, when something happens that incon- veniences them." " You think, then, that both parents should have equal responsibility in the matter ? " " Yes, certainly I do. But men have divided this responsibility as they have the others in the way that suited them." I began to make my adieus. She was evi- dently not expecting me to go just then, and asked if I would not at least have a cup of coffee first. "Though it's true," she added, "you will have no one to talk to." She is not the first married woman, thought I, who has made covert attacks on her husband. " You have no reason, Mrs. Athing, to say a thing like that." " No, I know I haven't. You must pardon me." It was rather dark, but if I'm not mis- taken she was on the point of crying. Accordingly I sat down on the opposite side of the table. " I have a feeling, my dear Mrs. Athing, that 271 DUST it is you who need some one to talk to ; but I don't suppose I'm the right person." She sat with both elbows on the table, and looked across at me. " Well, if for no other reason, because that sort of conversation requires to be renewed, it gives one so much to think about ; and I must leave you to-day." " But can't you come again ? " " Do you wish it ? " She was silent a moment; then slowly she said : " As a rule I have only one great wish at a time, and that you should come here again is part of the wish that is in my mind now." " What is your wish ? " " Oh, I can't tell you that unless you promise to come again." "Very well, I promise." She gave me her hand across the table. " Thank you." I turned towards her and took her hand. "What is it, Mrs. Athing?" " No, not now," she answered, " but when you come again. You must help me if you think it is right to do so." 272 DUST " Of course." " For you think as Athing does on many points ; he will listen to you. 1 ' " Do you think so ? " "At all events, he won't listen to me." " Do you take any pains to make him listen to you ? " " No, that would be the worst thing I could do. With Athing everything must come in incidentally." " But, my dear Mrs. Athing, I have seen enough to know that your relation to each other is in reality an excellent one." " Oh yes ; we often have a very good time together." I felt sure she did not want to have my eyes upon her, so I had moved again and sat by the table as before. The twilight deepened. " Do you remember us in Dresden ? " " Yes." " We were two young people playing at life then. It was delightful to be engaged, but to be married must be still more delightful, we thought ; and to come to our own home and keep house oh ! tremendously delightful ! and DUST yet even that was less than having a child of one's own. And here I am in a house I cannot manage, and with two whom neither of us can bring up properly at least, so Athing thinks." " But do you never set resolutely to work ? " " The housekeeping, you mean ? " " Well, yes, at the housekeeping." " Good Heaven, what would be the use of that ? I got little but scolding when I tried." " But you have assistance ? " " Yes ; that is just the trouble." I was about to ask what she meant by that, when the dining-room door just by us opened noiselessly. Stina came in with lights. She came in two or three times, on each occasion bringing lights ; but nevertheless the great room was far from being brilliantly illuminated. During all this time not a word was spoken. As Stina was about to go, Mrs. Athing asked about the boys. Stina said they were being looked for ; they were not about the place. Mrs. Athing paid no particular attention and Stina went out. "Who is Stina?" I asked, as the door closed behind her. 274 DUST " Oh, she is an unfortunate creature who had a father that used to beat her. Then she married a bank cashier, who in his turn fell to drinking and ill-using her. He is dead now." " Has she been here long ? " " Since the time I was expecting my first child." " But this is sad companionship for you, Mrs. Athing." "Yes, she is not very enlivening." " Then you should assuredly send her away." " That would be contrary to the traditions of the house. There must be a middle-aged person to look after the children, and that middle-aged person must live and die in the family. Stina is a good soul." Once more she of whom we spoke entered noiselessly with the coffee. There was some- thing essentially spectral about this bluish-green picture of Carlo Dolci's gliding to and fro in the great room, as she looked for a shade to place over the lamp on the coffee- table, as though it were not dark enough already. The shade, by the way, consisted of a perforated picture of St. Peter's in Rome. 275 DUST Stina had left the room and Mrs. Athing was pouring out the coffee. " And so you men are bent on taking the hope of immortality away from us into the bargain ? " As to what " into the bargain " meant, I might take that as I chose. She handed me a cup of coffee and went on : " As I was driving over to the other side of the park this morning, to see the man who is dying, it occurred to me that the snow on the leafless trees really symbolises most beautifully the hope of immortality, as it spreads over the world. Don't you think so ? Coming spotless from above, and mercifully shielding us." " Do you believe it falls from the sky, Mrs. Athing ? " " It falls down on the earth." " That is true ; but it rises from the earth as well." She did not seem inclined to listen to this view but continued : " You spoke of dust a little while ago. But this pure white dust on the wintry boughs and over the grey world well, to me it seems like 276 DUST the poetry of eternity." And she laid a musical emphasis on me. "And who composed the poem, Mrs. Athing ? " Her great eyes met mine, and this time not questioning but confident. " If there is no revelation from without, there is one from within. Every creature who feels as I do has it." Never had she been more beautiful. At that instant I heard a noise in the hall. She turned her head and listened. " It's Athing come home," she said, rising and ringing for another cup. She was quite right, it was Athing. As soon as he had taken off his things he threw the door wide open and came in. His agent Hartmann had become uneasy and had met him on the way. Athing had settled the business then and there. His wife's questioning eyes followed him as he sauntered about the room. Either she was not pleased at the interruption or she saw he was in a bad humour. While he was taking the coffee she offered him, he told her what had 277 DUST happened about the boys. He did not repeat the word the boys had shouted with such glee, but he said enough to let her understand. While he drank his coffee, he told her he had promised them a thrashing. "But there's something more than a thrashing needed in this case." She remained standing in the same position as when she had given him the coffee although now he had finished and hurried away. There was terror in her face and attitude. Her eyes followed him about the room. She waited for this other thing that was more than a thrashing. " Now I'll tell you what it is, Amalie " the words came from the other end of the room ' ' the boys shall go away to-morrow I say to- morrow." Her eyes followed him wherever he went She sank down slowly on the sofa so slowly I do not believe she was conscious of having sat down. Anything more helpless, more miserable, I have never seen. " I should think you ought to care enough for the boys, Amalie, to make up your mind to 278 DUST this. Now you can see what has come of my giving in to you the last time." If he went on like this he would kill her ! Couldn't he see ? Whether she noticed my sympathy or not, she suddenly turned her eyes and hands towards me while he was pacing the room with his back to us. A despairing appeal lay in that glance, in that little gesture. Instantly I understood that this was the sole wish she had spoken of; here was the matter in which she wanted me to help her. She bent her head down over her hands and remained motionless. I could not hear that she was crying; probably she prayed. He walked up and down ; he looked at her, but his gait grew more and more determined. The little things that he picked up and played with he tossed ever more violently and further away from him. Just then the dining-room door opened slewly ; it was Stina again. But this time she remained standing on the threshold, paler even than usual. Athing, who had just turned towards us, paused. 279 DUST " What is it, Stina ? " She did not answer at once. She looked at Mrs. Athing, who raised her head. " What is it, Stina ? " she also exclaimed. " The boys," said Stina, and stopped. " The boys ? " they both repeated. Athing stood still, his wife rose. " They're not anywhere about the place nor any of the cottages. We have looked everj'- where, even down by the mills. " Where did you see them last ? " asked Athing, breathless. " The milkmaid says she saw them running in the direction of the park, and crying because you had said they should have a thrashing." " The fish-pond," I found myself saying before I had time to think, and the effect on myself and on them all was as though there had been an explosion in our midst. " Stina ! " cried Athing. It was not reproach, but a cry of pain, the most agonised I had ever heard ; and out he rushed. His wife ran after him, calling his name the while. "Get lanterns," I said to the servants I saw standing behind Stina in the dining- 280 DUST room. I went out and found my things, returned again and met Stina who was wander- ing round and round in a circle with her hands folded. " Come now and show me where it is." Without answering and possibly without knowing what she did, she began to move straight forward instead of round and round, still with her hands folded and praying aloud. 41 Father in heaven for Jesus' sake. Father in heaven for Jesus' sake ! " It was pathetic, it was impressive, and she continued thus as we passed through the house along the outbuildings, through the garden and into the park. It was no longer cold it was snowing. The tall dark spectre flitted before me under the trees through the snow mist, the prayer echoing be- hind her. I followed like one in a dream. I said to myself it was conceivable that two little boys should go down to the fishpond to find God and the angels and the new clothes ; but that they should muster up courage to jump into the hole if there was one together it was impossible, unnatural, absurd 1 How in the world had I come to think or suggest such a thing? But 281 DUST what avail are all the rational reflections one makes at such a moment ? The worst and the most incredible fears get the upper hand, and this " Father in heaven for Jesus' sake Father in heaven for Jesus' sake," sounded a note of mortal terror in my ears, and awoke ever new apprehensions in my heart. If they had not gone at all to the fishpond, or if they had gone but had not dared to jump into the water, they must have wandered away some- where else. Hans's father was to get his wings in the evening ; what if they, too, in their agony of fear, were crouching under some tree or other, waiting for the same thing ? If so, they were freezing to death. In my mind's eye I saw them before me ; the two poor little benumbed creatures not daring to go home ; the younger one crying, the elder finally crying too. It seemed to me I could literally hear them. " Hush ! " "What is it?" she said, turning with instant hopefulness. '' Do you hear them ? " We both stood still. But there was nothing to hear but our own breathing, when I could no longer hold my breath. There was nothing in 282 DUST sight either, that looked like two little huddled forms. I told her what I had just been thinking, and she whispered in a tone of suppressed agony, coming up to me with folded hands : " Pray with me ; oh pray with me ! " "What shall I pray for? That the boys may die now, and go to heaven and become angels ? " She started aghast, turned away and went on as before, but now without uttering a sound. We followed a footpath through the wood. It led to the pond, but we had to cross more than half of the park in order to reach it. The pond was of considerable circumference, and was formed by the damming up of a brook which ran through a little ravine. We had to leave the path and climb up the embankment in order to reach the edge of the pond. Stina was still in front, and when she saw the pond and the father and mother out on the ice, she dropped on her knees, praying and sobbing. I could not but pity her. When I came up to her and could myself see the two Athings, I, too, was deeply moved. At 283 DUST that moment I heard voices behind me in the wood. It was the servants with lanterns. The shimmering light softened by the falling snow which the four lanterns shed over those around ; the snow and the tree trunks, the deep shadow into which at the same time much of the sur- rounding forest was thrown ; all this associated itself for all time in my memory with words I heard at that moment from the direction of the pond. " There is no opening in the ice." It was Athing's voice shaken with emotion. I turned and saw his wife had thrown herself into his arms. Stina had sprung up with a cry that ended in a long low " God be praised and thanked." Still those two out on the ice stood locked in each other's arms. With some difficulty I made my way down to the ice and approached them. Still she clung about his neck, and he bent over her. I paused at some distance, respecting their emotion. They were whisper- ing to each other. The lights up on the dam were what first roused them. " But what next ? Where shall we look ? " asked Athing. I came up to them and repeated 284 DUST to the father and mother, only more mercifully, what I had just been saying to Stina, that perhaps the children were, sitting somewhere under a big tree waiting, in their agony of dread, for the pitying angels to come down ; the great danger was that they were suffer- ing already from the cold, and in that case they might have caught a dangerous chill. Before I had finished, Athing called to those up on the dam : " Had the boys their wraps on the last time you saw them ? " " No," answered two different people. He asked if they had their caps on, and on that point there was difference of opinion. I maintained that they had ; some one else said no. Athing himself could not remember. At last it was concluded that the elder had his cap but the younger was bareheaded. " Oh, poor little Storm ! " wailed the mother. Among the people over on the dam some were crying so, that we heard them from where we stood. I think about twenty people were stand- ing in a group round the lanterns. Athing called out : 285 DUST " We must search the entire park ; we will begin at the cottages." He led the way, climbed up to the dam and helped his wife to follow. Here Stina met them. " Mrs. Athing ! Mrs. Athing ! " she whispered, imploringly. But neither paid any heed. I gazed down into the ravine below us. Looking at snow-covered trees from above is like looking at a petrified forest. " Dear Athing, won't you call ? " the wife begged. He stood a little way from the group and all were silent. Then he called slowly over the woods : " Anton and little Storm ! come home again to father and mother. Father isn't angry any more 1 " Was it the vibration of air, or was it the falling of some last particle of snow that caused an overloaded branch at last to let slip its burden, or had some one brushed against a bough ? How- ever that may be, Athing had for answer a fall of snow from a great branch in front, but a little to one side. It gave a dull crash, and sent an echo 286 DUST through the wood. The branch swayed and swung back,- and we were enveloped in snow mist. But at the shock, all the overweighted branches of the tree loosed their burdens ; thunder and snow-mist enveloped us ; and be- fore we knew what was happening, the next tree, too, let slip all the snow that covered its branches. This sent such vibrations through the air, that two more, then five, six, ten, twenty trees let slip all their heavy burdens with a crash and reverberation through the wood, sending up a steam as though from an avalanche. One circle of trees after another followed suit those beside us, those farther away, those just in front ; the impulse extending at first in two great arms which gradually split into many more. The whole wood stood trembling. The thunder rolled far off, then close beside us again, now in single peals, now in a long intermittent rumble. Before us all was wrapped in a white mist. At first we were startled by the trampling march through the wood ; by degrees, as it passed on and gathered strength, it became so stupendous that we forgot everything else. We ourselves looked like snow men. 287 DUST The trees stood erect and free, and darkly green once more. All the lanterns had been put out. We lit them and brushed the snow off our clothes. Then we heard some one crying : "What if the children are lying under a snow- drift ? " It was the mother who said it. Several people made haste to say that it could not possibly have hurt them the most it could do would be to throw them down and perhaps stifle them for an instant ; but they would be able to work themselves free of it. Some one said that they would be sure to cry out the moment they got free. Athing called " Hush ! " We stood still for more than a minute and listened, but heard nothing except the distant crash of snow from one or other isolated group of trees that had lagged behind the rest. But if the boys were on the outskirts of the wood, it would be difficult to hear them from where we stood. " Come, let us go and search for them," said Athing, with emotion. In the meanwhile he went out to the edge of the embankment, turned towards 288 DUST those of us who had begun to descend, and bade us keep still. " Anton and little Storm ! Come home again to father and mother. Father isn't angry any more ! " It was heartbreaking to listen to. No answer. We waited a long time. No answer. He came back despondently, and went down the path with the rest of us. His wife leant on his arm. 289 CHAPTER VI WE came to the verge of the wood, and stationed ourselves just far enough apart to keep each other in sight as well as all that intervened. We went up through the wood, then took the next strip and passed down it slowly, slowly ; for all the snow from the trees now covered the old crust on the ground ; in some places it was packed so hard that it bore our weight, but in other places we sank in up to our knees. The next time we all came together, before we separated again I asked if it seemed likely two little boys would stay out in the woods after it grew dark. But no one shared my view in this. They were accustomed to roam about the wood the whole day long, and in the evenings as well. There they met other boys who made snow men for them, fortresses and snow huts, in which they would often sit with a light. This reminded them of all these erections, and 290 DUST of the possibility of their having taken refuge in some one of them. But no one knew where they had been building this year ; the snow had come so recently. Besides, they used to build sometimes in one place, sometimes in another. So all we could do was to keep on. It so happened that this time Stina was walk- ing next to me. When we came to the ravine, its windings brought us close to each other, She was obviously in a new frame of mind. I asked her the reason. "Oh," she answered, " God has spoken to me so clearly ! Now we shall find the boys ! And now I know why all this has happened. Oh, I see it so clearly." Her madonna-like eyes shone with the rapture of enthusiasm. Her delicate pale face was trans- figured. " What is it, Stina ? " " You were very hard on me ; but I forgive you. Dear Lord, have I not sinned myself? Have I not doubted God ? Have I not mur- mured at His ways ? Oh, they are marvellous ! I see it all so clearly, so clearly." " But what do you see ? " "What do I see? For the last six months 291 DUST Mrs. Athing has prayed God for just one thing. That is a way she has. She learned it from her father. For one thing only has she prayed, and we have prayed too. It was that the boys should not be taken away from her. Athing has threatened that. If all this had not happened to-night, he might have carried out his threat. But God has heard her. Perhaps I too have been a tool in his hand. I could almost believe it. And little Hans's death ; yes, little Hans's death, of course ! Suppose the two dear little souls are sitting shivering somewhere, and wait- ing for the angel. Ah, the dear, dear boys, they have the angels with them indeed. Do you doubt it ? No, don't doubt it ! If after this the boys are ill, and they certainly will be, well, it will be for their good. For when father and mother have watched together by the sick bed oh, the boys will never be sent away after that. Never, no, never ! Then Athing would see that it would kill her. Oh, he sees it already to- night. Yes, I'm sure he sees it. He has already given her a solemn promise. For a moment ago, she looked me full in the face quite differently from the way she looked before. Her look 292 DUST seemed to say she had something to tell me ; and what else could it be but that, in the midst of her anxiety ? She too has learned to know the ways of God His wondrous ways. She gives thanks and praise to Him as I do. Yes ; praise be to God for Jesus's sake, for ever and ever." She spoke in a whisper, but with heart- felt conviction. These last words of praise, however, she said with bowed head and folded hands, softly, as though to herself. At intervals we were parted from each other, and then met again where the winding of the gorge drew us together and all searching, so far as we were concerned, was out of the question. "There is one thing I want explained," I whispered to her. " If all these things from the time of little Hans's mournful end have been ordered so that Athing's boys might remain with their mother, then the great snowfall that we have just seen and heard must have something to do with it too. But I cannot see in that way." " That ? Oh, that was only a natural event, a mere accident." " Is there such a thing as accident? " "Yes," she answered, "and it often plays an 293 DUST important part. But here I can't see in what way. It is a great mercy vouchsafed me that I can see as much as I do. Why should I ask for more ? " We looked around us, but we felt it was useless to search for the boys here in the ravine. Stina was still taken up with my last words. "What did you think when the snow came down ? " she asked, softly, the next time we met. " I will tell you. Mrs. Athing had said to me a little while before we came out into the park, that the hope of immortality falls from heaven over this life of ours as white and soft and noiseless as the snow on the naked earth." " Ah ! how beautiful ! " Stina burst forth. "And so I thought when that great noise came and the whole wood trembled and the snow fell thundering from the trees pray don't be angry I thought then, that in the same way the hope of immortality had fallen away from Mrs. Athing, and you and all of us, in our great fear for the boys' lives. We had been running up and down weeping and wailing, some of us filled with rebellion, thinking that perhaps the children at that moment stood on the brink of eternity." 294 DUST " Yes ! Heaven knows we did." " And yet the hope of immortality has been with us for many thousand years ; it's much older than Christianity, and yet how little have we accustomed ourselves to it." " Oh, you are right, a thousand times right ! Just think of it ! " she said, and went on silently meditating. " You said just now that I had been harsh to you, and yet all I had done was to remind you of that belief in immortality which you had taught the boys " " Ah, that's true ! Forgive me. Yes ; you are right." " For you had taught them hadn't you ? that it was much better to be with God than to be here, that to have wings and be an angel was the highest best thing that could befall a little child, and that the angels themselves came and took away the unhappy children " " Ah, no ! No more ! " she moaned, and covered her ears with her hands ; and then : " Ah ! how thoughtless I have been," she said. " Don't you believe in it, then ? " 295 DUST "Yes, indeed, I believe. There have been times in my life when these thoughts have been my only comfort. But you seem utterly to con- fuse me." And then she went on in the most touching way to tell me that her mind was not so strong as it had been ; she had wept and suffered too much ; and the hope of a better life after this, had often been her only comfort. Athing's melancholy cry, always in the same words, was heard at intervals, and just at this moment it rang out again. It brought us back all at once to the terrible reality, that we had not yet found the boys, and that the more time passed before we found them, the more certain it was that they would have to pay the penalty of illness. It was still snowing, so that in spite of the moonlight we were walking in a mist. Then a cry sounded through wood and snow- mist in another voice than Athing's, and of a quite different quality. I could not distinguish what was said. Then we heard a fresh cry in another voice, and then a third, and the last one sounded clear. " I hear them crying." It was a woman who called out. I hastened forward with the others 296 DUST before and behind me, all making for the place from which the cry came. We had grown tired wading in the deep snow, but now we ran as nimbly as though there were solid earth under our feet. The light from the lanterns danced around and upon us, lighting and dazzling us. No one spoke ; not a sound was heard, except our hurried breathing. " Hush," cried a young girl, and stood still. The others stopped as well. We could hear the two little ones wailing as children do, who have been crying in vain for a long, long while, and find that consolation is coming at last. " Oh God, oh God ! " said an old man. He knew what such crying meant. We could hear that the boys were no longer alone. We went on, but more quietly. We were high up now past the fish-pond, a little way from the ravine at a sheltered point where the trees were more of a uniform growth. The crying, of course, grew more distinct as we drew nearer, and at last we heard voices mingling with it ; the voices of the father and mother, who had been the first, after all, to reach them. As we drew near enough to distinguish objects 29? DUST through the trees and the snow-mist, we saw before us two dark shapes standing out against something high and white. It was the father and mother on their knees each clasping a child, and behind them was a snow-fortress, or a ruined snow-hut, in which the boys had sought shelter. As the lanterns came near, we saw how pitifully frozen and exhausted they were. They were quite blue; their fingers were benumbed; they could hardly stand. They were both bareheaded. Their caps, if they had worn them, had probably been lost in the snow. They made no response to their parents' questions and caresses. Not a single word did they speak ; only went on crying and crying. We stood round them; Stina sob- bing aloud. The boys' weeping, and the parents' sorrowing questions and caresses, their alterna- tions of joy and grief touched me profoundly. Athing rose and took up the child he held. It was the elder boy. His wife got up too, lift- ing the younger in her arms. Several people begged to be allowed to carry him. She made no answer ; only went on with the child, com- forting him, weeping, talking to him without a moment's pause between the words, until she 298 DUST made a false step and fell down, the boy under her. She would not be helped, but struggled up again, the boy in her arms ; went on a little further, and fell a second time. Then she looked up towards Heaven, as though asking how this could be, how it was possible ! From that day to this when I think of her, her faith and her helplessness, I see her again with the boy lying stretched before her in the snow, and she by him on her knees looking up to Heaven with questioning and tears. Some one took up the child while Stina helped the mother to go on. But when the boy found himself in another's arms, he began to wail 4< Mother ! Mother ! " and stretched his two stiff, numb little hands out towards her. She wanted to take him in her arms again at once, but the man who was carrying him hurried on and pretended not to hear her, though she begged and implored him. They had hardly got down to the path again before she hastened forward, stopped the man, and took the boy into her arms once more, whispering all sorts of endearments over him. 299 DUST Athing was no longer to be seen. I let them all go on in front of me. But as I saw them before me, through the snow-mist and the trees, and heard the sounds of weeping and of consolation I fell back again into my old thoughts. 300 CHAPTER VII I LEFT Skogstad at once, without taking leave of Mr. and Mrs. Athing, who were with the children. I took a horse to the first posting-station on the way to town, and was soon driving slowly along the highway. The new-fallen snow made the road heavier than when I came. There were still a few flakes drifting about, but it gradually cleared and the moonlight by degrees grew brighter. It fell with weird effect on the snow-laden forest, which here stood un- disturbed. Individual forms were lost, but the contrasts of light and shade were stronger than ever. I was weary, and the state of my body reacted on my mind. The forest seemed to be under the dominion of the snow, like a crushed and vanquished nation. Its burden was more than it could bear. It stood patiently, nevertheless, tree after tree, on and on without end like the 301 DUST multitudes of mankind from the beginning of time to this hour the dust-laden oppressed multitudes. This Heaven-sent merciful snow ! And just as it has happened to all symbols from the very earliest, that some of them have thrown off their figurative character and have acquired a substantive existence of their own, so it was now with mine. I saw the past genera- tions enveloped in a dust cloud, fighting with and killing each other by millions in their blind- ness. And ever there stood some one strewing dust, more dust, over them, often tender and delicate souls who in so doing performed the highest duty they could conceive. I saw, too, every relation of life, even the healthiest, overlaid with a film of dust, and I knew that the attempt to free mankind from it means the direst, the only true revolution. As I grew wearier, these things faded out of consciousness, and all my recent experiences came to the front again. I plainly heard the sound of crying from amidst the snow-dust, though the snow was no longer falling. It was the boys I heard. The two poor children had believed what 302 DUST grown-up people had taught them. They had believed in beings more loving than we, and in a life warmer than ours. For this they had defied the cold, and amid all their grief and fear had sat and waited steadfastly. When the thunder sounded, they had perhaps waited tremblingly to be lifted up on high, only to find themselves buried alive. I came out of the wood, and drove along its edge to the station. When I got there, I stood up and looked back. The trees were shining in the clear moonlight, which now was brilliant. Arising in the infinite past, far, far before the beginning of history, a dream has haunted all races of men, taking ever new forms, the one growing out of the other, and in each transforma- tion lying more lightly over life and concealing less of it. The incomprehensible and the infinite we shall always have to reckon with, but they must no longer appal and oppress us, they must fill us with reverence, not choke us with dust. I took my place again in the sleigh, and the monotonous jingle of the bells lulled me to drowsiness. The crying of the boys rang again 303 DUST in my ears, mingled with the sound of bells. I wondered wearily how it fared with the two little ones, and what aspect things would wear in the sick room at Skogstad with those I had just left. How different was my forecast from what actually took place ! It recurred to me when, two months later, I drove along the same road with Athing, and he told me what had happened. I had just come from abroad and he met me in town. I do not pretend to repeat in his own words what he said that I cannot do ; but this is the substance of what he told me. The boys were attacked by fever, which developed into inflammation of the lungs. Every one saw from the very first that it was serious. But Mrs. Athing was so confident that the whole had been ordered to the end that she should be allowed to keep her boys at home, that the others were infected with her faith. However severe the illness might be, it would only lead the way to peace and gladness. In the wood that very night she had received a solemn promise from her husband that the boys 304 DUST should not be sent away, that a tutor should come and have them under constant supervision. And in the long nights and quiet days passed by the sick bed, he had repeated the promise as often as she had desired. She had never been more beautiful, he had never loved her more deeply than now ; in fact, she was in a perpetual state of exaltation. She confided to Athing that from the very first time, six months before, when he had said that the boys must go away, she had prayed God to prevent it, prayed to him unceasingly, and, during all that time, for this and this alone. She knew that what one prayed for in the name of Jesus would be granted. She had done it many times before, in cases which seemed to be turning-points in her life, and, guided by her faith, things had always turned out happily. On this occasion she had asked her father's prayers as well, and finally Stina's ; both had promised to pray for nothing but this. It never for a moment occurred to her that there was another way to attain her end ; for example, in so far as she had strength, and in so far that as her faith permitted, 305 u DUST she might have studied Athing's idea of education, and endeavoured to induce him to try whether they could not solve the problem together. She took it for granted that she could not do it. Indeed, what could she do ? But with God all things were possible. It was more- over his own cause more than any other that he before had helped her to win, and so she was confident he would grant her prayer. In every incident, every creature who came to the house, she saw the hand of Heaven. In one way or another these things would turn out to be a link in the sequence of events that should lead Athing to other views. When in her guileless confidence she told Athing this, he felt that at all events it was not within human power to resist her appeal. He was himself so carried away^ that he was not only certain the boys would recover he did not even notice how ill she her- self was. The long exposure in the park, without any wraps, and with wet feet, the terrible mental suspense and the night watching, the way in which, regardless of herself, she fixed her mind on one thing only, so that she even forgot, and 306 DUST indeed did not require, to eat, all this finally robbed her of the last remnant of strength. But the first symptoms of illness seemed so much a part of her restless overwrought condition, that neither she nor any one paid heed to them. At last she had to take to her bed ; but at the same time there was joy, indeed such rapture over her, that the others felt no need for anxiety. Her fever fancies so mingled with her life, her longings, her faith, that it was often not easy to distinguish them. Every one saw that she was ill, but not that she was in danger. The doctor was one of those who are not much given to talk but still, had there been danger, he would have said so of course he would. Stina had undertaken the care of the sick room, and she lived in her own world of dreams and hope, and explained away everything when Athing showed uneasiness. One afternoon, he came home from the mills, warmed himself at the fire downstairs, and then went up to the great room where all the patients lay, for the mother insisted upon being where the boys were. Her bed stood so that she could see them both. He came softly in. The room 307 DUST was airy and pleasant and full of peace. No one but the patients, so far as he could see, was in the room, but he discovered afterwards that the nurse was asleep in a big chair, which she had drawn away into the corner nearest the stove. He did not wake her ; he stood a while over each of the boys, who were either asleep or dozing, and then went softly as before over to the bed of his beloved wife, and rejoiced that she lay so peacefully and perhaps sleep- ing, for he heard none of that feverish babble which at other times greeted him. A screen was placed before the window, so that he could not see distinctly till he came quite close. She was lying with open eyes and tear after tear was trickling down from them. " What is it ? " he whispered in alarm. By the light of her altered mood, he saw at once how worn, how terribly worn she was. How in the world had he not seen it before ? Or had he shared to such an extent in her security as to count it as nothing ? For the moment it seemed to him he would fall to the ground, but his fear for her gave him strength. 308 DUST As soon as he could command his voice he whispered : " What is it, Amalie ? " " I see in your face that you know what it is," she answered, in a slow whisper. Her lips trembled, her eyes rilled and overflowed ; but otherwise she lay quite still. Her hands oh how thin they were ! He had noticed before that her ring was much too large for her finger ; but why had he not thought of what it meant ? Her hands lay fully outstretched on each side of her body, which seemed so thin under blanket and sheet. The lace round her wrist lay in perfect order, as though she had not moved since her toilet had been made for her, and that must now be several hours ago. " Oh, Amalie 1 " he cried out, and knelt down beside the bed. " I didn't mean it in that way," she answered in so soft a whisper that under other circum- stances he would have heard nothing. " What do you mean by ' in that way/ Amalie ? Oh, try again to tell me, Amalie ! " He saw that she wanted to but could not, or else changed her mind. Her eyes filled and 309 DUST overflowed, filled and overflowed, and her lips trembled ; but as noiseless as was their quiver- ing, so motionless she lay. At last she fixed her great eyes upon him. He bent down closer to her in order to hear. " I did not want to take them from you," he heard her whisper as before. The word " you " was detached from the rest, and, even in that low whisper, was steeped in a mournful tender- ness such as nothing on earth could surpass. He did not venture to ask again, though he did not understand. He only gathered that something had happened that same morning that had changed life to death. She was benumbed. Her motionless attitude was terror ; something overwhelming had stricken her down to voiceless stillness, had crushed her. But he also under- stood that behind this ghostly silence there lay an agitation so great that it must shatter her ; he understood that there was danger and that his presence increased the danger ; that is to say, he understood that if he did not go away the mere expression of his face as it must now appear, was enough to kill her. He does not know how he left the room. He remembers 310 DUST coming down a staircase ; for he remembers a picture she herself had hung there of St. Christo- pher carrying the Christ child over a stream. Then he found himself lying on a sofa in the large room, with something wet on his forehead and some people around him, one of whom was Stina. For long he struggled as with a bad dream. At the sight of Stina his terror came over him again. " Stina, how is Amalie ? " She was in a high fever. " What can have happened this morning while I was away ? " Stina knew nothing. She did not even understand his question. It was not she who had attended Mrs. Athing in the morning ; she had had the night watch, and then Mrs. Athing was wandering in rapturous fever dreams as now she did again. Had the doctor been with her in the morn- ing ? No, they were expecting him now. He had said yesterday that he could not come until later to-day. That seemed to indicate that the doctor felt secure. Had Mrs. Athing spoken with any one else ? It could only be with the nurse. 3" DUST " Fetch her ! " Stina went, he sent away the other woman, too ; he needed to collect himself. He seated himself with his head between his hands, and before he knew what he was doing he burst into tears. He listened to his own sobbing in the great room, and he shuddered. He felt ah, he felt that he was destined to sit alone here, listening to the sound of his own grief, for weeks on weeks. And out of his boundless sense of loss her image came, and stood clearly before him ; she came as though from her bed in her white garments, and told him word for word what she had meant. Her prayer to God had been that she might keep the boys ; and now her prayer was being granted in terrible earnest, for she was to have them wi<:h her in death. It was that knowledge that had stricken her down, and that was why she repeated, " I didn't mean it in that way, I didn't want to take them from you." How had this all of a sudden occurred to her ? Why had her immovable conviction taken so terrible a form ? The nurse knew nothing. Towards morning Mrs. Athing had fallen asleep, and had gradually 312 DUST grown calmer. When she awoke, well on in the day, she lay still a little before they made her toilet. She was exceedingly weak, so the housekeeper had assisted. No one said so much as a word to her of her condition. She herself did not say a word, except once, that was when she had taken a little soup, and what she said was : " Oh no, it's not worth while." Then she lay back and closed her eyes. They urged her to eat, but she didn't answer. They waited a little, then left her in peace. Late in the evening the fever increased. By the doctor's advice she was carried out into the next room. She thought she was being trans- ported to Paradise, and sang as they carried her, in a faint husky voice. Now, too, she went on talking without intermission ; but except that Psalm about Paradise, there was nothing in her babble to indicate that she remembered anything of what had been in her mind during the interval in which her reason had returned. She was now all smiles and happiness again. Towards morning she fell asleep, but presently wakened and was immediately seized with that unspeak- 313 DUST able pain on which the death-agony soon followed. In the course of it, she noticed that the boys' beds were not there. She looked at Athing and opened her hand as though she wished to take his. He understood ; she thought that the boys had gone before her and she wanted to comfort him. With that little cold hand in his, feeling the slight twitches it gave in the last struggles of departing life, he sat until the end. Then he gave himself up to his infinite grief. He no longer asked how all this had come about, or what had happened that morning. Now he knew, nothing whatever had happened. A new fancy, nothing more, just as unaccountably as the first, came that now all was to be well, and the children were to be always at her side, so too, came the second, that it was beyond the grave in eternity that they were to be together. One day she gave herself life, the next she gave herself death. In all this was there nothing that could have been done ? Ah, what remorse seized him, remembering how he had allowed her to live an enfeebling DUST and dangerous life of fantasy, for having left to her all the household cares and the bringing up of the children ! In his half considerate, half easy-going way, he had taken her under his wing wherever they went ; amused himself with her when it occurred to him, but never attempted to work in common with her. It was with these thoughts that he now wrestled, finding neither consolation nor forgiveness, for this it was that had brought her to the grave. One night, as he wandered aimless abroad under a clear and starry sky, the first soothing thoughts came to him. Would she ever have given up her childlike ideas to follow his ? Would not the attempt to disturb them merely have made them unhappy opened a gulf between them ? So he had always thought in the last analysis it was this that had determined him to live his life while she lived hers. It was strange to hear him thus at one moment devoting all his acuteness to searching out everything that could increase his responsi- bility, and the next moment pacifying himself with the thought that it would probably have 315 DUST been useless, and even hurtful, to bring any pressure to bear upon her. Later on, he would say on occasion that it was not in this that he had erred towards her and the children, but in other matters numerous and painful enough, yet not so painful. What these were he did not say; but he looked ten years older. The doctor came to him a few days after her death, anxious to explain that if he had said nothing of the danger of Mrs. Athing's case, it was because he had felt sure that she would pull through. But something must have hap- pened that morning. The doctor added that the boys were quite out of danger ; the elder had been so all along. In his own mind Athing had not yet for a moment separated the mother from the sons. During their illness he felt that they must live, in those last days he had never doubted that they must follow her to the grave. He could not conceive their mother without them even there. And now, when he had to separate them, the 316 DUST first feeling was not gladness ; no, consternation over the fact that in this too the dear one had deceived herself! It was as though she were alive, and could see that she had been mistaken in everything, and that this last mistake had needlessly killed her. The two little boys, dressed in black, were the first people we met. They looked pale and frightened. They did not come to meet us, and did not return their father's caress. In the passage we met Stina. I expressed my sincere sympathy with her. She answered quietly, that the ways of God were unsearchable. He alone knew what was for our good. Athing took me with him to the family burying-place, a little stone chapel deep in a grove in the direction of the river. On the way he told me that whenever he tried to have some intimate talk with the boys, and to be both father and mother to them, it all rushed back upon him so that he could not. It must come little by little. The family vault was a pretty little chapel, where the coffins stood on the floor. The door, DUST however, was not a common door, but an iron grating which now stood open ; for some repairs were being made. We uncovered our heads and entered. The dust arising from the work of repairing had settled in a thin film over the coffins. We went up to the little one in which she lay, and Athing wiped the dust away with his handkerchief. We did not speak. Not till I looked around at the other coffins, and the inscriptions on them, did he tell me that his wife's was to be enclosed in a casing of stone. I said that in that way we were apt to preserve more of our ancestors than was wholesome for their descendants. " But the custom is a reverent fme," he answered, as he passed out. 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