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Tales from Two Hemispheres

by Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen · English · Gutenberg #299 · 338,362 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Tales from Two Hemispheres

Author: Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen


        
Release date: July 1, 1995 [eBook #299]
                Most recently updated: October 18, 2016

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/299

Credits: Produced by Charles Keller, and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TALES FROM TWO HEMISPHERES ***




Produced by Charles Keller and David Widger









TALES FROM TWO HEMISPHERES

By Hjalmar Hjorth Boysen


1877




CONTENTS

     THE MAN WHO LOST HIS NAME
     THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST
     A GOOD-FOR-NOTHING
     A SCIENTIFIC VAGABOND
     TRULS, THE NAMELESS
     ASATHOR’S VENGEANCE





TALES FROM TWO HEMISPHERES.




THE MAN WHO LOST HIS NAME.

ON the second day of June, 186--, a young Norseman, Halfdan Bjerk
by name, landed on the pier at Castle Garden. He passed through the
straight and narrow gate where he was asked his name, birthplace, and
how much money he had,--at which he grew very much frightened.

“And your destination?”--demanded the gruff-looking functionary at the
desk.

“America,” said the youth, and touched his hat politely.

“Do you think I have time for joking?” roared the official, with an
oath.

The Norseman ran his hand through his hair, smiled his timidly
conciliatory smile, and tried his best to look brave; but his hand
trembled and his heart thumped away at an alarmingly quickened tempo.

“Put him down for Nebraska!” cried a stout red-cheeked individual
(inwrapped in the mingled fumes of tobacco and whisky) whose function it
was to open and shut the gate.

“There ain’t many as go to Nebraska.”

“All right, Nebraska.”

The gate swung open and the pressure from behind urged the timid
traveler on, while an extra push from the gate-keeper sent him flying in
the direction of a board fence, where he sat down and tried to realize
that he was now in the land of liberty.

Halfdan Bjerk was a tall, slender-limbed youth of very delicate frame;
he had a pair of wonderfully candid, unreflecting blue eyes, a smooth,
clear, beardless face, and soft, wavy light hair, which was pushed back
from his forehead without parting. His mouth and chin were well cut, but
their lines were, perhaps, rather weak for a man. When in repose, the
ensemble of his features was exceedingly pleasing and somehow reminded
one of Correggio’s St. John. He had left his native land because he was
an ardent republican and was abstractly convinced that man, generically
and individually, lives more happily in a republic than in a monarchy.
He had anticipated with keen pleasure the large, freely breathing life
he was to lead in a land where every man was his neighbor’s brother,
where no senseless traditions kept a jealous watch over obsolete
systems and shrines, and no chilling prejudice blighted the spontaneous
blossoming of the soul.

Halfdan was an only child. His father, a poor government official, had
died during his infancy, and his mother had given music lessons, and
kept boarders, in order to gain the means to give her son what is
called a learned education. In the Latin school Halfdan had enjoyed the
reputation of being a bright youth, and at the age of eighteen, he had
entered the university under the most promising auspices. He could make
very fair verses, and play all imaginable instruments with equal ease,
which made him a favorite in society. Moreover, he possessed that very
old-fashioned accomplishment of cutting silhouettes; and what was more,
he could draw the most charmingly fantastic arabesques for embroidery
patterns, and he even dabbled in portrait and landscape painting.
Whatever he turned his hand to, he did well, in fact, astonishingly
well for a dilettante, and yet not well enough to claim the title of an
artist. Nor did it ever occur to him to make such a claim. As one of
his fellow-students remarked in a fit of jealousy, “Once when Nature had
made three geniuses, a poet, a musician, and a painter, she took all the
remaining odds and ends and shook them together at random and the result
was Halfdan Bjerk.” This agreeable melange of accomplishments, however,
proved very attractive to the ladies, who invited the possessor to
innumerable afternoon tea-parties, where they drew heavy drafts on his
unflagging patience, and kept him steadily engaged with patterns and
designs for embroidery, leather flowers, and other dainty knickknacks.
And in return for all his exertions they called him “sweet” and
“beautiful,” and applied to him many other enthusiastic adjectives
seldom heard in connection with masculine names. In the university,
talents of this order gained but slight recognition, and when Halfdan
had for three years been preparing himself in vain for the examen
philosophicum, he found himself slowly and imperceptibly drifting into
the ranks of the so-called studiosi perpetui, who preserve a solemn
silence at the examination tables, fraternize with every new generation
of freshmen, and at last become part of the fixed furniture of their
Alma Mater. In the larger American colleges, such men are mercilessly
dropped or sent to a Divinity School; but the European universities,
whose tempers the centuries have mellowed, harbor in their spacious
Gothic bosoms a tenderer heart for their unfortunate sons. There the
professors greet them at the green tables with a good-humored smile of
recognition; they are treated with gentle forbearance, and are allowed
to linger on, until they die or become tutors in the families of remote
clergymen, where they invariably fall in love with the handsomest
daughter, and thus lounge into a modest prosperity.

If this had been the fate of our friend Bjerk, we should have dismissed
him here with a confident “vale” on his life’s pilgrimage. But,
unfortunately, Bjerk was inclined to hold the government in some
way responsible for his own poor success as a student, and this, in
connection with an aesthetic enthusiasm for ancient Greece, gradually
convinced him that the republic was the only form of government under
which men of his tastes and temperament were apt to flourish. It was,
like everything that pertained to him, a cheerful, genial conviction,
without the slightest tinge of bitterness. The old institutions were
obsolete, rotten to the core, he said, and needed a radical renovation.
He could sit for hours of an evening in the Students’ Union, and
discourse over a glass of mild toddy, on the benefits of universal
suffrage and trial by jury, while the picturesqueness of his language,
his genial sarcasms, or occasional witty allusions would call forth
uproarious applause from throngs of admiring freshmen. These were the
sunny days in Halfdan’s career, days long to be remembered. They came to
an abrupt end when old Mrs. Bjerk died, leaving nothing behind her but
her furniture and some trifling debts. The son, who was not an eminently
practical man, underwent long hours of misery in trying to settle up her
affairs, and finally in a moment of extreme dejection sold his entire
inheritance in a lump to a pawnbroker (reserving for himself a few rings
and trinkets) for the modest sum of 250 dollars specie. He then took
formal leave of the Students’ Union in a brilliant speech, in which
he traced the parallelisms between the lives of Pericles and
Washington,--in his opinion the two greatest men the world had ever
seen,--expounded his theory of democratic government, and explained the
causes of the rapid rise of the American Republic. The next morning he
exchanged half of his worldly possessions for a ticket to New York, and
within a few days set sail for the land of promise, in the far West.




II.


From Castle Garden, Halfdan made his way up through Greenwich street,
pursued by a clamorous troop of confidence men and hotel runners.

“Kommen Sie mit mir. Ich bin auch Deutsch,” cried one. “Voila, voila,
je parle Francais,” shouted another, seizing hold of his valise. “Jeg
er Dansk. Tale Dansk,” [1] roared a third, with an accent which seriously
impeached his truthfulness. In order to escape from these importunate
rascals, who were every moment getting bolder, he threw himself into the
first street-car which happened to pass; he sat down, gazed out of the
windows and soon became so thoroughly absorbed in the animated scenes
which moved as in a panorama before his eyes, that he quite forgot where
he was going. The conductor called for fares, and received an English
shilling, which, after some ineffectual expostulation, he pocketed, but
gave no change. At last after about an hour’s journey, the car stopped,
the conductor called out “Central Park,” and Halfdan woke up with
a start. He dismounted with a timid, deliberate step, stared in dim
bewilderment at the long rows of palatial residences, and a chill sense
of loneliness crept over him. The hopeless strangeness of everything
he saw, instead of filling him with rapture as he had once anticipated,
Sent a cold shiver to his heart. It is a very large affair, this world
of ours--a good deal larger than it appeared to him gazing out upon
it from his snug little corner up under the Pole; and it was as
unsympathetic as it was large; he suddenly felt what he had never been
aware of before--that he was a very small part of it and of very little
account after all. He staggered over to a bench at the entrance to the
park, and sat long watching the fine carriages as they dashed past him;
he saw the handsome women in brilliant costumes laughing and chatting
gayly; the apathetic policemen promenading in stoic dignity up and down
upon the smooth pavements; the jauntily attired nurses, whom in his
Norse innocence he took for mothers or aunts of the children, wheeling
baby-carriages which to Norse eyes seemed miracles of dainty ingenuity,
under the shady crowns of the elm-trees. He did not know how long he
had been sitting there, when a little bright-eyed girl with light kid
gloves, a small blue parasol and a blue polonaise, quite a lady of
fashion en miniature, stopped in front of him and stared at him in shy
wonder. He had always been fond of children, and often rejoiced in their
affectionate ways and confidential prattle, and now it suddenly touched
him with a warm sense of human fellowship to have this little daintily
befrilled and crisply starched beauty single him out for notice among
the hundreds who reclined in the arbors, or sauntered to and fro under
the great trees.

“What is your name, my little girl?” he asked, in a tone of friendly
interest.

“Clara,” answered the child, hesitatingly; then, having by another look
assured herself of his harmlessness, she added: “How very funny you
speak!”

“Yes,” he said, stooping down to take he tiny begloved hand. “I do not
speak as well as you do, yet; but I shall soon learn.”

Clara looked puzzled.

“How old are you?” she asked, raising her parasol, and throwing back her
head with an air of superiority.

“I am twenty-four years old.”

She began to count half aloud on her fingers: “One, two, three, four,”
 but, before she reached twenty, she lost her patience.

“Twenty-four,” she exclaimed, “that is a great deal. I am only seven,
and papa gave me a pony on my birthday. Have you got a pony?”

“No; I have nothing but what is in this valise, and you know I could not
very well get a pony into it.”

Clara glanced curiously at the valise and laughed; then suddenly she
grew serious again, put her hand into her pocket and seemed to be
searching eagerly for something. Presently she hauled out a small
porcelain doll’s head, then a red-painted block with letters on it, and
at last a penny.

“Do you want them?” she said, reaching him her treasures in both hands.
“You may have them all.”

Before he had time to answer, a shrill, penetrating voice cried out:

“Why, gracious! child, what are you doing?”

And the nurse, who had been deeply absorbed in “The New York Ledger,”
 came rushing up, snatched the child away, and retreated as hastily as
she had come.

Halfdan rose and wandered for hours aimlessly along the intertwining
roads and footpaths. He visited the menageries, admired the statues,
took a very light dinner, consisting of coffee, sandwiches, and ice, at
the Chinese Pavilion, and, toward evening, discovered an inviting leafy
arbor, where he could withdraw into the privacy of his own thoughts,
and ponder upon the still unsolved problem of his destiny. The little
incident with the child had taken the edge off his unhappiness and
turned him into a more conciliatory mood toward himself and the great
pitiless world, which seemed to take so little notice of him. And he,
who had come here with so warm a heart and so ardent a will to join
in the great work of human advancement--to find himself thus harshly
ignored and buffeted about, as if he were a hostile intruder! Before
him lay the huge unknown city where human life pulsated with large,
full heart-throbs, where a breathless, weird intensity, a cold, fierce
passion seemed to be hurrying everything onward in a maddening whirl,
where a gentle, warm-blooded enthusiast like himself had no place and
could expect naught but a speedy destruction. A strange, unconquerable
dread took possession of him, as if he had been caught in a swift,
strong whirlpool, from which he vainly struggled to escape. He crouched
down among the foliage and shuddered. He could not return to the city.
No, no: he never would return. He would remain here hidden and unseen
until morning, and then he would seek a vessel bound for his dear native
land, where the great mountains loomed up in serene majesty toward the
blue sky, where the pine-forests whispered their dreamily sympathetic
legends, in the long summer twilights, where human existence flowed
on in calm beauty with the modest aims, small virtues, and small vices
which were the happiness of modest, idyllic souls. He even saw himself
in spirit recounting to his astonished countrymen the wonderful things
he had heard and seen during his foreign pilgrimage, and smiled to
himself as he imagined their wonder when he should tell them about the
beautiful little girl who had been the first and only one to offer him a
friendly greeting in the strange land. During these reflections he fell
asleep, and slept soundly for two or three hours. Once, he seemed to
hear footsteps and whispers among the trees, and made an effort to rouse
himself, but weariness again overmastered him and he slept on. At last,
he felt himself seized violently by the shoulders, and a gruff voice
shouted in his ear:

“Get up, you sleepy dog.”

He rubbed his eyes, and, by the dim light of the moon, saw a Herculean
policeman lifting a stout stick over his head. His former terror came
upon him with increased violence, and his heart stood for a moment
still, then, again, hammered away as if it would burst his sides.

“Come along!” roared the policeman, shaking him vehemently by the collar
of his coat.

In his bewilderment he quite forgot where he was, and, in hurried
Norse sentences, assured his persecutor that he was a harmless, honest
traveler, and implored him to release him. But the official Hercules was
inexorable.

“My valise, my valise;” cried Halfdan. “Pray let me get my valise.”

They returned to the place where he had slept, but the valise was
nowhere to be found. Then, with dumb despair he resigned himself to his
fate, and after a brief ride on a street-car, found himself standing in
a large, low-ceiled room; he covered his face with his hands and burst
into tears.

“The grand-the happy republic,” he murmured, “spontaneous blossoming of
the soul. Alas! I have rooted up my life; I fear it will never blossom.”

All the high-flown adjectives he had employed in his parting speech in
the Students’ Union, when he paid his enthusiastic tribute to the Grand
Republic, now kept recurring to him, and in this moment the paradox
seemed cruel. The Grand Republic, what did it care for such as he? A
pair of brawny arms fit to wield the pick-axe and to steer the plow it
received with an eager welcome; for a child-like, loving heart and a
generously fantastic brain, it had but the stern greeting of the law.




III.


The next morning, Halfdan was released from the Police Station, having
first been fined five dollars for vagrancy. All his money, with the
exception of a few pounds which he had exchanged in Liverpool, he
had lost with his valise, and he had to his knowledge not a single
acquaintance in the city or on the whole continent. In order to increase
his capital he bought some fifty “Tribunes,” but, as it was already
late in the day, he hardly succeeded in selling a single copy. The next
morning, he once more stationed himself on the corner of Murray street
and Broadway, hoping in his innocence to dispose of the papers he
had still on hand from the previous day, and actually did find a few
customers among the people who were jumping in and out of the omnibuses
that passed up and down the great thoroughfare. To his surprise,
however, one of these gentlemen returned to him with a very wrathful
countenance, shook his fist at him, and vociferated with excited
gestures something which to Halfdan’s ears had a very unintelligible
sound. He made a vain effort to defend himself; the situation appeared
so utterly incomprehensible to him, and in his dumb helplessness he
looked pitiful enough to move the heart of a stone. No English phrase
suggested itself to him, only a few Norse interjections rose to his
lips. The man’s anger suddenly abated; he picked up the paper which
he had thrown on the sidewalk, and stood for a while regarding Halfdan
curiously.

“Are you a Norwegian?” he asked.

“Yes, I came from Norway yesterday.”

“What’s your name?”

“Halfdan Bjerk.”

“Halfdan Bjerk! My stars! Who would have thought of meeting you here!
You do not recognize me, I suppose.”

Halfdan declared with a timid tremor in his voice that he could not at
the moment recall his features.

“No, I imagine I must have changed a good deal since you saw me,” said
the man, suddenly dropping into Norwegian. “I am Gustav Olson, I used to
live in the same house with you once, but that is long ago now.”

Gustav Olson--to be sure, he was the porter’s son in the house,
where his mother had once during his childhood, taken a flat. He well
remembered having clandestinely traded jack-knives and buttons with him,
in spite of the frequent warnings he had received to have nothing to
do with him; for Gustav, with his broad freckled face and red hair, was
looked upon by the genteel inhabitants of the upper flats as rather a
disreputable character. He had once whipped the son of a colonel who
had been impudent to him, and thrown a snow-ball at the head of a
new-fledged lieutenant, which offenses he had duly expiated at a house
of correction. Since that time he had vanished from Halfdan’s horizon.
He had still the same broad freckled face, now covered with a lusty
growth of coarse red beard, the same rebellious head of hair, which
refused to yield to the subduing influences of the comb, the same
plebeian hands and feet, and uncouth clumsiness of form. But his linen
was irreproachable, and a certain dash in his manner, and the
loud fashionableness of his attire, gave unmistakable evidences of
prosperity.

“Come, Bjerk,” said he in a tone of good-fellowship, which was not
without its sting to the idealistic republican, “you must take up a
better business than selling yesterday’s `Tribune.’ That won’t pay here,
you know. Come along to our office and I will see if something can’t be
done for you.”

“But I should be sorry to give you trouble,” stammered Halfdan, whose
native pride, even in his present wretchedness, protested against
accepting a favor from one whom he had been wont to regard as his
inferior.

“Nonsense, my boy. Hurry up, I haven’t much time to spare. The office
is only two blocks from here. You don’t look as if you could afford to
throw away a friendly offer.”

The last words suddenly roused Halfdan from his apathy; for he felt
that they were true. A drowning man cannot afford to make nice
distinctions--cannot afford to ask whether the helping hand that is
extended to him be that of an equal or an inferior. So he swallowed
his humiliation and threaded his way through the bewildering turmoil of
Broadway, by the side of his officious friend.

They entered a large, elegantly furnished office, where clerks with
sleek and severely apathetic countenances stood scribbling at their
desks.

“You will have to amuse yourself as best you can,” said Olson. “Mr. Van
Kirk will be here in twenty minutes. I haven’t time to entertain you.”

A dreary half hour passed. Then the door opened and a tall, handsome
man, with a full grayish beard, and a commanding presence, entered and
took his seat at a desk in a smaller adjoining office. He opened, with
great dispatch, a pile of letters which lay on the desk before him,
called out in a sharp, ringing tone for a clerk, who promptly appeared,
handed him half-a-dozen letters, accompanying each with a brief
direction, took some clean paper from a drawer and fell to writing.
There was something brisk, determined, and business-like in his manner,
which made it seem very hopeless to Halfdan to appear before him as a
petitioner. Presently Olson entered the private office, closing the door
behind him, and a few minutes later re-appeared and summoned Halfdan
into the chief’s presence.

“You are a Norwegian, I hear,” said the merchant, looking around over
his shoulder at the supplicant, with a preoccupied air. “You want work.
What can you do?”

What can you do? A fatal question. But here was clearly no opportunity
for mental debate. So, summoning all his courage, but feeling
nevertheless very faint, he answered:

“I have passed both examen artium and philosophicum, [2] and got my laud
clear in the former, but in the latter haud on the first point.”

Mr. Van Kirk wheeled round on his chair and faced the speaker:

“That is all Greek to me,” he said, in a severe tone. “Can you keep
accounts?”

“No. I am afraid not.”

Keeping accounts was not deemed a classical accomplishment in Norway. It
was only “trade-rats” who troubled themselves about such gross things,
and if our Norseman had not been too absorbed with the problem of his
destiny, he would have been justly indignant at having such a question
put to him.

“Then you don’t know book-keeping?”

“I think not. I never tried it.”

“Then you may be sure you don’t know it. But you must certainly have
tried your hand at something. Is there nothing you can think of which
might help you to get a living?”

“I can play the piano--and--and the violin.”

“Very well, then. You may come this afternoon to my house. Mr. Olson
will tell you the address. I will give you a note to Mrs. Van Kirk.
Perhaps she will engage you as a music teacher for the children. Good
morning.”




IV.


At half-past four o’clock in the afternoon, Halfdan found himself
standing in a large, dimly lighted drawing-room, whose brilliant
upholstery, luxurious carpets, and fantastically twisted furniture
dazzled and bewildered his senses. All was so strange, so strange;
nowhere a familiar object to give rest to the wearied eye. Wherever he
looked he saw his shabbily attired figure repeated in the long crystal
mirrors, and he became uncomfortably conscious of his threadbare coat,
his uncouth boots, and the general incongruity of his appearance. With
every moment his uneasiness grew; and he was vaguely considering the
propriety of a precipitate flight, when the rustle of a dress at the
farther end of the room startled him, and a small, plump lady, of a
daintily exquisite form, swept up toward him, gave a slight inclination
of her head, and sank down into an easy-chair:

“You are Mr. ----, the Norwegian, who wishes to give music lessons?”
 she said, holding a pair of gold-framed eyeglasses up to her eyes, and
running over the note which she held in her hand. It read as follows:


DEAR MARTHA,--The bearer of this note is a young Norwegian, I forgot to
ascertain his name, a friend of Olson’s. He wishes to teach music.
If you can help the poor devil and give him something to do, you will
oblige,               Yours,              H. V. K.


Mrs. Van Kirk was evidently, by at least twelve years, her husband’s
junior, and apparently not very far advanced in the forties. Her blonde
hair, which was freshly crimped, fell lightly over her smooth, narrow
forehead; her nose, mouth and chin had a neat distinctness of outline;
her complexion was either naturally or artificially perfect, and
her eyes, which were of the purest blue, had, owing to their
near-sightedness, a certain pinched and scrutinizing look. This look,
which was without the slightest touch of severity, indicating merely
a lively degree of interest, was further emphasized by three small
perpendicular wrinkles, which deepened and again relaxed according to
the varying intensity of observation she bestowed upon the object which
for the time engaged her attention.

“Your name, if you please?” said Mrs. Van Kirk, having for awhile
measured her visitor with a glance of mild scrutiny.

“Halfdan Bjerk.”

“Half-dan B----, how do you spell that?”

“B-j-e-r-k.”

“B-jerk. Well, but I mean, what is your name in English?”

Halfdan looked blank, and blushed to his ears.

“I wish to know,” continued the lady energetically, evidently anxious
to help him out, “what your name would mean in plain English. Bjerk, it
certainly must mean something.”

“Bjerk is a tree--a birch-tree.”

“Very well, Birch,--that is a very respectable name. And your first
name? What did you say that was?

“H-a-l-f-d-a-n.”

“Half Dan. Why not a whole Dan and be done with it? Dan Birch, or rather
Daniel Birch. Indeed, that sounds quite Christian.”

“As you please, madam,” faltered the victim, looking very unhappy.

“You will pardon my straightforwardness, won’t you? B-jerk. I could
never pronounce that, you know.”

“Whatever may be agreeable to you, madam, will be sure to please me.”

“That is very well said. And you will find that it always pays to try to
please me. And you wish to teach music? If you have no objection I will
call my oldest daughter. She is an excellent judge of music, and if
your playing meets with her approval, I will engage you, as my husband
suggests, not to teach Edith, you understand, but my youngest child,
Clara.”

Halfdan bowed assent, and Mrs. Van Kirk rustled out into the hall where
she rang a bell, and re-entered. A servant in dress-coat appeared, and
again vanished as noiselessly as he had come. To our Norseman there was
some thing weird and uncanny about these silent entrances and exits;
he could hardly suppress a shudder. He had been accustomed to hear the
clatter of people’s heels upon the bare floors, as they approached, and
the audible crescendo of their footsteps gave one warning, and prevented
one from being taken by surprise. While absorbed in these reflections,
his senses must have been dormant; for just then Miss Edith Van Kirk
entered, unheralded by anything but a hovering perfume, the effect of
which was to lull him still deeper into his wondering abstraction.

“Mr. Birch,” said Mrs. Van Kirk, “this is my daughter Miss Edith,” and
as Halfdan sprang to his feet and bowed with visible embarrassment, she
continued:

“Edith, this is Mr. Daniel Birch, whom your father has sent here to know
if he would be serviceable as a music teacher for Clara. And now, dear,
you will have to decide about the merits of Mr. Birch. I don’t know
enough about music to be anything of a judge.”

“If Mr. Birch will be kind enough to play,” said Miss Edith with a
languidly musical intonation,” I shall be happy to listen to him.”

Halfdan silently signified his willingness and followed the ladies to a
smaller apartment which was separated from the drawing-room by folding
doors. The apparition of the beautiful young girl who was walking at
his side had suddenly filled him with a strange burning and shuddering
happiness; he could not tear his eyes away from her; she held him as
by a powerful spell. And still, all the while he had a painful
sub-consciousness of his own unfortunate appearance, which was thrown
into cruel relief by her splendor. The tall, lithe magnificence of her
form, the airy elegance of her toilet, which seemed the perfection of
self-concealing art, the elastic deliberateness of her step--all wrought
like a gentle, deliciously soothing opiate upon the Norseman’s fancy and
lifted him into hitherto unknown regions of mingled misery and bliss.
She seemed a combination of the most divine contradictions, one moment
supremely conscious, and in the next adorably child-like and simple, now
full of arts and coquettish innuendoes, then again naïve, unthinking
and almost boyishly blunt and direct; in a word, one of those miraculous
New York girls whom abstractly one may disapprove of, but in the
concrete must abjectly adore. This easy predominance of the masculine
heart over the masculine reason in the presence of an impressive woman,
has been the motif of a thousand tragedies in times past, and will
inspire a thousand more in times to come.

Halfdan sat down at the grand piano and played Chopin’s Nocturne in G
major, flinging out that elaborate filigree of sound with an impetuosity
and superb ABANDON which caused the ladies to exchange astonished
glances behind his back. The transitions from the light and ethereal
texture of melody to the simple, more concrete theme, which he rendered
with delicate shadings of articulation, were sufficiently startling to
impress even a less cultivated ear than that of Edith Van Kirk, who had,
indeed, exhausted whatever musical resources New York has to offer. And
she was most profoundly impressed. As he glided over the last pianissimo
notes toward the two concluding chords (an ending so characteristic
of Chopin) she rose and hurried to his side with a heedless eagerness,
which was more eloquent than emphatic words of praise.

“Won’t you please repeat this passage?” she said, humming the air with
soft modulations; “I have always regarded the monotonous repetition of
this strain” (and she indicated it lightly by a few touches of the keys)
“as rather a blemish of an otherwise perfect composition. But as you
play it, it is anything but monotonous. You put into this single phrase
a more intense meaning and a greater variety of thought than I ever
suspected it was capable of expressing.”

“It is my favorite composition,” answered he, modestly. “I have bestowed
more thought upon it than upon anything I have ever played, unless
perhaps it be the one in G minor, which, with all its difference of mood
and phraseology, expresses an essentially kindred thought.”

“My dear Mr. Birch,” exclaimed Mrs. Van Kirk, whom his skillful
employment of technical terms (in spite of his indifferent accent)
had impressed even more than his rendering of the music,--“you are a
comsummate{sic} artist, and we shall deem it a great privilege if
you will undertake to instruct our child. I have listened to you with
profound satisfaction.”

Halfdan acknowledged the compliment by a bow and a blush, and repeated
the latter part of the nocturne according to Edith’s request.

“And now,” resumed Edith, “may I trouble you to play the G minor, which
has even puzzled me more than the one you have just played.”

“It ought really to have been played first,” replied Halfdan. “It is
far intenser in its coloring and has a more passionate ring, but its
conclusion does not seem to be final. There is no rest in it, and it
seems oddly enough to be a mere transition into the major, which is its
proper supplement and completes the fragmentary thought.”

Mother and daughter once more telegraphed wondering looks at each
other, while Halfdan plunged into the impetuous movements of the minor
nocturne, which he played to the end with ever-increasing fervor and
animation.

“Mr. Birch,” said Edith, as he arose from the piano with a flushed face,
and the agitation of the music still tingling through his nerves. “You
are a far greater musician than you seem to be aware of. I have not
been taking lessons for some time, but you have aroused all my musical
ambition, and if you will accept me too, as a pupil, I shall deem it a
favor.”

“I hardly know if I can teach you anything,” answered he, while his
eyes dwelt with keen delight on her beautiful form. “But in my present
position I can hardly afford to decline so flattering an offer.”

“You mean to say that you would decline it if you were in a position to
do so,” said she, smiling.

“No, only that I should question my convenience more closely.”

“Ah, never mind. I take all the responsibility. I shall cheerfully
consent to being imposed upon by you.”

Mrs. Van Kirk in the mean while had been examining the contents of a
fragrant Russia-leather pocket-book, and she now drew out two crisp
ten-dollar notes, and held them out toward him.

“I prefer to make sure of you by paying you in advance,” said she, with
a cheerfully familiar nod, and a critical glance at his attire, the
meaning of which he did not fail to detect. “Somebody else might make
the same discovery that we have made to-day, and outbid us. And we do
not want to be cheated out of our good fortune in having been the first
to secure so valuable a prize.”

“You need have no fear on that score, madam,” retorted Halfdan, with a
vivid blush, and purposely misinterpreting the polite subterfuge. “You
may rely upon my promise. I shall be here again, as soon as you wish me
to return.”

“Then, if you please, we shall look for you to-morrow morning at ten
o’clock.”

And Mrs. Van Kirk hesitatingly folded up her notes and replaced them in
her pocket-book.

To our idealist there was something extremely odious in this sudden
offer of money. It was the first time any one had offered to pay him,
and it seemed to put him on a level with a common day-laborer. His first
impulse was to resent it as a gratuitous humiliation, but a glance
at Mrs. Van Kirk’s countenance, which was all aglow with officious
benevolence, re-assured him, and his indignation died away.

That same afternoon Olson, having been informed of his friend’s good
fortune, volunteered a loan of a hundred dollars, and accompanied him to
a fashionable tailor, where he underwent a pleasing metamorphosis.




V.


In Norway the ladies dress with the innocent purpose of protecting
themselves against the weather; if this purpose is still remotely
present in the toilets of American women of to-day, it is, at all
events, sufficiently disguised to challenge detection, very much like a
primitive Sanscrit root in its French and English derivatives. This was
the reflection which was uppermost in Halfdan’s mind as Edith, ravishing
to behold in the airy grace of her fragrant morning toilet, at the
appointed time took her seat at his side before the piano. Her presence
seemed so intense, so all-absorbing, that it left no thought for
the music. A woman, with all the spiritual mysteries which that name
implies, had always appeared to him rather a composite phenomenon,
even apart from those varied accessories of dress, in which as by an
inevitable analogy, she sees fit to express the inner multiformity of
her being. Nevertheless, this former conception of his, when compared
to that wonderful complexity of ethereal lines, colors, tints and
half-tints which go to make up the modern New York girl, seemed
inexpressibly simple, almost what plain arithmetic must appear to a man
who has mastered calculus.

Edith had opened one of those small red-covered volumes of Chopin where
the rich, wondrous melodies lie peacefully folded up like strange exotic
flowers in an herbarium. She began to play the fantasia impromtu, which
ought to be dashed off at a single “heat,” whose passionate impulse
hurries it on breathlessly toward its abrupt finale. But Edith toiled
considerably with her fingering, and blurred the keen edges of each
swift phrase by her indistinct articulation. And still there was a
sufficiently ardent intention in her play to save it from being a
failure. She made a gesture of disgust when she had finished, shut the
book, and let her hands drop crosswise in her lap.

“I only wanted to give you a proof of my incapacity,” she said, turning
her large luminous gaze upon her instructor, “in order to make you duly
appreciate what you have undertaken. Now, tell me truly and honestly,
are you not discouraged?”

“Not by any means,” replied he, while the rapture of her presence
rippled through his nerves, “you have fire enough in you to make an
admirable musician. But your fingers, as yet, refuse to carry out your
fine intentions. They only need discipline.”

“And do you suppose you can discipline them? They are a fearfully
obstinate set, and cause me infinite mortification.”

“Would you allow me to look at your hand?”

She raised her right hand, and with a sort of impulsive heedlessness let
it drop into his. An exclamation of surprise escaped him.

“If you will pardon me,” he said, “it is a superb hand--a hand capable
of performing miracles--musical miracles I mean. Only look here”--(and
he drew the fore and second fingers apart)--“so firmly set in the joint
and still so flexible. I doubt if Liszt himself can boast a finer row of
fingers. Your hands will surely not prevent you from becoming a second
Von Bulow, which to my mind means a good deal more than a second Liszt.”

“Thank you, that is quite enough,” she exclaimed, with an incredulous
laugh; “you have done bravely. That at all events throws the whole
burden of responsibility upon myself, if I do not become a second
somebody. I shall be perfectly satisfied, however, if you can only make
me as good a musician as you are yourself, so that I can render a not
too difficult piece without feeling all the while that I am committing
sacrilege in mutilating the fine thoughts of some great composer.”

“You are too modest; you do not--”

“No, no, I am not modest,” she interrupted him with an impetuosity which
startled him. “I beg of you not to persist in paying me compliments. I
get too much of that cheap article elsewhere. I hate to be told that
I am better than I know I am. If you are to do me any good by your
instruction, you must be perfectly sincere toward me, and tell me
plainly of my short-comings. I promise you beforehand that I shall never
be offended. There is my hand. Now, is it a bargain?”

His fingers closed involuntarily over the soft beautiful hand, and once
more the luxury of her touch sent a thrill of delight through him.

“I have not been insincere,” he murmured, “but I shall be on my guard in
future, even against the appearance of insincerity.”

“And when I play detestably, you will say so, and not smooth it over
with unmeaning flatteries?”

“I will try.”

“Very well, then we shall get on well together. Do not imagine that this
is a mere feminine whim of mine. I never was more in earnest. Men, and
I believe foreigners, to a greater degree than Americans, have the idea
that women must be treated with gentle forbearance; that their follies,
if they are foolish, must be glossed over with some polite name. They
exert themselves to the utmost to make us mere playthings, and, as such,
contemptible both in our own eyes and in theirs. No sincere respect can
exist where the truth has to be avoided. But the majority of American
women are made of too stern a stuff to be dealt with in that way. They
feel the lurking insincerity even where politeness forbids them to
show it, and it makes them disgusted both with themselves, and with the
flatterer. And now you must pardon me for having spoken so plainly to
you on so short an acquaintance; but you are a foreigner, and it may be
an act of friendship to initiate you as soon as possible into our ways
and customs.”

He hardly knew what to answer. Her vehemence was so sudden, and
the sentiments she had uttered so different from those which he had
habitually ascribed to women, that he could only sit and gaze at her
in mute astonishment. He could not but admit that in the main she had
judged him rightly, and that his own attitude and that of other men
toward her sex, were based upon an implied assumption of superiority.

“I am afraid I have shocked you,” she resumed, noticing the startled
expression of his countenance. “But really it was quite inevitable,
if we were at all to understand each other. You will forgive me, won’t
you?”

“Forgive!” stammered he, “I have nothing to forgive. It was only your
merciless truthfulness which startled me. I rather owe you thanks,
if you will allow me to be grateful to you. It seems an enviable
privilege.”

“Now,” interrupted Edith, raising her forefinger in playful threat,
“remember your promise.”

The lesson was now continued without further interruption. When it was
finished, a little girl, with her hair done up in curl-papers, and
a very stiffly starched dress, which stood out on all sides almost
horizontally, entered, accompanied by Mrs. Van Kirk. Halfdan immediately
recognized his acquaintance from the park, and it appeared to him a
good omen that this child, whose friendly interest in him had warmed his
heart in a moment when his fortunes seemed so desperate, should
continue to be associated with his life on this new continent. Clara was
evidently greatly impressed by the change in his appearance, and could
with difficulty be restrained from commenting upon it.

She proved a very apt scholar in music, and enjoyed the lessons the more
for her cordial liking of her teacher.

It will be necessary henceforth to omit the less significant details in
the career of our friend “Mr. Birch.” Before a month was past, he had
firmly established himself in the favor of the different members of the
Van Kirk family. Mrs. Van Kirk spoke of him to her lady visitors as “a
perfect jewel,” frequently leaving them in doubt as to whether he was a
cook or a coachman. Edith apostrophized him to her fashionable friends
as “a real genius,” leaving a dim impression upon their minds of flowing
locks, a shiny velvet jacket, slouched hat, defiant neck-tie and a
general air of disreputable pretentiousness. Geniuses of the foreign
type were never, in the estimation of fashionable New York society, what
you would call “exactly nice,” and against prejudices of this order
no amount of argument will ever prevail. Clara, who had by this time
discovered that her teacher possessed an inexhaustible fund of fairy
stories, assured her playmates across the street that he was “just
splendid,” and frequently invited them over to listen to his wonderful
tales. Mr. Van Kirk himself, of course, was non-committal, but paid the
bills unmurmuringly.

Halfdan in the meanwhile was vainly struggling against his growing
passion for Edith; but the more he rebelled the more hopelessly he found
himself entangled in its inextricable net. The fly, as long as it keeps
quiet in the spider’s web, may for a moment forget its situation; but
the least effort to escape is apt to frustrate itself and again reveal
the imminent peril. Thus he too “kicked against the pricks,” hoped,
feared, rebelled against his destiny, and again, from sheer weariness,
relapsed into a dull, benumbed apathy. In spite of her friendly
sympathy, he never felt so keenly his alienism as in her presence. She
accepted the spontaneous homage he paid her, sometimes with impatience,
as something that was really beneath her notice; at other times she
frankly recognized it, bantered him with his “Old World chivalry,” which
would soon evaporate in the practical American atmosphere, and called
him her Viking, her knight and her faithful squire. But it never
occurred to her to regard his devotion in a serious light, and to look
upon him as a possible lover had evidently never entered her head. As
their intercourse grew more intimate, he had volunteered to read his
favorite poets with her, and had gradually succeeded in imparting to her
something of his own passionate liking for Heine and Björnson. She
had in return called his attention to the works of American authors
who had hitherto been little more than names to him, and they had thus
managed to be of mutual benefit to each other, and to spend many a
pleasant hour during the long winter afternoons in each other’s company.
But Edith had a very keen sense of humor, and could hardly restrain her
secret amusement when she heard him reading Longfellow’s “Psalm of Life”
 and Poe’s “Raven” (which had been familiar to her from her babyhood),
often with false accent, but always with intense enthusiasm. The
reflection that he had had no part of his life in common with her,--that
he did not love the things which she loved,--could not share her
prejudices (and women have a feeling akin to contempt for a man who does
not respond to their prejudices)--removed him at times almost beyond
the reach of her sympathy. It was interesting enough as long as the
experience was novel, to be thus unconsciously exploring another
person’s mind and finding so many strange objects there; but after a
while the thing began to assume an uncomfortably serious aspect, and
then there seemed to be something almost terrible about it. At such
times a call from a gentleman of her own nation, even though he were
one of the placidly stupid type, would be a positive relief; she could
abandon herself to the secure sense of being at home; she need fear
no surprises, and in the smooth shallows of their talk there were no
unsuspected depths to excite and to baffle her ingenuity. And, again,
reverting in her thought to Halfdan, his conversational brilliancy would
almost repel her, as something odious and un-American, the cheap result
of outlandish birth and unrepublican education. Not that she had ever
valued republicanism very highly; she was one of those who associated
politics with noisy vulgarity in speech and dress, and therefore thanked
fortune that women were permitted to keep aloof from it. But in the
presence of this alien she found herself growing patriotic; that
much-discussed abstraction, which we call our country (and which is
nothing but the aggregate of all the slow and invisible influences which
go toward making up our own being), became by degrees a very palpable
and intelligible fact to her.

Frequently while her American self was thus loudly asserting itself,
Edith inflicted many a cruel wound upon her foreign adorer. Once,--it
was the Fourth of July, more than a year after Halfdan’s arrival,
a number of young ladies and gentlemen, after having listened to a
patriotic oration, were invited in to an informal luncheon. While
waiting, they naturally enough spent their time in singing national
songs, and Halfdan’s clear tenor did good service in keeping the
straggling voices together. When they had finished, Edith went up to him
and was quite effusive in her expressions of gratitude.

“I am sure we ought all to be very grateful to you, Mr. Birch,” she
said, “and I, for my part, can assure you that I am.”

“Grateful? Why?” demanded Halfdan, looking quite unhappy.

“For singing OUR national songs, of course. Now, won’t you sing one
of your own, please? We should all be so delighted to hear how a
Swedish--or Norwegian, is it?--national song sounds.”

“Yes, Mr. Birch, DO sing a Swedish song,” echoed several voices.

They, of course, did not even remotely suspect their own cruelty. He
had, in his enthusiasm for the day allowed himself to forget that he
was not made of the same clay as they were, that he was an exile and a
stranger, and must ever remain so, that he had no right to share their
joy in the blessing of liberty. Edith had taken pains to dispel the
happy illusion, and had sent him once more whirling toward his cold
native Pole. His passion came near choking him, and, to conceal his
impetuous emotion, he flung himself down on the piano-stool, and struck
some introductory chords with perhaps a little superfluous emphasis.
Suddenly his voice burst out into the Swedish national anthem, “Our
Land, our Land, our Fatherland,” and the air shook and palpitated
with strong martial melody. His indignation, his love and his misery,
imparted strength to his voice, and its occasional tremble in the PIANO
passages was something more than an artistic intention. He was loudly
applauded as he arose, and the young ladies thronged about him to ask if
he “wouldn’t please write out the music for them.”

Thus month after month passed by, and every day brought its own misery.
Mrs. Van Kirk’s patronizing manners, and ostentatious kindness, often
tested his patience to the utmost. If he was guilty of an innocent
witticism or a little quaintness of expression, she always assumed it
to be a mistake of terms and corrected him with an air of benign
superiority. At times, of course, her corrections were legitimate, as
for instance, when he spoke of WEARING a cane, instead of CARRYING
one, but in nine cases out of ten the fault lay in her own lack of
imagination and not in his ignorance of English. On such occasions Edith
often took pity on him, defended him against her mother’s criticism, and
insisted that if this or that expression was not in common vogue,
that was no reason why it should not be used, as it was perfectly
grammatical, and, moreover, in keeping with the spirit of the language.
And he, listening passively in admiring silence to her argument, thanked
her even for the momentary pain because it was followed by so great a
happiness. For it was so sweet to be defended by Edith, to feel that
he and she were standing together side by side against the outer world.
Could he only show her in the old heroic manner how much he loved
her! Would only some one that was dear to her die, so that he, in that
breaking down of social barriers which follows a great calamity, might
comfort her in her sorrow. Would she then, perhaps, weeping, lean her
wonderful head upon his breast, feeling but that he was a fellow-mortal,
who had a heart that was loyal and true, and forgetting, for one
brief instant, that he was a foreigner. Then, to touch that delicate
Elizabethan frill which wound itself so daintily about Edith’s
neck--what inconceivable rapture! But it was quite impossible. It could
never be. These were selfish thoughts, no doubt, but they were a lover’s
selfishness, and, as such, bore a close kinship to all that is purest
and best in human nature.

It is one of the tragic facts of this life, that a relation so unequal
as that which existed between Halfdan and Edith, is at all possible. As
for Edith, I must admit that she was well aware that her teacher was in
love with her. Women have wonderfully keen senses for phenomena of that
kind, and it is an illusion if any one imagines, as our Norseman did,
that he has locked his secret securely in the hidden chamber of his
heart. In fleeting intonations, unconscious glances and attitudes,
and through a hundred other channels it will make its way out, and the
bereaved jailer may still clasp his key in fierce triumph, never knowing
that he has been robbed. It was of course no fault of Edith’s that she
had become possessed of Halfdan’s heart-secret. She regarded it as on
the whole rather an absurd affair, and prized it very lightly. That
a love so strong and yet so humble, so destitute of hope and still so
unchanging, reverent and faithful, had something grand and touching in
it, had never occurred to her. It is a truism to say that in our social
code the value of a man’s character is determined by his position; and
fine traits in a foreigner (unless he should happen to be something very
great) strike us rather as part of a supposed mental alienism, and as
such, naturally suspicious. It is rather disgraceful than otherwise
to have your music teacher in love with you, and critical friends will
never quite banish the suspicion that you have encouraged him.

Edith had, in her first delight at the discovery of Halfdan’s talent,
frankly admitted him to a relation of apparent equality. He was a man
of culture, had the manners and bearing of a gentleman, and had none
of those theatrical airs which so often raise a sort of invisible wall
between foreigners and Americans. Her mother, who loved to play the
patron, especially to young men, had invited him to dinner-parties and
introduced him to their friends, until almost every one looked upon him
as a protege of the family. He appeared so well in a parlor, and had
really such a distinguished presence, that it was a pleasure to look
at him. He was remarkably free from those obnoxious traits which
generalizing American travelers have led us to believe were inseparable
from foreign birth; his finger-nails were in no way conspicuous; he did
not, as a French count, a former adorer of Edith’s, had done, indulge an
unmasculine taste for diamond rings (possibly because he had none); his
politeness was unobtrusive and subdued, and of his accent there was just
enough left to give an agreeable color of individuality to his speech.
But, for all that, Edith could never quite rid herself of the impression
that he was intensely un-American. There was a certain idyllic
quiescence about him, a child-like directness and simplicity, and a
total absence of “push,” which were startlingly at variance with the
spirit of American life. An American could never have been content to
remain in an inferior position without trying, in some way, to better
his fortunes. But Halfdan could stand still and see, without the
faintest stirring of envy, his plebeian friend Olson, whose education
and talents could bear no comparison with his own, rise rapidly above
him, and apparently have no desire to emulate him. He could sit on a
cricket in a corner, with Clara on his lap, and two or three little
girls nestling about him, and tell them fairy stories by the hour, while
his kindly face beamed with innocent happiness. And if Clara, to coax
him into continuing the entertainment, offered to kiss him, his measure
of joy was full. This fair child, with her affectionate ways, and her
confiding prattle, wound herself ever more closely about his homeless
heart, and he clung to her with a touching devotion. For she was the
only one who seemed to be unconscious of the difference of blood, who
had not yet learned that she was an American and he--a foreigner.




VI.


Three years had passed by and still the situation was unchanged. Halfdan
still taught music and told fairy stories to the children. He had a
good many more pupils now than three years ago, although he had made no
effort to solicit patronage, and had never tried to advertise his talent
by what he regarded as vulgar and inartistic display. But Mrs. Van Kirk,
who had by this time discovered his disinclination to assert
himself, had been only the more active; had “talked him up” among her
aristocratic friends; had given musical soirees, at which she had coaxed
him to play the principal role, and had in various other ways exerted
herself in his behalf. It was getting to be quite fashionable to admire
his quiet, unostentatious style of playing, which was so far removed
from the noisy bravado and clap-trap then commonly in vogue. Even
professional musicians began to indorse him, and some, who had
discovered that “there was money in him,” made him tempting offers for a
public engagement. But, with characteristic modesty, he distrusted
their verdict; his sensitive nature shrank from anything which had the
appearance of self-assertion or display.

But Edith--ah, if it had not been for Edith he might have found courage
to enter at the door of fortune, which was now opened ajar. That fame,
if he should gain it, would bring him any nearer to her, was a thought
that was alien to so unworldly a temperament as his. And any action that
had no bearing upon his relation to her, left him cold--seemed unworthy
of the effort. If she had asked him to play in public; if she had
required of him to go to the North Pole, or to cut his own throat, I
verily believe he would have done it. And at last Edith did ask him to
play. She and Olson had plotted together, and from the very friendliest
motives agreed to play into each other’s hands.

“If you only WOULD consent to play,” said she, in her own persuasive
way, one day as they had finished their lesson, “we should all be so
happy. Only think how proud we should be of your success, for you know
there is nothing you can’t do in the way of music if you really want
to.”

“Do you really think so?” exclaimed he, while his eyes suddenly grew
large and luminous.

“Indeed I do,” said Edith, emphatically.

“And if--if I played well,” faltered he, “would it really please you?”

“Of course it would,” cried Edith, laughing; “how can you ask such a
foolish question?”

“Because I hardly dared to believe it.”

“Now listen to me,” continued the girl, leaning forward in her chair,
and beaming all over with kindly officiousness; “now for once you must
be rational and do just what I tell you. I shall never like you again if
you oppose me in this, for I have set my heart upon it; you must promise
beforehand that you will be good and not make any objection. Do you
hear?”

When Edith assumed this tone toward him, she might well have made him
promise to perform miracles. She was too intent upon her benevolent
scheme to heed the possible inferences which he might draw from her
sudden display of interest.

“Then you promise?” repeated she, eagerly, as he hesitated to answer.

“Yes, I promise.”

“Now, you must not be surprised; but mamma and I have made arrangements
with Mr. S---- that you are to appear under his auspices at a concert
which is to be given a week from to-night. All our friends are going,
and we shall take up all the front seats, and I have already told my
gentlemen friends to scatter through the audience, and if they care
anything for my favor, they will have to applaud vigorously.”

Halfdan reddened up to his temples, and began to twist his watch-chain
nervously.

“You must have small confidence in my ability,” he murmured, “since you
resort to precautions like these.”

“But my dear Mr. Birch,” cried Edith, who was quick to discover that she
had made a mistake, “it is not kind in you to mistrust me in that way.
If a New York audience were as highly cultivated in music as you are,
I admit that my precautions would be superfluous. But the papers, you
know, will take their tone from the audience, and therefore we must make
use of a little innocent artifice to make sure of it. Everything depends
upon the success of your first public appearance, and if your friends
can in this way help you to establish the reputation which is nothing
but your right, I am sure you ought not to bind their hands by your
foolish sensitiveness. You don’t know the American way of doing things
as well as I do, therefore you must stand by your promise, and leave
everything to me.”

It was impossible not to believe that anything Edith chose to do was
above reproach. She looked so bewitching in her excited eagerness for
his welfare that it would have been inhuman to oppose her. So he meekly
succumbed, and began to discuss with her the programme for the concert.

During the next week there was hardly a day that he did not read some
startling paragraph in the newspapers about “the celebrated Scandinavian
pianist,” whose appearance at S---- Hall was looked forward to as the
principal event of the coming season. He inwardly rebelled against
the well-meant exaggerations; but as he suspected that it was Edith’s
influence which was in this way asserting itself in his behalf, he set
his conscience at rest and remained silent.

The evening of the concert came at last, and, as the papers stated the
next morning, “the large hall was crowded to its utmost capacity with
a select and highly appreciative audience.” Edith must have played her
part of the performance skillfully, for as he walked out upon the stage,
he was welcomed with an enthusiastic burst of applause, as if he had
been a world-renowned artist. At Edith’s suggestion, her two favorite
nocturnes had been placed first upon the programme; then followed one
of those ballads of Chopin, whose rhythmic din and rush sweep onward,
beleaguering the ear like eager, melodious hosts, charging in thickening
ranks and columns, beating impetuous retreats, and again uniting
with one grand emotion the wide-spreading army of sound for the
final victory. Besides these, there was one of Liszt’s “Rhapsodies
Hongroises,” an impromptu by Schubert, and several orchestral pieces;
but the greater part of the programme was devoted to Chopin, because
Halfdan, with his great, hopeless passion laboring in his breast, felt
that he could interpret Chopin better than he could any other composer.
He carried his audience by storm. As he retired to the dressing-room,
after having finished the last piece, his friends, among whom Edith and
Mrs. Van Kirk were the most conspicuous, thronged about him, showering
their praises and congratulations upon him. They insisted with much
friendly urging upon taking him home in their carriage; Clara kissed
him, Mrs. Van Kirk introduced him to her lady acquaintances as “our
friend, Mr. Birch,” and Edith held his hand so long in hers that he came
near losing his presence of mind and telling her then and there that he
loved her. As his eyes rested on her, they became suddenly suffused with
tears, and a vast bewildering happiness vibrated through his frame.
At last he tore himself away and wandered aimlessly through the long,
lonely streets. Why could he not tell Edith that he loved her? Was there
any disgrace in loving? This heavenly passion which so suddenly had
transfused his being, and year by year deadened the substance of his old
self, creating in its stead something new and wild and strange which he
never could know, but still held infinitely dear--had it been sent to
him merely as a scourge to test his capacity for suffering?

Once, while he was a child, his mother had told him that somewhere in
this wide world there lived a maiden whom God had created for him, and
for him alone, and when he should see her, he should love her, and his
life should thenceforth be all for her. It had hardly occurred to him,
then, to question whether she would love him in return, it had appeared
so very natural that she should. Now he had found this maiden, and she
had been very kind to him; but her kindness had been little better than
cruelty, because he had demanded something more than kindness. And still
he had never told her of his love. He must tell her even this very night
while the moon rode high in the heavens and all the small differences
between human beings seemed lost in the vast starlit stillness. He knew
well that by the relentless glare of the daylight his own insignificance
would be cruelly conspicuous in the presence of her splendor; his
scruples would revive, and his courage fade.

The night was clear and still. A clock struck eleven in some church
tower near by. The Van Kirk mansion rose tall and stately in the
moonlight, flinging a dense mass of shadow across the street. Up in the
third story he saw two windows lighted; the curtains were drawn, but the
blinds were not closed. All the rest of the house was dark. He raised
his voice and sang a Swedish serenade which seemed in perfect concord
with his own mood. His clear tenor rose through the silence of the
night, and a feeble echo flung it back from the mansion opposite:

     [3] “Star, sweet star, that brightly beamest,
          Glittering on the skies nocturnal,
          Hide thine eye no more from me,
          Hide thine eye no more from me!”

The curtain was drawn aside, the window cautiously raised, and the
outline of Edith’s beautiful head appeared dark and distinct against the
light within. She instantly recognized him.

“You must go away, Mr. Birch,” came her voice in an anxious whisper out
of the shadow. “Pray go away. You will wake up the people.”

Her words were audible enough, but they failed to convey any meaning
to his excited mind. Once more his voice floated upward to her opened
window:

     “And I yearn to reach thy dwelling,
       Yearn to rise from earth’s fierce turmoil;
       Sweetest star upward to thee,
       Yearn to rise, bright star to thee.”


“Dear Mr. Birch,” she whispered once more in tones of distress. “Pray DO
go away. Or perhaps,” she interrupted herself “--wait one moment and I
will come down.”

Presently the front door was noiselessly opened, and Edith’s tall, lithe
form, dressed in a white flowing dress, and with her blonde hair rolling
loosely over her shoulders, appeared for an instant, and then again
vanished. With one leap Halfdan sprang up the stairs and pushed through
the half-opened door. Edith closed the door behind him, then with rapid
steps led the way to the back parlor where the moon broke feebly through
the bars of the closed shutters.

“Now Mr. Birch,” she said, seating herself upon a lounge, “you may
explain to me what this unaccountable behavior of yours means. I should
hardly think I had deserved to be treated in this way by you.”

Halfdan was utterly bewildered; a nervous fit of trembling ran through
him, and he endeavored in vain to speak. He had been prepared for
passionate reproaches, but this calm severity chilled him through, and
he could only gasp and tremble, but could utter no word in his defense.

“I suppose you are aware,” continued Edith, in the same imperturbable
manner, “that if I had not interrupted you, the policeman would have
heard you, and you would have been arrested for street disturbance.
Then to-morrow we should have seen it in all the newspapers, and I
should have been the laughing-stock of the whole town.”

No, surely he had never thought of it in that light; the idea struck
him as entirely new. There was a long pause. A cock crowed with a
drowsy remoteness in some neighboring yard, and the little clock on the
mantel-piece ticked on patiently in the moonlit dusk.

“If you have nothing to say,” resumed Edith, while the stern
indifference in her voice perceptibly relaxed, “then I will bid you
good-night.”

She arose, and with a grand sweep of her drapery, moved toward the door.

“Miss Edith,” cried he, stretching his hands despairingly after her,
“you must not leave me.”

She paused, tossed her hair back with her hands, and gazed at him over
her shoulder. He threw himself on his knees, seized the hem of
her dress, and pressed it to his lips. It was a gesture of such
inexpressible humility that even a stone would have relented.

“Do not be foolish, Mr. Birch,” she said, trying to pull her dress away
from him. “Get up, and if you have anything rational to say to me, I
will stay and listen.”

“Yes, yes,” he whispered, hoarsely, “I shall be rational. Only do not
leave me.”

She again sank down wearily upon the lounge, and looked at him in
expectant silence.

“Miss Edith,” pleaded he in the same hoarse, passionate undertone, “have
pity on me, and do not despise me. I love you--oh--if you would but
allow me to die for you, I should be the happiest of men.”

Again he shuddered, and stood long gazing at her with a mute, pitiful
appeal. A tear stole into Edith’s eye and trickled down over her cheek.

“Ah, Mr. Birch,” she murmured, while a sigh shook her bosom, “I am
sorry--very sorry that this misfortune has happened to you. You have
deserved a better fate than to love me--to love a woman who can never
give you anything in return for what you give her.”

“Never?” he repeated mournfully, “never?”

“No, never! You have been a good friend to me, and as such I value you
highly, and I had hoped that you would always remain so. But I see that
it cannot be. It will perhaps be best for you henceforth not to see
me, at least not until--pardon the expression--you have outlived this
generous folly. And now, you know, you will need me no more. You have
made a splendid reputation, and if you choose to avail yourself of it,
your fortune is already made. I shall always rejoice to hear of your
success, and--and if you should ever need a FRIEND, you must come to no
one but me. I know that these are feeble words, Mr. Birch, and if they
seem cold to you, you must pardon me. I can say nothing more.”

They were indeed feeble words, although most cordially spoken. He
tried to weigh them, to measure their meaning, but his mind was as if
benumbed, and utterly incapable of thought. He walked across the floor,
perhaps only to do something, not feeling where he trod, but still with
an absurd sensation that he was taking immoderately long steps. Then
he stopped abruptly, wrung his hands, and gazed at Edith. And suddenly,
like a flash in a vacuum, the thought shot through his brain that he had
seen this very scene somewhere--in a dream, in a remote childhood, in a
previous existence, he did not know when or where. It seemed strangely
familiar, and in the next instant strangely meaningless and unreal.
The walls, the floor--everything began to move, to whirl about him;
he struck his hands against his forehead, and sank down into a
damask-covered easy-chair. With a faint cry of alarm, Edith sprang up,
seized a bottle of cologne which happened to be within reach, and knelt
down at his side. She put her arm around his neck, and raised his head.

“Mr. Birch, dear Mr. Birch,” she cried, in a frightened whisper, “for
God’s sake come to yourself! O God, what have I done?”

She blew the eau-de-cologne into his face, and, as he languidly opened
his eyes, he felt the touch of her warm hand upon his cheeks and his
forehead.

“Thank heaven! he is better,” she murmured, still continuing to bathe
his temples. “How do you feel now, Mr. Birch?” she added, in a tone of
anxious inquiry.

“Thank you, it was an unpardonable weakness,” he muttered, without
changing his attitude. “Do not trouble yourself about me. I shall soon
be well.”

It was so sweet to be conscious of her gentle ministry, that it required
a great effort, an effort of conscience, to rouse him once more, as his
strength returned.

“Had you not better stay?” she asked, as he rose to put on his overcoat.
“I will call one of the servants and have him show you a room. We will
say to-morrow morning that you were taken ill, and nobody will wonder.”

“No, no,” he responded, energetically. “I am perfectly strong now.” But
he still had to lean on a chair, and his face was deathly pale.

“Farewell, Miss Edith,” he said; and a tender sadness trembled in his
voice. “Farewell. We shall--probably--never meet again.”

“Do not speak so,” she answered, seizing his hand. “You will try to
forget this, and you will still be great and happy. And when fortune
shall again smile upon you, and--and--you will be content to be my
friend, then we shall see each other as before.”

“No, no,” he broke forth, with a sudden hoarseness. “It will never be.”

He walked toward the door with the motions of one who feels death in his
limbs; then stopped once more and his eyes lingered with inexpressible
sadness on the wonderful, beloved form which stood dimly outlined before
him in the twilight. Then Edith’s measure of misery, too, seemed full.
With the divine heedlessness which belongs to her sex, she rushed up
toward him, and remembering only that he was weak and unhappy, and that
he suffered for her sake, she took his face between her hands and kissed
him. He was too generous a man to misinterpret the act; so he whispered
but once more: “Farewell,” and hastened away.




VII.


After that eventful December night, America was no more what it had been
to Halfdan Bjerk. A strange torpidity had come over him; every rising
day gazed into his eyes with a fierce unmeaning glare. The noise of the
street annoyed him and made him childishly fretful, and the solitude
of his own room seemed still more dreary and depressing. He went
mechanically through the daily routine of his duties as if the soul
had been taken out of his work, and left his life all barrenness and
desolation. He moved restlessly from place to place, roamed at all times
of the day and night through the city and its suburbs, trying vainly to
exhaust his physical strength; gradually, as his lethargy deepened
into a numb, helpless despair, it seemed somehow to impart a certain
toughness to his otherwise delicate frame. Olson, who was now a junior
partner in the firm of Remsen, Van Kirk and Co., stood by him faithfully
in these days of sorrow. He was never effusive in his sympathy, but was
patiently forbearing with his friend’s whims and moods, and humored
him as if he had been a sick child intrusted to his custody. That Edith
might be the moving cause of Olson’s kindness was a thought which,
strangely enough, had never occurred to Halfdan.

At last, when spring came, the vacancy of his mind was suddenly invaded
with a strong desire to revisit his native land. He disclosed his plan
to Olson, who, after due deliberation and several visits to the Van Kirk
mansion, decided that the pleasure of seeing his old friends and the
scenes of his childhood might push the painful memories out of sight,
and renew his interest in life. So, one morning, while the May sun
shone with a soft radiance upon the beautiful harbor, our Norseman found
himself standing on the deck of a huge black-hulled Cunarder, shivering
in spite of the warmth, and feeling a chill loneliness creeping over him
at the sight of the kissing and affectionate leave-takings which were
going on all around him. Olson was running back and forth, attending
to his baggage; but he himself took no thought, and felt no more
responsibility than if he had been a helpless child. He half regretted
that his own wish had prevailed, and was inclined to hold his friend
responsible for it; and still he had not energy enough to protest now
when the journey seemed inevitable. His heart still clung to the place
which held the corpse of his ruined life, as a man may cling to the spot
which hides his beloved dead.

About two weeks later Halfdan landed in Norway. He was half reluctant to
leave the steamer, and the land of his birth excited no emotion in his
breast. He was but conscious of a dim regret that he was so far away
from Edith. At last, however, he betook himself to a hotel, where he
spent the afternoon sitting with half-closed eyes at a window, watching
listlessly the drowsy slow-pulsed life which dribbled languidly through
the narrow thoroughfare. The noisy uproar of Broadway chimed remotely
in his ears, like the distant roar of a tempest-tossed sea, and what had
once been a perpetual annoyance was now a sweet memory. How often with
Edith at his side had he threaded his way through the surging crowds
that pour, on a fine afternoon, in an unceasing current up and down the
street between Union and Madison Squares. How friendly, and sweet, and
gracious, Edith had been at such times; how fresh her voice, how witty
and animated her chance remarks when they stopped to greet a passing
acquaintance; and, above all, how inspiring the sight of her heavenly
beauty. Now that was all past. Perhaps he should never see Edith again.

The next day he sauntered through the city, meeting some old friends,
who all seemed changed and singularly uninteresting. They were all
engaged or married, and could talk of nothing but matrimony, and
their prospects of advancement in the Government service. One had
an influential uncle who had been a chum of the present minister of
finance; another based his hopes of future prosperity upon the family
connections of his betrothed, and a third was waiting with a patient
perseverance, worthy of a better cause, for the death or resignation of
an antiquated chef-de-bureau, which, according to the promise of some
mighty man, would open a position for him in the Department of Justice.
All had the most absurd theories about American democracy, and indulged
freely in prophecies of coming disasters; but about their own government
they had no opinion whatever. If Halfdan attempted to set them right,
they at once grew excited and declamatory; their opinions were based
upon conviction and a charming ignorance of facts, and they were not to
be moved. They knew all about Tweed and the Tammany Ring, and believed
them to be representative citizens of New York, if not of the United
States; but of Charles Sumner and Carl Schurz they had never heard.
Halfdan, who, in spite of his misfortunes in the land of his adoption,
cherished a very tender feeling for it, was often so thoroughly aroused
at the foolish prejudices which everywhere met him, that his torpidity
gradually thawed away, and he began to look more like his former self.

Toward autumn he received an invitation to visit a country clergyman in
the North, a distant relative of his father’s, and there whiled away
his time, fishing and shooting, until winter came. But as Christmas drew
near, and the day wrestled feebly with the all-conquering night, the old
sorrow revived. In the darkness which now brooded over land and sea,
the thoughts needed no longer be on guard against themselves; they could
roam far and wide as they listed. Where was Edith now, the sweet, the
wonderful Edith? Was there yet the same dancing light in her beautiful
eyes, the same golden sheen in her hair, the same merry ring in her
voice? And had she not said that when he was content to be only her
friend, he might return to her, and she would receive him in the old
joyous and confiding way? Surely there was no life to him apart from
her: why should he not be her friend? Only a glimpse of her lovely
face--ah, it was worth a lifetime; it would consecrate an age of misery,
a glimpse of Edith’s face. Thus ran his fancies day by day, and the
night only lent a deeper intensity to the yearnings of the day. He
walked about as in a dream, seeing nothing, heeding nothing, while this
one strong desire--to see Edith once more--throbbed and throbbed with a
slow, feverish perseverance within him. Edith--Edith, the very name had
a strange, potent fascination. Every thought whispered “Edith,”--his
pulse beat “Edith,”--and his heart repeated the beloved name. It was his
pulse-beat,--his heartbeat,--his life-beat.

And one morning as he stood absently looking at his fingers against the
light--and they seemed strangely wan and transparent--the thought at
last took shape. It rushed upon him with such vehemence, that he could
no more resist it. So he bade the clergyman good-bye, gathered his few
worldly goods together and set out for Bergen. There he found an English
steamer which carried him to Hull, and a few weeks later, he was once
more in New York.

It was late one evening in January that a tug-boat arrived and took the
cabin passengers ashore. The moon sailed tranquilly over the deep blue
dome of the sky, the stars traced their glittering paths of light from
the zenith downward, and it was sharp, bitter cold. Northward over the
river lay a great bank of cloud, dense, gray and massive, the spectre
of the coming snow-storm. There it lay so huge and fantastically human,
ruffling itself up, as fowls do, in defense against the cold. Halfdan
walked on at a brisk rate--strange to say, all the street-cars he met
went the wrong way--startling every now and then some precious memory,
some word or look or gesture of Edith’s which had hovered long
over those scenes, waiting for his recognition. There was the great
jewel-store where Edith had taken him so often to consult his taste
whenever a friend of hers was to be married. It was there that they had
had an amicable quarrel over that bronze statue of Faust which she
had found beautiful, while he, with a rudeness which seemed now quite
incomprehensible, had insisted that it was not. And when he had
failed to convince her, she had given him her hand in token of
reconciliation--and Edith had a wonderful way of giving her hand, which
made any one feel that it was a peculiar privilege to press it--and they
had walked out arm in arm into the animated, gas-lighted streets, with
a delicious sense of snugness and security, being all the more closely
united for their quarrel. Here, farther up the avenue, they had once
been to a party, and he had danced for the first time in his life
with Edith. Here was Delmonico’s, where they had had such fascinating
luncheons together; where she had got a stain on her dress, and he had
been forced to observe that her dress was then not really a part of
herself, since it was a thing that could not be stained. Her dress had
always seemed to him as something absolute and final, exalted above
criticism, incapable of improvement.

As I have said, Halfdan walked briskly up the avenue, and it was
something after eleven when he reached the house which he sought. The
great cloud-bank in the north had then begun to expand and stretched its
long misty arms eastward and westward over the heavens. The windows on
the ground-floor were dark, but the sleeping apartments in the upper
stories were lighted. In Edith’s room the inside shutters were closed,
but one of the windows was a little down at the top. And as he stood
gazing with tremulous happiness up to that window, a stanza from Heine
which he and Edith had often read together, came into his head. It was
the story of the youth who goes to the Madonna at Kevlar and brings her
as a votive offering a heart of wax, that she may heal him of his love
and his sorrow.

     “I bring this waxen image,
       The image of my heart,
       Heal thou my bitter sorrow,
       And cure my deadly smart!” [4]

Then came the thought that for him, too, as for the poor youth of
Cologne, there was healing only in death. And still in this moment
he was so near Edith, should see her perhaps, and the joy at this was
stronger than all else, stronger even than death. So he sat down beside
the steps of the mansion opposite, where there was some shelter from the
wind, and waited patiently till Edith should close her window. He was
cold, perhaps, but, if so, he hardly knew it, for the near joy of seeing
her throbbed warmly in his veins. Ah, there--the blinds were thrown
open; Edith, in all the lithe magnificence of her wonderful form, stood
out clear and beautiful against the light within; she pushed up the
lower window in order to reach the upper one, and for a moment leaned
out over the sill. Once more her wondrous profile traced itself in
strong relief against the outer gloom. There came a cry from the street
below, a feeble involuntary one, but still distinctly audible. Edith
peered anxiously out into the darkness, but the darkness had grown
denser and she could see nothing. The window was fastened, the shutters
closed, and the broad pathway of light which she had flung out upon the
night had vanished.

Halfdan closed his eyes trying to retain the happy vision. Yes, there
she stood still, and there was a heavenly smile upon her lips--ugh, he
shivered--the snow swept in a wild whirl up the street. He wrapped his
plaid more closely about him, and strained his eyes to catch one more
glimpse of the beloved Edith. Ah, yes; there she was again; she came
nearer and nearer, and she touched his cheek, gently, warily smiling
all the while with a strange wistful smile which was surely not Edith’s.
There, she bent over him,--touched him again,--how cold her hands were;
the touch chilled him to the heart. The snow had now begun to fall in
large scattered flakes, whirling fitfully through the air, following
every chance gust of wind, but still falling, falling, and covering the
earth with its white, death-like shroud.

But surely--there was Edith again,--how wonderful!--in a long snow-white
robe, grave and gracious, still with the wistful smile on her lips. See,
she beckons to him with her hand, and he rises to follow, but something
heavy clings to his feet and he cannot stir from the spot. He tries to
cry for help, but he cannot,--can only stretch out his hands to her, and
feel very unhappy that he cannot follow her. But now she pauses in her
flight, turns about, and he sees that she wears a myrtle garland in her
hair like a bride. She comes toward him, her countenance all radiant
with love and happiness, and she stoops down over him and speaks:

“Come; they are waiting for us. I will follow thee in life and in death,
wherever thou goest. Come,” repeats Edith, “they have long been waiting.
They are all here.”

And he imagines he knows who they all are, although he has never heard
of them, nor can he recall their names.

“But--but,” he stammers, “I--I--am a foreigner ”

It appeared then that for some reason this was an insurmountable
objection. And Edith’s happiness dies out of her beautiful face, and she
turns away weeping.

“Edith, beloved!”

Then she is once more at his side.

“Thou art no more a foreigner to me, beloved. Whatever thou art, I am.”

And she presses her lips to his--it was the sweetest kiss of his
life--the kiss of death.

The next morning, as Edith, after having put the last touch to her
toilet, threw the shutters open, a great glare of sun-smitten snow burst
upon her and for a moment blinded her eyes. On the sidewalk opposite,
half a dozen men with snow-shovels in their hands and a couple of
policeman had congregated, and, judging by their manner, were discussing
some object of interest. Presently they were joined by her father, who
had just finished his breakfast and was on his way to the office. Now
he stooped down and gazed at something half concealed in the snow, then
suddenly started back, and as she caught a glimpse of his face, she saw
that it was ghastly white. A terrible foreboding seized her. She threw
a shawl about her shoulders and rushed down-stairs. In the hall she was
met by her father, who was just entering, followed by four men, carrying
something between them. She well knew what it was. She would fain have
turned away, but she could not: grasping her father’s arm and pressing
it hard, she gazed with blank, frightened eyes at the white face, the
lines of which Death had so strangely emphasized. The snow-flakes which
hung in his hair had touched him with their sudden age, as if to bridge
the gulf between youth and death. And still he was beautiful--the clear
brow, the peaceful, happy indolence, the frozen smile which death had
perpetuated. Smiling, he had departed from the earth which had no place
for him, and smiling entered the realm where, among the many mansions,
there is, perhaps, also one for a gentle, simple-hearted enthusiast.




THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST.

THERE was an ancient feud between the families; and Bjarne Blakstad
was not the man to make it up, neither was Hedin Ullern. So they looked
askance at each other whenever they met on the highway, and the one
took care not to cross the other’s path. But on Sundays, when the
church-bells called the parishioners together, they could not very well
avoid seeing each other on the church-yard; and then, one day, many
years ago, when the sermon had happened to touch Bjarne’s heart, he had
nodded to Hedin and said: “Fine weather to-day;” and Hedin had returned
the nod and answered: “True is that.” “Now I have done my duty before
God and men,” thought Bjarne, “and it is his turn to take the next
step.” “The fellow is proud,” said Hedin to himself, “and he wants to
show off his generosity. But I know the wolf by his skin, even if he has
learned to bleat like a ewe-lamb.”

What the feud really was about, they had both nearly forgotten. All they
knew was that some thirty years ago there had been a quarrel between the
pastor and the parish about the right of carrying arms to the church.
And then Bjarne’s father had been the spokesman of the parish, while
Hedin’s grandsire had been a staunch defender of the pastor. There was a
rumor, too, that they had had a fierce encounter somewhere in the woods,
and that the one had stabbed the other with a knife; but whether that
was really true, no one could tell.

Bjarne was tall and grave, like the weather-beaten fir-trees in his
mast-forest. He had a large clean-shaven face, narrow lips, and small
fierce eyes. He seldom laughed, and when he did, his laugh seemed even
fiercer than his frown. He wore his hair long, as his fathers had
done, and dressed in the styles of two centuries ago; his breeches were
clasped with large silver buckles at the knees, and his red jerkin was
gathered about his waist with a leathern girdle. He loved everything
that was old, in dress as well as in manners, took no newspapers, and
regarded railroads and steamboats as inventions of the devil. Bjarne had
married late in life, and his marriage had brought him two daughters,
Brita and Grimhild.

Hedin Ullern was looked upon as an upstart. He could only count three
generations back, and he hardly knew himself how his grandfather had
earned the money that had enabled him to buy a farm and settle down
in the valley. He had read a great deal, and was well informed on
the politics of the day; his name had even been mentioned for
storthingsmand, or member of parliament from the district, and it
was the common opinion, that if Bjarne Blakstad had not so vigorously
opposed him, he would have been elected, being the only “cultivated”
 peasant in the valley. Hedin was no unwelcome guest in the houses of
gentlefolks, and he was often seen at the judge’s and the pastor’s
omber parties. And for all this Bjarne Blakstad only hated him the more.
Hedin’s wife, Thorgerda, was fair-haired, tall and stout, and it was
she who managed the farm, while her husband read his books, and studied
politics in the newspapers; but she had a sharp tongue and her neighbors
were afraid of her. They had one son, whose name was Halvard.

Brita Blakstad, Bjarne’s eldest daughter, was a maid whom it was a joy
to look upon. They called her “Glitter-Brita,” because she was fond of
rings and brooches, and everything that was bright; while she was
still a child, she once took the old family bridal-crown out from the
storehouse and carried it about on her head. “Beware of that crown,
child,” her father had said to her, “and wear it not before the time.
There is not always blessing in the bridal silver.” And she looked
wonderingly up into his eyes and answered: “But it glitters, father;”
 and from that time forth they had named her Glitter-Brita.

And Glitter-Brita grew up to be a fair and winsome maiden, and wherever
she went the wooers flocked on her path. Bjarne shook his head at
her, and often had harsh words upon his lips, when he saw her braiding
field-flowers into her yellow tresses or clasping the shining brooches
to her bodice; but a look of hers or a smile would completely disarm
him. She had a merry way of doing things which made it all seem like
play; but work went rapidly from her hands, while her ringing laughter
echoed through the house, and her sunny presence made it bright in the
dusky ancestral halls. In her kitchen the long rows of copper pots and
polished kettles shone upon the walls, and the neatly scoured milk-pails
stood like soldiers on parade about the shelves under the ceiling.
Bjarne would often sit for hours watching her, and a strange
spring-feeling would steal into his heart. He felt a father’s pride in
her stately growth and her rich womanly beauty. “Ah!” he would say to
himself, “she has the pure blood in her veins and, as true as I live,
the farm shall be hers.” And then, quite contrary to his habits, he
would indulge in a little reverie, imagining the time when he, as an
aged man, should have given the estate over into her hands, and seeing
her as a worthy matron preside at the table, and himself rocking his
grandchildren on his knee. No wonder, then, that he eyed closely the
young lads who were beginning to hover about the house, and that he
looked with suspicion upon those who selected Saturday nights for their
visits. [5] When Brita was twenty years old, however, her father thought
that it was time for her to make her choice. There were many fine, brave
lads in the valley, and, as Bjarne thought, Brita would have the good
sense to choose the finest and the bravest. So, when the winter came, he
suddenly flung his doors open to the youth of the parish, and began to
give parties with ale and mead in the grand old style. He even talked
with the young men, at times, encouraged them to manly sports, and urged
them to taste of his home-brewed drinks and to tread the spring-dance
briskly. And Brita danced and laughed so that her hair flew around her
and the silver brooches tinkled and rang on her bosom. But when the
merriment was at an end, and any one of the lads remained behind to
offer her his hand, she suddenly grew grave, told him she was too young,
that she did not know herself, and that she had had no time as yet to
decide so serious a question. Thus the winter passed and the summer drew
near.

In the middle of June, Brita went to the saeter [6] with the cattle; and
her sister, Grimhild, remained at home to keep house on the farm. She
loved the life in the mountains; the great solitude sometimes made her
feel sad, but it was not an unpleasant sadness, it was rather a gentle
toning down of all the shrill and noisy feelings of the soul. Up there,
in the heart of the primeval forest, her whole being seemed to herself
a symphony of melodious whispers with a vague delicious sense of
remoteness and mystery in them, which she only felt and did not attempt
to explain. There, those weird legends which, in former days, still held
their sway in the fancy of every Norsewoman, breathed their secrets into
her ear, and she felt her nearness and kinship to nature, as at no other
time.

One night, as the sun was low, and a purple bluish smoke hung like a
thin veil over the tops of the forest, Brita had taken out her knitting
and seated herself on a large moss-grown stone, on the croft. Her eyes
wandered over the broad valley which was stretched out below, and she
could see the red roofs of the Blakstad mansion peeping forth between
the fir-trees. And she wondered what they were doing down there, whether
Grimhild had done milking, and whether her father had returned from the
ford, where it was his habit at this hour to ride with the footmen
to water the horses. As she sat thus wondering, she was startled by a
creaking in the dry branches hard by, and lifting her eye, she saw a
tall, rather clumsily built, young man emerging from the thicket. He
had a broad but low forehead, flaxen hair which hung down over a pair of
dull ox-like eyes; his mouth was rather large and, as it was half open,
displayed two massive rows of shining white teeth. His red peaked cap
hung on the back of his head and, although it was summer, his thick
wadmal vest was buttoned close up to his throat; over his right arm he
had flung his jacket, and in his hand he held a bridle.

“Good evening,” said Brita, “and thanks for last meeting;” although she
was not sure that she had ever seen him before.

“It was that bay mare, you know,” stammered the man in a half apologetic
tone, and shook the bridle, as if in further explanation.

“Ah, you have lost your mare,” said the girl, and she could not help
smiling at his helplessness and his awkward manner.

“Yes, it was the bay mare,” answered he, in the same diffident tone;
then, encouraged by her smile, he straightened himself a little and
continued rather more fluently: “She never was quite right since the
time the wolves were after her. And then since they took the colt away
from her the milk has been troubling her, and she hasn’t been quite like
herself.”

“I haven’t seen her anywhere hereabouts,” said Brita; “you may have to
wander far, before you get on the track of her.”

“Yes, that is very likely. And I am tired already.”

“Won’t you sit down and rest yourself?”

He deliberately seated himself in the grass, and gradually gained
courage to look her straight in the face; and his dull eye remained
steadfastly fixed on her in a way which bespoke unfeigned surprise and
admiration. Slowly his mouth broadened into a smile; but his smile had
more of sadness than of joy in it. She had, from the moment she saw him,
been possessed of a strangely patronizing feeling toward him. She could
not but treat him as if he had been a girl or some person inferior to
her in station. In spite of his large body, the impression he made upon
her was that of weakness; but she liked the sincerity and kindness which
expressed themselves in his sad smile and large, honest blue eyes.
His gaze reminded her of that of an ox, but it had not only the ox’s
dullness, but also its simplicity and good-nature.

They sat talking on for a while about the weather, the cattle, and the
prospects of the crops.

“What is your name?” she asked, at last.

“Halvard Hedinson Ullern.”

A sudden shock ran through her at the sound of that name; in the next
moment a deep blush stole over her countenance.

“And my name,” she said, slowly, “is Brita Bjarne’s daughter Blakstad.”

She fixed her eyes upon him, as if to see what effect her words
produced. But his features wore the same sad and placid expression; and
no line in his face seemed to betray either surprise or ill-will. Then
her sense of patronage grew into one of sympathy and pity. “He must
either be weak-minded or very unhappy,” thought she, “and what right
have I then to treat him harshly.” And she continued her simple,
straightforward talk with the young man, until he, too, grew almost
talkative, and the sadness of his smile began to give way to something
which almost resembled happiness. She noticed the change and rejoiced.
At last, when the sun had sunk behind the western mountain tops,
she rose and bade him good-night; in another moment the door of the
saeter-cottage closed behind her, and he heard her bolting it on the
inside. But for a long time he remained sitting on the grass, and
strange thoughts passed through his head. He had quite forgotten his bay
mare.

The next evening when the milking was done, and the cattle were gathered
within the saeter enclosure, Brita was again sitting on the large stone,
looking out over the valley. She felt a kind of companionship with the
people when she saw the smoke whirling up from their chimneys, and she
could guess what they were going to have for supper. As she sat there,
she again heard a creaking in the branches, and Halvard Ullern stood
again before her, with his jacket on his arm, and the same bridle in his
hand.

“You have not found your bay mare yet?” she exclaimed, laughingly. “And
you think she is likely to be in this neighborhood?”

“I don’t know,” he answered; “and I don’t care if she isn’t.”

He spread his jacket on the grass, and sat down on the spot where he
had sat the night before. Brita looked at him in surprise and remained
silent; she didn’t know how to interpret this second visit.

“You are very handsome,” he said, suddenly, with a gravity which left no
doubt as to his sincerity.

“Do you think so?” she answered, with a merry laugh. He appeared to her
almost a child, and it never entered her mind to feel offended. On the
contrary, she was not sure but that she felt pleased.

“I have thought of you ever since yesterday,” he continued, with the
same imperturbable manner. “And if you were not angry with me, I thought
I would like to look at you once more. You are so different from other
folks.”

“God bless your foolish talk,” cried Brita, with a fresh burst of
merriment. “No, indeed I am not angry with you; I should just as soon
think of being angry with--with that calf,” she added for want of
another comparison.

“You think I don’t know much,” he stammered. “And I don’t.” The sad
smile again settled on his countenance.

A feeling of guilt sent the blood throbbing through her veins. She saw
that she had done him injustice. He evidently possessed more sense, or
at least a finer instinct, than she had given him credit for.

“Halvard,” she faltered, “if I have offended you, I assure you I didn’t
mean to do it; and a thousand times I beg your pardon.”

“You haven’t offended me, Brita,” answered he, blushing like a girl.
“You are the first one who doesn’t make me feel that I am not so wise as
other folks.”

She felt it her duty to be open and confiding with him in return; and in
order not to seem ungenerous, or rather to put them on an equal footing
by giving him also a peep into her heart, she told him about her daily
work, about the merry parties at her father’s house, and about the
lusty lads who gathered in their halls to dance the Halling and the
spring-dance. He listened attentively while she spoke, gazing earnestly
into her face, but never interrupting her. In his turn he described to
her in his slow deliberate way, how his father constantly scolded him
because he was not bright, and did not care for politics and newspapers,
and how his mother wounded him with her sharp tongue by making merry
with him, even in the presence of the servants and strangers. He did not
seem to imagine that there was anything wrong in what he said, or that
he placed himself in a ludicrous light; nor did he seem to speak
from any unmanly craving for sympathy. His manner was so simple and
straightforward that what Brita probably would have found strange in
another, she found perfectly natural in him.

It was nearly midnight when they parted{.} She hardly slept at all that
night, and she was half vexed with herself for the interest she took
in this simple youth. The next morning her father came up to pay her a
visit and to see how the flocks were thriving. She understood that it
would be dangerous to say anything to him about Halvard, for she knew
his temper and feared the result, if he should ever discover her secret.
Therefore, she shunned an opportunity to talk with him, and only busied
herself the more with the cattle and the cooking. Bjarne soon noticed
her distraction, but, of course, never suspected the cause. Before he
left her, he asked her if she did not find it too lonely on the saeter,
and if it would not be well if he sent her one of the maids for a
companion. She hastened to assure him that that was quite unnecessary;
the cattle-boy who was there to help her was all the company she wanted.
Toward evening, Bjarne Blakstad loaded his horses with buckets, filled
with cheese and butter, and started for the valley. Brita stood long
looking after him as he descended the rocky slope, and she could hardly
conceal from herself that she felt relieved, when, at last, the forest
hid him from her sight. All day she had been walking about with a heavy
heart; there seemed to be something weighing on her breast, and she
could not throw it off. Who was this who had come between her and her
father? Had she ever been afraid of him before, had she been glad to
have him leave her? A sudden bitterness took possession of her, for in
her distress, she gave Halvard the blame for all that had happened.
She threw herself down on the grass and burst into a passionate fit of
weeping; she was guilty, wretchedly miserable, and all for the sake of
one whom she had hardly known for two days. If he should come in this
moment, she would tell him what he had done toward her; and her wish
must have been heard, for as she raised her eyes, he stood there at her
side, the sad feature about his mouth and his great honest eyes gazing
wonderingly at her. She felt her purpose melt within her; he looked so
good and so unhappy. Then again came the thought of her father and of
her own wrong, and the bitterness again revived.

“Go away,” cried she, in a voice half reluctantly tender and half
defiant. “Go away, I say; I don’t want to see you any more.”

“I will go to the end of the world if you wish it,” he answered, with a
strange firmness.

He picked up his jacket which he had dropped on the ground, then turned
slowly, gave her mother long look, an infinitely sad and hopeless one,
and went. Her bosom heaved violently--remorse, affection and filial duty
wrestled desperately in her heart.

“No, no,” she cried, “why do you go? I did not mean it so. I only
wanted--”

He paused and returned as deliberately as he had gone.

Why should I dwell upon the days that followed--how her heart grew ever
more restless, how she would suddenly wake up at nights and see those
large blue eyes sadly gazing at her, how by turns she would condemn
herself and him, and how she felt with bitter pain that she was growing
away from those who had hitherto been nearest and dearest to her. And
strange to say, this very isolation from her father made her cling
only the more desperately to him. It seemed to her as if Bjarne had
deliberately thrown her off; that she herself had been the one who
took the first step had hardly occurred to her. Alas, her grief was as
irrational as her love. By what strange devious process of reasoning
these convictions became settled in her mind, it is difficult to tell.
It is sufficient to know that she was a woman and that she loved. She
even knew herself that she was irrational, and this very sense drew her
more hopelessly into the maze of the labyrinth from which she saw no
escape.

His visits were as regular as those of the sun. She knew that there was
only a word of hers needed to banish him from her presence forever. And
how many times did she not resolve to speak that word? But the word was
never spoken. At times a company of the lads from the valley would come
to spend a merry evening at the saeter; but she heeded them not, and
they soon disappeared. Thus the summer went amid passing moods of joy
and sorrow. She had long known that he loved her, and when at last
his slow confession came, it added nothing to her happiness; it only
increased her fears for the future. They laid many plans together in
those days; but winter came as a surprise to both, the cattle were
removed from the mountains, and they were again separated.

Bjarne Blakstad looked long and wistfully at his daughter that morning,
when he came to bring her home. She wore no more rings and brooches,
and it was this which excited Bjarne’s suspicion that everything was not
right with her. Formerly he was displeased because she wore too many;
now he grumbled because she wore none.




II.


The winter was half gone; and in all this time Brita had hardly once
seen Halvard. Yes, once,--it was Christmas-day,--she had ventured to
peep over to his pew in the church, and had seen him, sitting at his
father’s side, and gazing vacantly out into the empty space; but as he
had caught her glance, he had blushed, and began eagerly to turn the
leaves of his hymn-book. It troubled her that he made no effort to see
her; many an evening she had walked alone down at the river-side, hoping
that he might come; but it was all in vain. She could not but believe
that his father must have made some discovery, and that he was watched.
In the mean time the black cloud thickened over her head; for a secret
gnawed at the very roots of her heart. It was a time of terrible
suspense and suffering--such as a man never knows, such as only a woman
can endure. It was almost a relief when the cloud burst, and the storm
broke loose, as presently it did.

One Sunday, early in April, Bjarne did not return at the usual hour from
church. His daughters waited in vain for him with the dinner, and at
last began to grow uneasy. It was not his habit to keep irregular hours.
There was a great excitement in the valley just then; the America-fever
had broken out. A large vessel was lying out in the fjord, ready to take
the emigrants away; and there was hardly a family that did not mourn the
loss of some brave-hearted son, or of some fair and cherished daughter.
The old folks, of course, had to remain behind; and when the children
were gone, what was there left for them but to lie down and die? America
was to them as distant as if it were on another planet. The family
feeling, too, has ever been strong in the Norseman’s breast; he lives
for his children, and seems to live his life over again in them. It is
his greatest pride to be able to trace his blood back into the days of
Sverre and St. Olaf, and with the same confidence he expects to see his
race spread into the future in the same soil where once it has struck
root. Then comes the storm from the Western seas, wrestles with the
sturdy trunk, and breaks it; and the shattered branches fly to all the
four corners of the heavens. No wonder, then, like a tree that has lost
its crown, his strength is broken and he expects but to smoulder into
the earth and die.

Bjarne Blakstad, like the sturdy old patriot that he was, had always
fiercely denounced the America rage; and it was now the hope of his
daughters that, perhaps, he had stayed behind to remind the restless
ones among the youth of their duty toward their land, or to frighten
some bold emigration agent who might have been too loud in his
declamations. But it was already eight o’clock and Bjarne was not yet to
be seen. The night was dark and stormy; a cold sleet fiercely lashed the
window-panes, and the wind roared in the chimney. Grimhild, the younger
sister, ran restlessly out and in and slammed the doors after her. Brita
sat tightly pressed up against the wall in the darkest corner of the
room. Every time the wind shook the house she started up; then again
seated herself and shuddered. Dark forebodings filled her soul.

At last,--the clock had just struck ten,--there was a noise heard in
the outer hall. Grimhild sprang to the door and tore it open. A tall,
stooping figure entered, and by the dress she at once recognized her
father.

“Good God,” cried she, and ran up to him.

“Go away, child,” muttered he, in a voice that sounded strangely
unfamiliar, and he pushed her roughly away. For a moment he stood still,
then stalked up to the table, and, with a heavy thump, dropped down into
a chair. There he remained with his elbows resting on his knees, and
absently staring on the floor. His long hair hung in wet tangles down
over his face, and the wrinkles about his mouth seemed deeper and
fiercer than usual. Now and then he sighed, or gave vent to a deep
groan. In a while his eyes began to wander uneasily about the room; and
as they reached the corner where Brita was sitting, he suddenly darted
up, as if stung by something poisonous, seized a brand from the hearth,
and rushed toward her.

“Tell me I did not see it,” he broke forth, in a hoarse whisper, seizing
her by the arm and thrusting the burning brand close up to her face.
“Tell me it is a lie--a black, poisonous lie.”

She raised her eyes slowly to his and gazed steadfastly into his face.
“Ah,” he continued in the same terrible voice, “it was what I told
them down there at the church--a lie--an infernal lie. And I drew
blood--blood, I say--I did--from the slanderer. Ha, ha, ha! What a lusty
sprawl that was!”

The color came and departed from Brita’s cheeks. And still she was
strangely self possessed. She even wondered at her own calmness. Alas,
she did not know that it was a calmness that is more terrible than pain,
the corpse of a forlorn and hopeless heart.

“Child,” continued Bjarne, and his voice assumed a more natural tone,
“why dost thou not speak? They have lied about thee, child, because thou
art fair, they have envied thee.” Then, almost imploringly, “Open thy
mouth, Brita, and tell thy father that thou art pure--pure as the snow,
child--my own--my beautiful child.”

There was a long and painful pause, in which the crackling of the brand,
and the heavy breathing of the old man were the only sounds to break
the silence. Pale like a marble image stood she before him; no word
of excuse, no prayer for forgiveness escaped her; only a convulsive
quivering of the lips betrayed the life that struggled within her. With
every moment the hope died in Bjarne’s bosom. His visage was fearful to
behold. Terror and fierce indomitable hatred had grimly distorted his
features, and his eyes burned like fire-coals beneath his bushy brows.

“Harlot,” he shrieked, “harlot!”

A cold gust of wind swept through the room. The windows shook, the doors
flew open, as if touched by a strong invisible hand--and the old man
stood alone, holding the flickering brand above his head.

It was after midnight, the wind had abated, but the snow still fell,
thick and silent, burying paths and fences under its cold white mantle.
Onward she fled--onward and ever onward. And whither, she knew not.
A cold numbness had chilled her senses, but still her feet drove her
irresistibly onward. A dark current seemed to have seized her, she only
felt that she was adrift, and she cared not whither it bore her. In
spite of the stifling dullness which oppressed her, her body seemed as
light as air. At last,--she knew not where,--she heard the roar of the
sea resounding in her ears, a genial warmth thawed the numbness of
her senses, and she floated joyfully among the clouds--among golden,
sun-bathed clouds. When she opened her eyes, she found herself lying
in a comfortable bed, and a young woman with a kind motherly face was
sitting at her side. It was all like a dream, and she made no effort to
account for what appeared so strange and unaccountable.

What she afterward heard was that a fisherman had found her in a
snow-drift on the strand, and that he had carried her home to his
cottage and had given her over to the charge of his wife. This was the
second day since her arrival. They knew who she was, but had kept the
doors locked and had told no one that she was there. She heard the story
of the good woman without emotion; it seemed an intolerable effort
to think. But on the third day, when her child was born, her mind was
suddenly aroused from its lethargy, and she calmly matured her plans;
and for the child’s sake she resolved to live and to act. That same
evening there came a little boy with a bundle for her. She opened it and
found therein the clothes she had left behind, and--her brooches. She
knew that it was her sister who had sent them; then there was one who
still thought of her with affection. And yet her first impulse was to
send it all back, or to throw it into the ocean; but she looked at her
child and forbore.

A week passed, and Brita recovered. Of Halvard she had heard nothing.
One night, as she lay in a half doze, she thought she had Seen a pale,
frightened face pressed up against the window-pane, and staring fixedly
at her and her child; but, after all, it might have been merely a dream.
For her fevered fancy had in these last days frequently beguiled her
into similar visions. She often thought of him, but, strangely enough,
no more with bitterness, but with pity. Had he been strong enough to be
wicked, she could have hated him, but he was weak, and she pitied him.
Then it was that; one evening, as she heard that the American vessel was
to sail at daybreak, she took her little boy and wrapped him carefully
in her own clothes, bade farewell to the good fisherman and his wife,
and walked alone down to the strand. Huge clouds of fantastic shapes
chased each other desperately along the horizon, and now and then the
slender new moon glanced forth from the deep blue gulfs between. She
chose a boat at random and was about to unmoor it, when she saw the
figure of a man tread carefully over the stones and hesitatingly
approach her.

“Brita,” came in a whisper from the strand.

“Who’s there?”

“It is I. Father knows it all, and he has nearly killed me; and mother,
too.”

“Is that what you have come to tell me?”

“No, I would like to help you some. I have been trying to see you these
many days.” And he stepped close up to the boat.

“Thank you; I need no help.”

“But, Brita,” implored he, “I have sold my gun and my dog, and
everything I had, and this is what I have got for it.” He stretched out
his hand and reached her a red handkerchief with something heavy bound
up in a corner. She took it mechanically, held it in her hand for
a moment, then flung it far out into the water. A smile of profound
contempt and pity passed over her countenance.

“Farewell, Halvard,” said she, calmly, and pushed the boat into the
water.

“But, Brita,” cried he, in despair, “what would you have me do?”

She lifted the child in her arms, then pointed to the vacant seat at
her side. He understood what she meant, and stood for a moment wavering.
Suddenly, he covered his face with his hands and burst into tears.
Within half an hour, Brita boarded the vessel, and as the first red
stripe of the dawn illumined the horizon, the wind filled the sails, and
the ship glided westward toward that land where there is a home for them
whom love and misfortune have exiled.

It was a long and wearisome voyage. There was an old English clergyman
on board, who collected curiosities; to him she sold her rings and
brooches, and thereby obtained more than sufficient money to pay her
passage. She hardly spoke to any one except her child. Those of her
fellow-parishioners who knew her, and perhaps guessed her history, kept
aloof from her, and she was grateful to them that they did. From morning
till night, she sat in a corner between a pile of deck freight and the
kitchen skylight, and gazed at her little boy who was lying in her lap.
All her hopes, her future, and her life were in him. For herself, she
had ceased to hope.

“I can give thee no fatherland, my child,” she said to him. “Thou shalt
never know the name of him who gave thee life. Thou and I, we shall
struggle together, and, as true as there is a God above, who sees us,
He will not leave either of us to perish. But let us ask no questions,
child, about that which is past. Thou shalt grow and be strong, and thy
mother must grow with thee.”

During the third week of the voyage, the English clergyman baptized the
boy, and she called him Thomas, after the day in the almanac on which he
was born. He should never know that Norway had been his mother’s home;
therefore she would give him no name which might betray his race. One
morning, early in the month of June, they hailed land, and the great New
World lay before them.




III.


Why should I speak of the ceaseless care, the suffering, and the hard
toil, which made the first few months of Brita’s life on this continent
a mere continued struggle for existence? They are familiar to every
emigrant who has come here with a brave heart and an empty purse.
Suffice it to say that at the end of the second month, she succeeded in
obtaining service as milkmaid with a family in the neighborhood of
New York. With the linguistic talent peculiar to her people, she
soon learned the English language and even spoke it well. From her
countrymen, she kept as far away as possible, not for her own sake,
but for that of her boy; for he was to grow great and strong, and the
knowledge of his birth might shatter his strength and break his courage.
For the same reason she also exchanged her picturesque Norse costume for
that of the people among whom she was living. She went commonly by the
name of Mrs. Brita, which pronounced in the English way, sounded very
much like Mrs. Bright, and this at last became the name by which she was
known in the neighborhood.

Thus five years passed; then there was a great rage for emigrating to
the far West, and Brita, with many others, started for Chicago. There
she arrived in the year 1852, and took up her lodgings with an Irish
widow, who was living in a little cottage in what was then termed the
outskirts of the city. Those who saw her in those days, going about the
lumber-yards and doing a man’s work, would hardly have recognized in her
the merry Glitter-Brita, who in times of old trod the spring-dance so
gayly in the well-lighted halls of the Blakstad mansion. And, indeed,
she was sadly changed! Her features had become sharper, and the firm
lines about her mouth expressed severity, almost sternness. Her clear
blue eyes seemed to have grown larger, and their glance betrayed secret,
ever-watchful care. Only her yellow hair had resisted the force of time
and sorrow; for it still fell in rich and wavy folds over a smooth white
forehead. She was, indeed, half ashamed of it, and often took pains to
force it into a sober, matronly hood. Only at nights, when she sat alone
talking with her boy, she would allow it to escape from its prison; and
he would laugh and play with it, and in his child’s way even wonder at
the contrast between her stern face and her youthful maidenly tresses.

This Thomas, her son, was a strange child. He had a Norseman’s taste for
the fabulous and fantastic, and although he never heard a tale of Necken
or the Hulder, he would often startle his mother by the most fanciful
combinations of imagined events, and by bolder personifications than
ever sprung from the legendary soil of the Norseland. She always took
care to check him whenever he indulged in these imaginary flights, and
he at last came to look upon them as something wrong and sinful. The
boy, as he grew up, often strikingly reminded her of her father,
as, indeed, he seemed to have inherited more from her own than from
Halvard’s race. Only the bright flaxen hair and his square, somewhat
clumsy stature might have told him to be the latter’s child. He had a
hot temper, and often distressed his mother by his stubbornness; and
then there would come a great burst of repentance afterwards, which
distressed her still more. For she was afraid it might be a sign of
weakness. “And strong he must be,” said she to herself, “strong enough
to overcome all resistance, and to conquer a great name for himself,
strong enough to bless a mother who brought him into the world
nameless.”

Strange to say, much as she loved this child, she seldom caressed him.
It was a penance she had imposed upon herself to atone for her guilt.
Only at times, when she had been sitting up late, and her eyes would
fall, as it were, by accident upon the little face on the pillow,
with the sweet unconsciousness of sleep resting upon it like a soft,
invisible veil, would she suddenly throw herself down over him, kiss
him, and whisper tender names in his ear, while her tears fell hot and
fast on his yellow hair and his rosy countenance. Then the child would
dream that he was sailing aloft over shining forests, and that his
mother, beaming with all the beauty of her lost youth, flew before him,
showering golden flowers on his path. These were the happiest moments of
Brita’s joyless life, and even these were not unmixed with bitterness;
for into the midst of her joy would steal a shy anxious thought which
was the more terrible because it came so stealthily, so soft-footed
and unbidden. Had not this child been given her as a punishment for her
guilt? Had she then a right to turn God’s scourge into a blessing? Did
she give to God “that which belongeth unto God,” as long as all her
hopes, her thoughts, and her whole being revolved about this one earthly
thing, her son, the child of her sorrow? She was not a nature to shrink
from grave questions; no, she met them boldly, when once they were
there, wrestled fiercely with them, was defeated, and again with a
martyr’s zeal rose to renew the combat. God had Himself sent her this
perplexing doubt and it was her duty to bear His burden. Thus ran
Brita’s reasoning. In the mean while the years slipped by, and great
changes were wrought in the world about her.

The few hundred dollars which Brita had been able to save, during the
first three years of her stay in Chicago, she had invested in a piece of
land. In the mean while the city had grown, and in the year 1859 she was
offered five thousand dollars for her lot; this offer she accepted and
again bought a small piece of property at a short distance from the
city. The boy had since his eighth year attended the public school, and
had made astonishing progress. Every day when school was out, she would
meet him at the gate, take him by the hand and lead him home. If any
of the other boys dared to make sport of her, or to tease him for his
dependence upon her, it was sure to cost that boy a black eye{.} He soon
succeeded in establishing himself in the respect of his school-mates,
for he was the strongest boy of his own age, and ever ready to protect
and defend the weak and defenseless. When Thomas Bright (for that was
the name by which he was known) was fifteen years old he was offered
a position as clerk in the office of a lumber-merchant, and with his
mother’s consent he accepted it. He was a fine young lad now, large and
well-knit, and with a clear earnest countenance. In the evening he would
bring home books to read, and as it had always been Brita’s habit to
interest herself in whatever interested him, she soon found herself
studying and discussing with him things which had in former years been
far beyond the horizon of her mind. She had at his request reluctantly
given up her work in the lumber-yards, and now spent her days at home,
busying herself with sewing and reading and such other things as women
find to fill up a vacant hour.

One evening, when Thomas was in his nineteenth year, he returned
from his office with a graver face than usual. His mother’s quick eye
immediately saw that something had agitated him, but she forbore to ask.

“Mother,” said he at last, “who is my father? Is he dead or alive?”

“God is your father, my son,” answered she, tremblingly. “If you love
me, ask me no more.”

“I do love you, mother,” he said, and gave her a grave look, in which
she thought she detected a mingling of tenderness and reproach. “And it
shall be as you have said.”

It was the first time she had had reason to blush before him, and
her emotion came near overwhelming her; but with a violent effort she
stifled it, and remained outwardly calm. He began pacing up and down the
floor with his head bent and his hands on his back. It suddenly occurred
to her that he was a grown man, and that she could no longer hold the
same relation to him as his supporter and protector. “Alas,” thought
she, “if God will but let me remain his mother, I shall bless and thank
Him.”

It was the first time this subject had been broached, and it gave rise
to many a doubt and many a question in the anxious mother’s mind. Had
she been right in concealing from him that which he might justly claim
to know? What had been her motive in keeping him ignorant of his origin
and of the land of his birth? She had wished him to grow to the strength
of manhood, unconscious of guilt, so that he might bear his head
upright, and look the world fearlessly in the face. And still, had there
not in all this been a lurking thought of herself, a fear of losing his
love, a desire to stand pure and perfect in his eye? She hardly dared
to answer these questions, for, alas, she knew not that even our purest
motives are but poorly able to bear a searching scrutiny. She began to
suspect that her whole course with her son had been wrong from the very
beginning. Why had she not told him the stern truth, even if he should
despise her for it, even if she should have to stand a blushing culprit
in his presence? Often, when she heard his footsteps in the hall, as
he returned from the work of the day, she would man herself up and the
words hovered upon her lips: “Son, thou art a bastard born, a child of
guilt, and thy mother is an outcast upon the earth.” But when she met
those calm blue eyes of his, saw the unsuspecting frankness of his
manner and the hopefulness with which he looked to the future, her
womanly heart shrank from its duty, and she hastened out of the room,
threw herself on her bed, and wept. Fiercely she wrestled with God in
prayer, until she thought that even God had deserted her. Thus months
passed and years, and the constant care and anxiety began to affect her
health. She grew pale and nervous, and the slightest noise would annoy
her. In the mean while, her manner toward the young man had become
strangely altered, and he soon noticed it, although he forbore to speak.
She was scrupulously mindful of his comfort, anxiously anticipated his
wants, and observed toward him an ever vigilant consideration, as if he
had been her master instead of her son.

When Thomas was twenty-two years of age, he was offered a partnership in
his employer’s business, and with every year his prospects brightened.
The sale of his mother’s property brought him a very handsome little
fortune, which enabled him to build a fine and comfortable house in one
of the best portions of the city. Thus their outward circumstances were
greatly improved, and of comfort and luxury Brita had all and more than
she had ever desired; but her health was broken down, and the physicians
declared that a year of foreign travel and a continued residence in
Italy might possibly restore her. At last, Thomas, too, began to urge
her, until she finally yielded. It was on a bright morning in May that
they both started for New York, and three days later they took the boat
for Europe. What countries they were to visit they had hardly decided,
but after a brief stay in England we find them again on a steamer bound
for Norway.




IV.


Warm and gentle as it is, June often comes to the fjord-valleys of
Norway with the voice and the strength of a giant. The glaciers
totter and groan, as if in anger at their own weakness, and send huge
avalanches of stones and ice down into the valleys. The rivers swell and
rush with vociferous brawl out over the mountainsides, and a thousand
tiny brooks join in the general clamor, and dance with noisy chatter
over the moss-grown birch-roots. But later, when the struggle is at an
end, and June has victoriously seated herself upon her throne, her voice
becomes more richly subdued and brings rest and comfort to the ear and
to the troubled heart. It was while the month was in this latter mood
that Brita and her son entered once more the valley whence, twenty-five
years ago, they had fled. Many strange, turbulent emotions stirred the
mother’s bosom, as she saw again the great snow-capped mountains, and
the calm, green valley, her childhood’s home, lying so snugly sheltered
in their mighty embrace. Even Thomas’s breast was moved with vaguely
sympathetic throbs, as this wondrous scene spread itself before him.
They soon succeeded in hiring a farm-house, about half an hour’s walk
from Blakstad, and, according to Brita’s wish, established themselves
there for the summer. She had known the people well, when she was young,
but they never thought of identifying her with the merry maid, who had
once startled the parish by her sudden flight; and she, although she
longed to open her heart to them, let no word fall to betray her real
character. Her conscience accused her of playing a false part, but for
her son’s sake she kept silent.

Then, one day,--it was the second Sunday after their arrival,--she rose
early in the morning, and asked Thomas to accompany her on a walk up
through the valley. There was Sabbath in the air; the soft breath of
summer, laden with the perfume of fresh leaves and field-flowers,
gently wafted into their faces. The sun glittered in the dewy grass, the
crickets sung with a remote voice of wonder, and the air seemed to be
half visible, and moved in trembling wavelets on the path before them.
Resting on her son’s arm, Brita walked slowly up through the flowering
meadows; she hardly knew whither her feet bore her, but her heart
beat violently, and she often was obliged to pause and press her hands
against her bosom, as if to stay the turbulent emotions.

“You are not well, mother,” said the son. “It was imprudent in me to
allow you to exert yourself in this way.”

“Let us sit down on this stone,” answered she. “I shall soon be better.
Do not look so anxiously at me. Indeed, I am not sick.”

He spread his light summer coat on the stone and carefully seated her.
She lifted her veil and raised her eyes to the large red-roofed mansion,
whose dark outlines drew themselves dimly on the dusky background of the
pine forest. Was he still alive, he whose life-hope she had wrecked, he
who had once driven her out into the night with all but a curse upon his
lips? How would he receive her, if she were to return? Ah, she knew him,
and she trembled at the very thought of meeting him. But was not the
guilt hers? Could she depart from this valley, could she die in peace,
without having thrown herself at his feet and implored his forgiveness?
And there, on the opposite side of the valley, lay the home of him who
had been the cause of all her misery. What had been his fate, and did he
still remember those long happy summer days, ah! so long, long ago? She
had dared to ask no questions of the people with whom she lived, but
now a sudden weakness had overtaken her, and she felt that to-day must
decide her fate; she could no longer bear this torture of uncertainty.
Thomas remained standing at her side and looked at her with anxiety
and wonder. He knew that she had concealed many things from him, but
whatever her reasons might be, he was confident that they were just and
weighty. It was not for him to question her about what he might have no
right to know. He felt as if he had never loved her as in this
moment, when she seemed to be most in need of him, and an overwhelming
tenderness took possession of his heart. He suddenly stooped down, took
her pale, thin face between his hands and kissed her. The long pent-up
emotion burst forth in a flood of tears; she buried her face in her lap
and wept long and silently. Then the church-bells began to peal down in
the valley, and the slow mighty sound floated calmly and solemnly up to
them. How many long-forgotten memories of childhood and youth did
they not wake in her bosom--memories of the time when the merry
Glitter-Brita, decked with her shining brooches, wended her way to the
church among the gayly-dressed lads and maidens of the parish?

A cluster of white-stemmed birches threw its shadow over the stone where
the penitent mother was sitting, and the tall grass on both sides of
the path nearly hid her from sight. Presently the church-folk began to
appear, and Brita raised her head and drew her veil down over her face.
No one passed without greeting the strangers, and the women and maidens,
according to old fashion, stopped and courtesied. At last, there came
an old white-haired man, leaning on the arm of a middle-aged woman. His
whole figure was bent forward, and he often stopped and drew his breath
heavily.

“Oh, yes, yes,” he said, ill a hoarse, broken voice, as he passed before
them, “age is gaining on me fast. I can’t move about any more as of old.
But to church I must this day. God help me! I have done much wrong and
need to pray for forgiveness.”

“You had better sit down and rest, father,” said the woman. “Here is a
stone, and the fine lady, I am sure, will allow a weak old man to sit
down beside her.”

Thomas rose and made a sign to the old man to take his seat.

“O yes, yes,” he went on murmuring, as if talking to himself. “Much
wrong--much forgiveness. God help us all--miserable sinners. He who
hateth not father and mother--and daughter is not worthy of me. O,
yes--yes--God comfort us all. Help me up, Grimhild. I think I can move
on again, now.”

Thomas, of course, did not understand a word of what he said, but seeing
that he wished to rise, he willingly offered his assistance, supported
his arm and raised him.

“Thanks to you, young man,” said the peasant. “And may God reward your
kindness.”

And the two, father and daughter, moved on, slowly and laboriously, as
they had come. Thomas stood following them with his eyes, until a low,
half-stifled moan suddenly called him to his mother’s side. Her frame
trembled violently.

“Mother, mother,” implored he, stooping over her, “what has happened?
Why are you no more yourself?”

“Ah, my son, I can bear it no longer,” sobbed she. “God forgive me--thou
must know it all.”

He sat down at her side and drew her closely up to him and she hid her
face on his bosom. There was a long silence, only broken by the loud
chirruping of the crickets.

“My son,” she began at last, still hiding her face, “thou art a child of
guilt.”

“That has been no secret to me, mother,” answered he, gravely and
tenderly, “since I was old enough to know what guilt was.”

She quickly raised her head, and a look of amazement, of joyous
surprise, shone through the tears that veiled her eyes. She could read
nothing but filial love and confidence in those grave, manly features,
and she saw in that moment that all her doubts had been groundless, that
her long prayerful struggle had been for naught.

“I brought thee into the world nameless,” she whispered, “and thou hast
no word of reproach for me?”

“With God’s help, I am strong enough to conquer a name for myself,
mother,” was his answer.

It was the very words of her own secret wish, and upon his lips they
sounded like a blessed assurance, like a miraculous fulfillment of her
motherly prayer.

“Still, another thing, my child,” she went on in a more confident voice.
“This is thy native land,--and the old man who was just sitting here at
my side was--my father.”

And there, in the shadow of the birch-trees, in the summer stillness of
that hour, she told him the story of her love, of her flight, and of the
misery of these long, toilsome five and twenty years.

Late in the afternoon, Brita and her son were seen returning to
the farm-house. A calm, subdued happiness beamed from the mother’s
countenance; she was again at peace with the world and herself, and her
heart was as light as in the days of her early youth. But her bodily
strength had given out, and her limbs almost refused to support her. The
strain upon her nerves and the constant effort had hitherto enabled
her to keep up, but now, when that strain was removed, exhausted nature
claimed its right. The next day--she could not leave her bed, and
with every hour her strength failed. A physician was sent for. He gave
medicine, but no hope. He shook his head gravely, as he went, and both
mother and son knew what that meant.

Toward evening, Bjarne Blakstad was summoned, and came at once. Thomas
left the room, as the old man entered, and what passed in that hour
between father and daughter, only God knows. When the door was again
opened, Brita’s eyes shone with a strange brilliancy, and Bjarne lay on
his knees before the bed, pressing her hand convulsively between both of
his.

“This is my son, father,” said she, in a language which her son did not
understand; and a faint smile of motherly pride and happiness flitted
over her pale features. “I would give him to thee in return for what
thou hast lost; but God has laid his future in another land.”

Bjarne rose, grasped his grandson’s hand, and pressed it; and two heavy
tears ran down his furrowed cheeks. “Alas,” murmured he, “my son, that
we should meet thus.”

There they stood, bound together by the bonds of blood, but, alas, there
lay a world between them.

All night they sat together at the dying woman’s bedside. Not a word
was spoken. Toward morning, as the sun stole into the darkened chamber,
Brita murmured their names, and they laid their hands in hers.

“God be praised,” whispered she, scarcely audibly, “I have found you
both--my father and my son.” A deep pallor spread over her countenance.
She was dead.

Two days later, when the body was laid out, Thomas stood alone in the
room. The windows were covered with white sheets, and a subdued light
fell upon the pale, lifeless countenance. Death had dealt gently with
her, she seemed younger than before, and her light wavy hair fell softly
over the white forehead. Then there came a middle-aged man, with a dull
eye, and a broad forehead, and timidly approached the lonely mourner.
He walked on tip-toe and his figure stooped heavily. For a long while
he stood gazing at the dead body, then he knelt down at the foot of the
coffin, and began to sob violently. At last he arose, took two steps
toward the young man, paused again, and departed silently as he had
come. It was Halvard.

Close under the wall of the little red-painted church, they dug the
grave; and a week later her father was laid to rest at his daughter’s
side.

But the fresh winds blew over the Atlantic and beckoned the son to new
fields of labor in the great land of the future.




A GOOD-FOR-NOTHING.

RALPH GRIM was born a gentleman. He had the misfortune of coming into
the world some ten years later than might reasonably have been expected.
Colonel Grim and his lady had celebrated twelve anniversaries of their
wedding-day, and had given up all hopes of ever having a son and heir,
when this late-comer startled them by his unexpected appearance. The
only previous addition to the family had been a daughter, and she was
then ten summers old.

Ralph was a very feeble child, and could only with great difficulty be
persuaded to retain his hold of the slender thread which bound him to
existence. He was rubbed with whisky, and wrapped in cotton, and given
mare’s milk to drink, and God knows what not, and the Colonel swore a
round oath of paternal delight when at last the infant stopped gasping
in that distressing way and began to breathe like other human beings.
The mother, who, in spite of her anxiety for the child’s life, had found
time to plot for him a career of future magnificence, now suddenly set
him apart for literature, because that was the easiest road to fame, and
disposed of him in marriage to one of the most distinguished families of
the land. She cautiously suggested this to her husband when he came to
take his seat at her bedside; but to her utter astonishment she found
that he had been indulging a similar train of thought, and had already
destined the infant prodigy for the army. She, however, could not give
up her predilection for literature, and the Colonel, who could not bear
to be contradicted in his own house, as he used to say, was getting
every minute louder and more flushed, when, happily, the doctor’s
arrival interrupted the dispute.

As Ralph grew up from infancy to childhood, he began to give decided
promise of future distinction. He was fond of sitting down in a corner
and sucking his thumb, which his mother interpreted as the sign of that
brooding disposition peculiar to poets and men of lofty genius. At the
age of five, he had become sole master in the house. He slapped his
sister Hilda in the face, or pulled her hair, when she hesitated to
obey him, tyrannized over his nurse, and sternly refused to go to bed in
spite of his mother’s entreaties. On such occasions, the Colonel would
hide his face behind his newspaper, and chuckle with delight; it was
evident that nature had intended his son for a great military commander.
As soon as Ralph himself was old enough to have any thoughts about his
future destiny, he made up his mind that he would like to be a pirate.
A few months later, having contracted an immoderate taste for candy, he
contented himself with the comparatively humble position of a baker; but
when he had read “Robinson Crusoe,” he manifested a strong desire to go
to sea in the hope of being wrecked on some desolate island. The parents
spent long evenings gravely discussing these indications of uncommon
genius, and each interpreted them in his or her own way.

“He is not like any other child I ever knew,” said the mother.

“To be sure,” responded the father, earnestly. “He is a most
extraordinary child. I was a very remarkable child too, even if I do say
it myself; but, as far as I remember, I never aspired to being wrecked
on an uninhabited is land.”

The Colonel probably spoke the truth; but he forgot to take into account
that he had never read “Robinson Crusoe.”

Of Ralph’s school-days there is but little to report, for, to tell the
truth, he did not fancy going to school, as the discipline annoyed him.
The day after his having entered the gymnasium, which was to prepare
him for the Military Academy, the principal saw him waiting at the gate
after his class had been dismissed. He approached him, and asked why he
did not go home with the rest.

“I am waiting for the servant to carry my books,” was the boy’s answer.

“Give me your books,” said the teacher.

Ralph reluctantly obeyed. That day the Colonel was not a little
surprised to see his son marching up the street, and every now and then
glancing behind him with a look of discomfort at the principal, who
was following quietly in his train, carrying a parcel of school-books.
Colonel Grim and his wife, divining the teacher’s intention, agreed that
it was a great outrage, but they did not mention the matter to Ralph.
Henceforth, however, the boy refused to be accompanied by his servant. A
week later he was impudent to the teacher of gymnastics, who whipped him
in return. The Colonel’s rage knew no bounds; he rode in great haste to
the gymnasium, reviled the teacher for presuming to chastise HIS son,
and committed the boy to the care of a private tutor.

At the age of sixteen, Ralph went to the capital with the intention of
entering the Military Academy. He was a tall, handsome youth, slender of
stature, and carried himself as erect as a candle. He had a light, clear
complexion of almost feminine delicacy; blonde, curly hair, which he
always kept carefully brushed; a low forehead, and a straight, finely
modeled nose. There was an expression of extreme sensitiveness about
the nostrils, and a look of indolence in the dark-blue eyes. But the
ensemble of his features was pleasing, his dress irreproachable, and his
manners bore no trace of the awkward self-consciousness peculiar to his
age. Immediately on his arrival in the capital he hired a suite of
rooms in the aristocratic part of the city, and furnished them rather
expensively, but in excellent taste. From a bosom friend, whom he met
by accident in the restaurant’s pavilion in the park, he learned that
a pair of antlers, a stuffed eagle, or falcon, and a couple of swords,
were indispensable to a well-appointed apartment. He accordingly bought
these articles at a curiosity-shop. During the first weeks of his
residence in the city he made some feeble efforts to perfect himself in
mathematics, in which he suspected he was somewhat deficient. But when
the same officious friend laughed at him, and called him “green,” he
determined to trust to fortune, and henceforth devoted himself the
more assiduously to the French ballet, where he had already made some
interesting acquaintances.

The time for the examination came; the French ballet did not prove a
good preparation; Ralph failed. It quite shook him for the time, and
he felt humiliated. He had not the courage to tell his father; so he
lingered on from day to day, sat vacantly gazing out of his window, and
tried vainly to interest himself in the busy bustle down on the street.
It provoked him that everybody else should be so light-hearted, when
he was, or at least fancied himself, in trouble. The parlor grew
intolerable; he sought refuge in his bedroom. There he sat one evening
(it was the third day after the examination), and stared out upon the
gray stone walls which on all sides enclosed the narrow court-yard.
The round stupid face of the moon stood tranquilly dozing like a great
Limburger cheese suspended under the sky.

Ralph, at least, could think of a no more fitting simile. But the
bright-eyed young girl in the window hard by sent a longing look up to
the same moon, and thought of her distant home on the fjords, where the
glaciers stood like hoary giants, and caught the yellow moonbeams on
their glittering shields of snow. She had been reading “Ivanhoe” all the
afternoon, until the twilight had overtaken her quite unaware, and
now she suddenly remembered that she had forgotten to write her German
exercise. She lifted her face and saw a pair of sad, vacant eyes, gazing
at her from the next window in the angle of the court. She was a little
startled at first, but in the next moment she thought of her German
exercise and took heart.

“Do you know German?” she said; then immediately repented that she had
said it.

“I do,” was the answer.

She took up her apron and began to twist it with an air of
embarrassment.

“I didn’t mean anything,” she whispered, at last. “I only wanted to
know.”

“You are very kind.”

That answer roused her; he was evidently making sport of her.

“Well, then, if you do, you may write my exercise for me. I have marked
the place in the book.”

And she flung her book over to his window, and he caught it on the edge
of the sill, just as it was falling.

“You are a very strange girl,” he remarked, turning over the leaves of
the book, although it was too dark to read. “How old are you?”

“I shall be fourteen six weeks before Christmas,” answered she, frankly.

“Then I excuse you.”

“No, indeed,” cried she, vehemently. “You needn’t excuse me at all. If
you don’t want to write my exercise, you may send the book back again. I
am very sorry I spoke to you, and I shall never do it again.”

“But you will not get the book back again without the exercise,” replied
he, quietly. “Good-night.”

The girl stood long looking after him, hoping that he would return.
Then, with a great burst of repentance, she hid her face in her lap, and
began to cry.

“Oh, dear, I didn’t mean to be rude,” she sobbed. “But it was Ivanhoe
and Rebecca who upset me.”

The next morning she was up before daylight, and waited for two long
hours in great suspense before the curtain of his window was raised. He
greeted her politely; threw a hasty glance around the court to see if he
was observed, and then tossed her book dexterously over into her hands.

“I have pinned the written exercise to the fly-leaf,” he said. “You will
probably have time to copy it before breakfast.”

“I am ever so much obliged to you,” she managed to stammer.

He looked so tall and handsome, and grown-up, and her remorse stuck in
her throat, and threatened to choke her. She had taken him for a boy as
he sat there in his window the evening before.

“By the way, what is your name?” he asked, carelessly, as he turned to
go.

“Bertha.”

“Well, my dear Bertha, I am happy to have made your acquaintance.”

And he again made her a polite bow, and entered his parlor.

“How provokingly familiar he is,” thought she; “but no one can deny that
he is handsome.”

The bright roguish face of the young girl haunted Ralph during the whole
next week. He had been in love at least ten times before, of course;
but, like most boys, with young ladies far older than himself. He found
himself frequently glancing over to her window in the hope of catching
another glimpse of her face; but the curtain was always drawn down,
and Bertha remained invisible. During the second week, however, she
relented, and they had many a pleasant chat together. He now volunteered
to write all her exercises, and she made no objections. He learned that
she was the daughter of a well-to-do peasant in the sea-districts of
Norway (and it gave him quite a shock to hear it), and that she was
going to school in the city, and boarded with an old lady who kept a
pension in the house adjoining the one in which he lived.

One day in the autumn Ralph was surprised by the sudden arrival of his
father, and the fact of his failure in the examination could no longer
be kept a secret. The old Colonel flared up at once when Ralph made
his confession; the large veins upon his forehead swelled; he grew
coppery-red in his face, and stormed up and down the floor, until his
son became seriously alarmed; but, to his great relief, he was soon made
aware that his father’s wrath was not turned against him personally, but
against the officials of the Military Academy who had rejected him. The
Colonel took it as an insult to his own good name and irreproachable
standing as an officer; he promptly refused any other explanation, and
vainly racked his brain to remember if any youthful folly of his could
possibly have made him enemies among the teachers of the Academy. He
at last felt satisfied that it was envy of his own greatness and rapid
advancement which had induced the rascals to take vengeance on his son.
Ralph reluctantly followed his father back to the country town where
the latter was stationed, and the fair-haired Bertha vanished from his
horizon. His mother’s wish now prevailed, and he began, in his own easy
way, to prepare himself for the University. He had little taste for
Cicero, and still less for Virgil, but with the use of a “pony” he soon
gained sufficient knowledge of these authors to be able to talk in a
sort of patronizing way about them, to the great delight of his fond
parents. He took quite a fancy, however, to the ode in Horace ending
with the lines:

 Dulce ridentem,
 Dulce loquentem,
 Lalagen amabo.

And in his thought he substituted for Lalage the fair-haired Bertha,
quite regardless of the requirements of the metre.

To make a long story short, three years later Ralph returned to the
capital, and, after having worn out several tutors, actually succeeded
in entering the University.

The first year of college life is a happy time to every young man, and
Ralph enjoyed its processions, its parliamentary gatherings, and
its leisure, as well as the rest. He was certainly not the man to be
sentimental over the loss of a young girl whom, moreover, he had only
known for a few weeks. Nevertheless, he thought of her at odd times, but
not enough to disturb his pleasure. The standing of his family, his own
handsome appearance, and his immaculate linen opened to him the best
houses of the city, and he became a great favorite in society. At
lectures he was seldom seen, but more frequently in the theatres, where
he used to come in during the middle of the first act, take his station
in front of the orchestra box, and eye, through his lorgnettes, by
turns, the actresses and the ladies of the parquet.




II.


Two months passed, and then came the great annual ball which the
students give at the opening of the second semester. Ralph was a man of
importance that evening; first, because he belonged to a great family;
secondly, because he was the handsomest man of his year. He wore a large
golden star on his breast (for his fellow-students had made him a Knight
of the Golden Boar), and a badge of colored ribbons in his button-hole.

The ball was a brilliant affair, and everybody was in excellent spirits,
especially the ladies. Ralph danced incessantly, twirled his soft
mustache, and uttered amiable platitudes. It was toward midnight, just
as the company was moving out to supper, that he caught the glance of a
pair of dark-blue eyes, which suddenly drove the blood to his cheeks
and hastened the beating of his heart. But when he looked once more the
dark-blue eyes were gone, and his unruly heart went on hammering against
his side. He laid his hand on his breast and glanced furtively at his
fair neighbor, but she looked happy and unconcerned, for the flavor of
the ice-cream was delicious. It seemed an endless meal, but, when it
was done, Ralph rose, led his partner back to the ball-room, and hastily
excused himself. His glance wandered round the wide hall, seeking the
well-remembered eyes once more, and, at length, finding them in a remote
corner, half hid behind a moving wall of promenaders. In another moment
he was at Bertha’s side.

“You must have been purposely hiding yourself, Miss Bertha,” said he,
when the usual greetings were exchanged. “I have not caught a glimpse of
you all this evening, until a few moments ago.”

“But I have seen you all the while,” answered the girl, frankly. “I knew
you at once as I entered the hall.”

“If I had but known that you were here,” resumed Ralph, as it were,
invisibly expanding with an agreeable sense of dignity, “I assure you,
you would have been the very first one I should have sought.”

She raised her large grave eyes to his, as if questioning his sincerity;
but she made no answer.

“Good gracious!” thought Ralph. “She takes things terribly in earnest.”

“You look so serious, Miss Bertha,” said he, after a moment’s pause. “I
remember you as a bright-eyed, flaxen-haired little girl, who threw her
German exercise-book to me across the yard, and whose merry laughter
still rings pleasantly in my memory. I confess I don’t find it quite
easy to identify this grave young lady with my merry friend of three
years ago.”

“In other words, you are disappointed at not finding me the same as I
used to be.”

“No, not exactly that; but--”

Ralph paused and looked puzzled. There was something in the earnestness
of her manner which made a facetious compliment seem grossly
inappropriate, and in the moment no other escape suggested itself.

“But what?” demanded Bertha, mercilessly.

“Have you ever lost an old friend?” asked he, abruptly.

“Yes; how so?”

“Then,” answered he, while his features lighted up with a happy
inspiration--“then you will appreciate my situation. I fondly cherished
my old picture of you in my memory. Now I have lost it, and I cannot
help regretting the loss. I do not mean, however, to imply that this new
acquaintance--this second edition of yourself, so to speak--will prove
less interesting.”

She again sent him a grave, questioning look, and began to gaze intently
upon the stone in her bracelet.

“I suppose you will laugh at me,” began she, while a sudden blush
flitted over her countenance. “But this is my first ball, and I feel
as if I had rushed into a whirlpool, from which I have, since the first
rash plunge was made, been vainly trying to escape. I feel so dreadfully
forlorn. I hardly know anybody here except my cousin, who invited me,
and I hardly think I know him either.”

“Well, since you are irredeemably committed,” replied Ralph, as the
music, after some prefatory flourishes, broke into the delicious rhythm
of a Strauss waltz, “then it is no use struggling against fate. Come,
let us make the plunge together. Misery loves company.”

He offered her his arm, and she arose, somewhat hesitatingly, and
followed.

“I am afraid,” she whispered, as they fell into line with the procession
that was moving down the long hall, “that you have asked me to dance
merely because I said I felt forlorn. If that is the case, I should
prefer to be led back to my seat.”

“What a base imputation!” cried Ralph.

There was something so charmingly naïve in this self-depreciation--
something so altogether novel in his experience, and, he could not help
adding, just a little bit countrified. His spirits rose; he began to
relish keenly his position as an experienced man of the world, and, in
the agreeable glow of patronage and conscious superiority, chatted with
hearty ABANDON with his little rustic beauty.

“If your dancing is as perfect as your German exercises were,” said she,
laughing, as they swung out upon the floor, “then I promise myself a
good deal of pleasure from our meeting.”

“Never fear,” answered he, quickly reversing his step, and whirling with
many a capricious turn away among the thronging couples.

When Ralph drove home in his carriage toward morning he briefly summed
up his impressions of Bertha in the following adjectives: intelligent,
delightfully unsophisticated, a little bit verdant, but devilish pretty.

Some weeks later Colonel Grim received an appointment at the fortress of
Aggershuus, and immediately took up his residence in the capital. He saw
that his son cut a fine figure in the highest circles of society, and
expressed his gratification in the most emphatic terms. If he had
known, however, that Ralph was in the habit of visiting, with alarming
regularity, at the house of a plebeian merchant in a somewhat obscure
street, he would, no doubt, have been more chary of his praise. But the
Colonel suspected nothing, and it was well for the peace of the family
that he did not. It may have been cowardice in Ralph that he
never mentioned Bertha’s name to his family or to his aristocratic
acquaintances; for, to be candid, he himself felt ashamed of the power
she exerted over him, and by turns pitied and ridiculed himself for
pursuing so inglorious a conquest. Nevertheless it wounded his egotism
that she never showed any surprise at seeing him, that she received
him with a certain frank unceremoniousness, which, however, was very
becoming to her; that she invariably went on with her work heedless
of his presence, and in everything treated him as if she had been his
equal. She persisted in talking with him in a half sisterly fashion
about his studies and his future career, warned him with great
solicitude against some of his reprobate friends, of whose merry
adventures he had told her; and if he ventured to compliment her on
her beauty or her accomplishments, she would look up gravely from
her sewing, or answer him in a way which seemed to banish the idea of
love-making into the land of the impossible. He was constantly tormented
by the suspicion that she secretly disapproved of him, and that from a
mere moral interest in his welfare she was conscientiously laboring
to make him a better man. Day after day he parted from her feeling
humiliated, faint-hearted, and secretly indignant both at himself and
her, and day after day he returned only to renew the same experience.
At last it became too intolerable, he could endure it no longer. Let it
make or break, certainty, at all risks, was at least preferable to this
sickening suspense. That he loved her, he could no longer doubt; let his
parents foam and fret as much as they pleased; for once he was going to
stand on his own legs. And in the end, he thought, they would have to
yield, for they had no son but him.

Bertha was going to return to her home on the sea-coast in a week.
Ralph stood in the little low-ceiled parlor, as she imagined, to bid her
good-bye. They had been speaking of her father, her brothers, and the
farm, and she had expressed the wish that if he ever should come to that
part of the country he might pay them a visit. Her words had kindled
a vague hope in his breast, but in their very frankness and friendly
regard there was something which slew the hope they had begotten. He
held her hand in his, and her large confiding eyes shone with an emotion
which was beautiful, but was yet not love.

“If you were but a peasant born like myself,” said she, in a voice which
sounded almost tender, “then I should like to talk to you as I would to
my own brother; but--”

“No, not brother, Bertha,” cried he, with sudden vehemence; “I love you
better than I ever loved any earthly being, and if you knew how firmly
this love has clutched at the roots of my heart, you would perhaps--you
would at least not look so reproachfully at me.”

She dropped his hand, and stood for a moment silent.

“I am sorry that it should have come to this, Mr. Grim,” said she,
visibly struggling for calmness. “And I am perhaps more to blame than
you.”

“Blame,” muttered he, “why are you to blame?”

“Because I do not love you; although I sometimes feared that this might
come. But then again I persuaded myself that it could not be so.”

He took a step toward the door, laid his hand on the knob, and gazed
down before him.

“Bertha,” began he, slowly, raising his head, “you have always
disapproved of me, you have despised me in your heart, but you thought
you would be doing a good work if you succeeded in making a man of me.”

“You use strong language,” answered she, hesitatingly; “but there is
truth in what you say.”

Again there was a long pause, in which the ticking of the old parlor
clock grew louder and louder.

“Then,” he broke out at last, “tell me before we part if I can do
nothing to gain--I will not say your love--but only your regard? What
would you do if you were in my place?”

“My advice you will hardly heed, and I do not even know that it would
be well if you did. But if I were a man in your position, I should break
with my whole past, start out into the world where nobody knew me, and
where I should be dependent only upon my own strength, and there I would
conquer a place for myself, if it were only for the satisfaction of
knowing that I was really a man. Here cushions are sewed under your
arms, a hundred invisible threads bind you to a life of idleness and
vanity, everybody is ready to carry you on his hands, the road is
smoothed for you, every stone carefully moved out of your path, and you
will probably go to your grave without having ever harbored one earnest
thought, without having done one manly deed.”

Ralph stood transfixed, gazing at her with open mouth; he felt a kind of
stupid fright, as if some one had suddenly seized him by the shoulders
and shaken him violently. He tried vainly to remove his eyes from
Bertha. She held him as by a powerful spell. He saw that her face was
lighted with an altogether new beauty; he noticed the deep glow upon her
cheek, the brilliancy of her eye, the slight quiver of her lip. But he
saw all this as one sees things in a half-trance, without attempting to
account for them; the door between his soul and his senses was closed.

“I know that I have been bold in speaking to you in this way,” she said
at last, seating herself in a chair at the window. “But it was yourself
who asked me. And I have felt all the time that I should have to tell
you this before we parted.”

“And,” answered he, making a strong effort to appear calm, “if I follow
your advice, will you allow me to see you once more before you go?”

“I shall remain here another week, and shall, during that time, always
be ready to receive you.”

“Thank you. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye.”

Ralph carefully avoided all the fashionable thoroughfares; he felt
degraded before himself, and he had an idea that every man could read
his humiliation in his countenance. Now he walked on quickly, striking
the sidewalk with his heels; now, again, he fell into an uneasy,
reckless saunter, according as the changing moods inspired defiance
of his sentence, or a qualified surrender. And, as he walked on, the
bitterness grew within him, and he pitilessly reviled himself for having
allowed himself to be made a fool of by “that little country goose,”
 when he was well aware that there were hundreds of women of the best
families of the land who would feel honored at receiving his attentions.
But this sort of reasoning he knew to be both weak and contemptible, and
his better self soon rose in loud rebellion.

“After all,” he muttered, “in the main thing she was right. I am a
miserable good-for-nothing, a hot-house plant, a poor stick, and if I
were a woman myself, I don’t think I should waste my affections on a man
of that calibre.”

Then he unconsciously fell to analyzing Bertha’s character, wondering
vaguely that a person who moved so timidly in social life, appearing
so diffident, from an ever-present fear of blundering against the
established forms of etiquette, could judge so quickly, and with such a
merciless certainty, whenever a moral question, a question of right
and wrong, was at issue. And, pursuing the same train of thought, he
contrasted her with himself, who moved in the highest spheres of society
as in his native element, heedless of moral scruples, and conscious of
no loftier motive for his actions than the immediate pleasure of the
moment.

As Ralph turned the corner of a street, he heard himself hailed from the
other sidewalk by a chorus of merry voices.

“Ah, my dear Baroness,” cried a young man, springing across the street
and grasping Ralph’s hand (all his student friends called him the
Baroness), “in the name of this illustrious company, allow me to salute
you. But why the deuce--what is the matter with you? If you have the
Katzenjammer, [7] soda-water is the thing. Come along,--it’s my treat!”

The students instantly thronged around Ralph, who stood distractedly
swinging his cane and smiling idiotically.

“I am not quite well,” said he; “leave me alone.”

“No, to be sure, you don’t look well,” cried a jolly youth, against
whom Bertha had frequently warned him; “but a glass of sherry will soon
restore you. It would be highly immoral to leave you in this condition
without taking care of you.”

Ralph again vainly tried to remonstrate; but the end was, that he
reluctantly followed.

He had always been a conspicuous figure in the student world; but that
night he astonished his friends by his eloquence, his reckless humor,
and his capacity for drinking. He made a speech for “Woman,” which
bristled with wit, cynicism, and sarcastic epigrams. One young man,
named Vinter, who was engaged, undertook to protest against his sweeping
condemnation, and declared that Ralph, who was a Universal favorite
among the ladies, ought to be the last to revile them.

“If,” he went on, “the Baroness should propose to six well-known
ladies here in this city whom I could mention, I would wager six
Johannisbergers, and an equal amount of champagne, that every one of
them would accept him.”

The others loudly applauded this proposal, and Ralph accepted the wager.
The letters were written on the spot, and immediately dispatched. Toward
morning, the merry carousal broke up, and Ralph was conducted in triumph
to his home.




III.


Two days later, Ralph again knocked on Bertha’s door. He looked paler
than usual, almost haggard; his immaculate linen was a little crumpled,
and he carried no cane; his lips were tightly compressed, and his face
wore an air of desperate resolution.

“It is done,” he said, as he seated himself opposite her. “I am going.”

“Going!” cried she, startled at his unusual appearance. “How, where?”

“To America. I sail to-night. I have followed your advice, you see. I
have cut off the last bridge behind me.”

“But, Ralph,” she exclaimed, in a voice of alarm. “Something dreadful
must have happened. Tell me quick; I must know it.”

“No; nothing dreadful,” muttered he, smiling bitterly. “I have made
a little scandal, that is all. My father told me to-day to go to the
devil, if I chose, and my mother gave me five hundred dollars to help me
along on the way. If you wish to know, here is the explanation.”

And he pulled from his pocket six perfumed and carefully folded notes,
and threw them into her lap.

“Do you wish me to read them?” she asked, with growing surprise.

“Certainly. Why not?”

She hastily opened one note after the other, and read.

“But, Ralph,” she cried, springing up from her seat, while her eyes
flamed with indignation, “what does this mean? What have you done?”

“I didn’t think it needed any explanation,” replied he, with feigned
indifference. “I proposed to them all, and, you see, they all accepted
me. I received all these letters to-day. I only wished to know whether
the whole world regarded me as such a worthless scamp as you told me I
was.”

She did not answer, but sat mutely staring at him, fiercely crumpling a
rose-colored note in her hand. He began to feel uncomfortable under her
gaze, and threw himself about uneasily in his chair.

“Well,” said he, at length, rising, “I suppose there is nothing more.
Good-bye.”

“One moment, Mr. Grim,” demanded she, sternly. “Since I have already
said so much, and you have obligingly revealed to me a new side of your
character, I claim the right to correct the opinion I expressed of you
at our last meeting.”

“I am all attention.”

“I did think, Mr. Grim,” began she, breathing hard, and steadying
herself against the table at which she stood, “that you were a very
selfish man--an embodiment of selfishness, absolute and supreme, but I
did not believe that you were wicked.”

“And what convinced you that I was selfish, if I may ask?”

“What convinced me?” repeated she, in a tone of inexpressible contempt.
“When did you ever act from any generous regard for others? What good
did you ever do to anybody?”

“You might ask, with equal justice, what good I ever did to myself.”

“In a certain sense, yes; because to gratify a mere momentary wish is
hardly doing one’s self good.”

“Then I have, at all events, followed the Biblical precept, and treated
my neighbor very much as I treat myself.”

“I did think,” continued Bertha, without heeding the remark, “that you
were at bottom kind-hearted, but too hopelessly well-bred ever to commit
an act of any decided complexion, either good or bad. Now I see that
I have misjudged you, and that you are capable of outraging the most
sacred feelings of a woman’s heart in mere wantonness, or for the sake
of satisfying a base curiosity, which never could have entered the mind
of an upright and generous man.”

The hard, benumbed look in Ralph’s face thawed in the warmth of her
presence, and her words, though stern, touched a secret spring in his
heart. He made two or three vain attempts to speak, then suddenly broke
down, and cried:

“Bertha, Bertha, even if you scorn me, have patience with me, and
listen.”

And he told her, in rapid, broken sentences, how his love for her had
grown from day to day, until he could no longer master it; and how, in
an unguarded moment, when his pride rose in fierce conflict against
his love, he had done this reckless deed of which he was now heartily
ashamed. The fervor of his words touched her, for she felt that they
were sincere. Large mute tears trembled in her eyelashes as she sat
gazing tenderly at him, and in the depth of her soul the wish awoke that
she might have been able to return this great and strong love of his;
for she felt that in this love lay the germ of a new, of a stronger and
better man. She noticed, with a half-regretful pleasure, his handsome
figure, his delicately shaped hands, and the noble cast of his features;
an overwhelming pity for him rose within her, and she began to reproach
herself for having spoken so harshly, and, as she now thought, so
unjustly. Perhaps he read in her eyes the unspoken wish. He seized her
hand, and his words fell with a warm and alluring cadence upon her ear.

“I shall not see you for a long time to come, Bertha,” said he, “but if,
at the end of five or six years your hand is still free, and I
return another man--a man to whom you could safely intrust your
happiness--would you then listen to what I may have to say to you? For I
promise, by all that we both hold sacred--”

“No, no,” interrupted she, hastily. “Promise nothing. It would be unjust
to--yourself, and perhaps also to me; for a sacred promise is a terrible
thing, Ralph. Let us both remain free; and, if you return and still love
me, then come, and I shall receive you and listen to you. And even if
you have outgrown your love, which is, indeed, more probable, come still
to visit me wherever I may be, and we shall meet as friends and rejoice
in the meeting.”

“You know best,” he murmured. “Let it be as you have said.”

He arose, took her face between his hands, gazed long and tenderly into
her eyes, pressed a kiss upon her forehead, and hastened away.

That night Ralph boarded the steamer for Hull, and three weeks later
landed in New York.




IV.


The first three months of Ralph’s sojourn in America were spent in vain
attempts to obtain a situation. Day after day he walked down Broadway,
calling at various places of business and night after night he returned
to his cheerless room with a faint heart and declining spirits. It was,
after all, a more serious thing than he had imagined, to cut the cable
which binds one to the land of one’s birth. There a hundred subtile
influences, the existence of which no one suspects until the moment they
are withdrawn, unite to keep one in the straight path of rectitude, or
at least of external respectability; and Ralph’s life had been all in
society; the opinion of his fellow-men had been the one force to which
he implicitly deferred, and the conscience by which he had been wont
to test his actions had been nothing but the aggregate judgment of his
friends. To such a man the isolation and the utter irresponsibility of a
life among strangers was tenfold more dangerous; and Ralph found, to his
horror, that his character contained innumerable latent possibilities
which the easygoing life in his home probably never would have revealed
to him. It often cut him to the quick, when, on entering an office in
his daily search for employment, he was met by hostile or suspicious
glances, or when, as it occasionally happened, the door was slammed in
his face, as if he were a vagabond or an impostor. Then the wolf was
often roused within him, and he felt a momentary wild desire to become
what the people here evidently believed him to be. Many a night he
sauntered irresolutely about the gambling places in obscure streets,
and the glare of light, the rude shouts and clamors in the same moment
repelled and attracted him. If he went to the devil, who would care? His
father had himself pointed out the way to him; and nobody could blame
him if he followed the advice. But then again a memory emerged from that
chamber of his soul which still he held sacred; and Bertha’s deep-blue
eyes gazed upon him with their earnest look of tender warning and
regret.

When the summer was half gone, Ralph had gained many a hard victory over
himself, and learned many a useful lesson; and at length he swallowed
his pride, divested himself of his fine clothes, and accepted a
position as assistant gardener at a villa on the Hudson. And as he stood
perspiring with a spade in his hand, and a cheap broad-brimmed straw hat
on his head, he often took a grim pleasure in picturing to himself
how his aristocratic friends at home would receive him, if he should
introduce himself to them in this new costume.

“After all, it was only my position they cared for,” he reflected,
bitterly; “without my father’s name what would I be to them?”

Then, again, there was a certain satisfaction in knowing that, for
his present situation, humble as it was, he was indebted to nobody but
himself; and the thought that Bertha’s eyes, if they could have seen him
now would have dwelt upon him with pleasure and approbation, went far to
console him for his aching back, his sunburned face, and his swollen and
blistered hands.

One day, as Ralph was raking the gravel-walks in the garden, his
employer’s daughter, a young lady of seventeen, came out and spoke to
him. His culture and refinement of manner struck her with wonder, and
she asked him to tell her his history; but then he suddenly grew very
grave, and she forbore pressing him. From that time she attached a kind
of romantic interest to him, and finally induced her father to obtain
him a situation that would be more to his taste. And, before winter
came, Ralph saw the dawn of a new future glimmering before him. He had
wrestled bravely with fate, and had once more gained a victory. He began
the career in which success and distinction awaited him, as proof-reader
on a newspaper in the city. He had fortunately been familiar with the
English language before he left home, and by the strength of his will he
conquered all difficulties. At the end of two years he became attached
to the editorial staff; new ambitious hopes, hitherto foreign to his
mind, awoke within him; and with joyous tumult of heart he saw life
opening its wide vistas before him, and he labored on manfully to repair
the losses of the past, and to prepare himself for greater usefulness in
times to come. He felt in himself a stronger and fuller manhood, as if
the great arteries of the vast universal world-life pulsed in his own
being. The drowsy, indolent existence at home appeared like a dull
remote dream from which he had awaked, and he blessed the destiny which,
by its very sternness, had mercifully saved him; he blessed her, too,
who, from the very want of love for him, had, perhaps, made him worthier
of love.

The years flew rapidly. Society had flung its doors open to him, and
what was more, he had found some warm friends, in whose houses he
could come and go at pleasure. He enjoyed keenly the privilege of daily
association with high-minded and refined women; their eager activity
of intellect stimulated him, their exquisite ethereal grace and their
delicately chiseled beauty satisfied his aesthetic cravings, and the
responsive vivacity of their nature prepared him ever new surprises.
He felt a strange fascination in the presence of these women, and the
conviction grew upon him that their type of womanhood was superior to
any he had hitherto known. And by way of refuting his own argument, he
would draw from his pocket-book the photograph of Bertha, which had
a secret compartment there all to itself, and, gazing tenderly at it,
would eagerly defend her against the disparaging reflections which the
involuntary comparison had provoked. And still, how could he help seeing
that her features, though well molded, lacked animation; that her eye,
with its deep, trustful glance, was not brilliant, and that the calm
earnestness of her face, when compared with the bright, intellectual
beauty of his present friends, appeared pale and simple, like a violet
in a bouquet of vividly colored roses? It gave him a quick pang, when,
at times, he was forced to admit this; nevertheless, it was the truth.

After six years of residence in America, Ralph had gained a very high
reputation as a journalist of rare culture and ability, and, in 1867
he was sent to the World’s Exhibition in Paris, as correspondent of the
paper on which he had during all these years been employed. What wonder,
then, that he started for Europe a few weeks before his presence was
needed in the imperial city, and that he steered his course directly
toward the fjord valley where Bertha had her home? It was she who had
bidden him Godspeed when he fled from the land of his birth, and she,
too, should receive his first greeting on his return.




V.


The sun had fortified itself behind a citadel of flaming clouds, and the
upper forest region shone with a strange ethereal glow, while the
lower plains were wrapped in shadow; but the shadow itself had a
strong suffusion of color. The mountain peaks rose cold and blue in the
distance.

Ralph, having inquired his way of the boatman who had landed him at the
pier, walked rapidly along the beach, with a small valise in his hand,
and a light summer overcoat flung over his shoulder. Many half-thoughts
grazed his mind, and ere the first had taken shape, the second, and the
third came and chased it away. And still they all in some fashion had
reference to Bertha; for in a misty, abstract way, she filled his whole
mind; but for some indefinable reason, he was afraid to give free rein
to the sentiment which lurked in the remoter corners of his soul.

Onward he hastened, while his heart throbbed with the quickening tempo
of mingled expectation and fear. Now and then one of those chill gusts
of air which seem to be careering about aimlessly in the atmosphere
during early summer, would strike into his face, and recall him to a
keener self-consciousness.

Ralph concluded, from his increasing agitation, that he must be very
near Bertha’s home. He stopped and looked around him. He saw a large
maple at the roadside, some thirty steps from where he was standing,
and the girl who was sitting under it, resting her head in her hand and
gazing out over the sea, he recognized in an instant to be Bertha. He
sprang up on the road, not crossing, however, her line of vision, and
approached her noiselessly from behind.

“Bertha,” he whispered.

She gave a little joyous cry, sprang up, and made a gesture as if
to throw herself in his arms; then suddenly checked herself, blushed
crimson, and moved a step backward.

“You came so suddenly,” she murmured.

“But, Bertha,” cried he (and the full bass of his voice rang through her
very soul), “have I gone into exile and waited these many years for so
cold a welcome?”

“You have changed so much, Ralph,” she answered, with that old grave
smile which he knew so well, and stretched out both her hands toward
him. “And I have thought of you so much since you went away, and blamed
myself because I had judged you so harshly, and wondered that you could
listen to me so patiently, and never bear me any malice for what I
said.”

“If you had said a word less,” declared Ralph, seating himself at
her side on the greensward, “or if you had varnished it over with
politeness, then you would probably have failed to produce any effect
and I should not have been burdened with that heavy debt of gratitude
which I now owe you. I was a pretty thick-skinned animal in those days,
Bertha. You said the right word at the right moment; you gave me a hold
and a good piece of advice, which my own ingenuity would never have
suggested to me. I will not thank you, because, in so grave a case as
this, spoken thanks sound like a mere mockery. Whatever I am, Bertha,
and whatever I may hope to be, I owe it all to that hour.”

She listened with rapture to the manly assurance of his voice; her eyes
dwelt with unspeakable joy upon his strong, bronzed features, his full
thick blonde beard, and the vigorous proportions of his frame. Many and
many a time during his absence had she wondered how he would look if
he ever came back, and with that minute conscientiousness which, as it
were, pervaded her whole character, she had held herself responsible
before God for his fate, prayed for him, and trembled lest evil powers
should gain the ascendency over his soul.

On their way to the house they talked together of many things, but in
a guarded, cautious fashion, and without the cheerful abandonment of
former years. They both, as it were, groped their way carefully in each
other’s minds, and each vaguely felt that there was something in the
other’s thought which it was not well to touch unbidden. Bertha saw
that all her fears for him had been groundless, and his very appearance
lifted the whole weight of responsibility from her breast; and still,
did she rejoice at her deliverance from her burden? Ah, no, in this
moment she knew that that which she had foolishly cherished as the best
and noblest part of herself, had been but a selfish need of her own
heart. She feared that she had only taken that interest in him which one
feels in a thing of one’s own making; and now, when she saw that he had
risen quite above her; that he was free and strong, and could have no
more need of her, she had, instead of generous pleasure at his success,
but a painful sense of emptiness, as if something very dear had been
taken from her.

Ralph, too, was loath to analyze the impression his old love made upon
him. His feelings were of so complex a nature, he was anxious to keep
his more magnanimous impulses active, and he strove hard to convince
himself that she was still the same to him as she had been before they
had ever parted. But, alas! though the heart be warm and generous, the
eye is a merciless critic. And the man who had moved on the wide arena
of the world, whose mind had housed the large thoughts of this century,
and expanded with its invigorating breath,--was he to blame because he
had unconsciously outgrown his old provincial self, and could no more
judge by its standards?

Bertha’s father was a peasant, but he had, by his lumber trade, acquired
what in Norway was called a very handsome fortune. He received his guest
with dignified reserve, and Ralph thought he detected in his eyes a
lurking look of distrust. “I know your errand,” that look seemed to say,
“but you had better give it up at once. It will be of no use for you to
try.”

And after supper, as Ralph and Bertha sat talking confidingly with each
other at the window, he sent his daughter a quick, sharp glance, and
then, without ceremony, commanded her to go to bed. Ralph’s heart gave
a great thump within him; not because he feared the old man, but because
his words, as well as his glances, revealed to him the sad history of
these long, patient years. He doubted no longer that the love which he
had once so ardently desired was his at last; and he made a silent vow
that, come what might, he would remain faithful.

As he came down to breakfast the next morning, he found Bertha sitting
at the window, engaged in hemming what appeared to be a rough kitchen
towel. She bent eagerly over her work, and only a vivid flush upon her
cheek told him that she had noticed his coming. He took a chair, seated
himself opposite her, and bade her “good-morning.” She raised her head,
and showed him a sweet, troubled countenance, which the early sunlight
illumined with a high spiritual beauty. It reminded him forcibly of
those pale, sweet-faced saints of Fra Angelico, with whom the frail
flesh seems ever on the point of yielding to the ardent aspirations of
the spirit. And still, even in this moment he could not prevent his eyes
from observing that one side of her forefinger was rough from sewing,
and that the whiteness of her arm, which the loose sleeves displayed,
contrasted strongly with the browned and sun-burned complexion of her
hands.

After breakfast they again walked together on the beach, and Ralph,
having once formed his resolution, now talked freely of the New
World--of his sphere of activity there; of his friends and of his plans
for the future; and she listened to him with a mild, perplexed look in
her eyes, as if trying vainly to follow the flight of his thoughts. And
he wondered, with secret dismay, whether she was still the same strong,
brave-hearted girl whom he had once accounted almost bold; whether the
life in this narrow valley, amid a hundred petty and depressing cares,
had not cramped her spiritual growth, and narrowed the sphere of her
thought. Or was she still the same, and was it only he who had changed?
At last he gave utterance to his wonder, and she answered him in those
grave, earnest tones which seemed in themselves to be half a refutation
of his doubts.

“It was easy for me to give you daring advice, then, Ralph,” she said.
“Like most school-girls, I thought that life was a great and glorious
thing, and that happiness was a fruit which hung within reach of every
hand. Now I have lived for six years trying single-handed to relieve the
want and suffering of the needy people with whom I come in contact,
and their squalor and wretchedness have sickened me, and, what is still
worse, I feel that all I can do is as a drop in the ocean, and after
all, amounts to nothing. I know I am no longer the same reckless girl,
who, with the very best intention, sent you wandering through the wide
world; and I thank God that it proved to be for your good, although the
whole now appears quite incredible to me. My thoughts have moved so long
within the narrow circle of these mountains that they have lost their
youthful elasticity, and can no more rise above them.”

Ralph detected, in the midst of her despondency, a spark of her former
fire, and grew eloquent in his endeavors to persuade her that she was
unjust to herself, and that there was but a wider sphere of life needed
to develop all the latent powers of her rich nature.

At the dinner-table, her father again sat eyeing his guest with that
same cold look of distrust and suspicion. And when the meal was at
an end, he rose abruptly and called his daughter into another room.
Presently Ralph heard his angry voice resounding through the house,
interrupted now and then by a woman’s sobs, and a subdued, passionate
pleading. When Bertha again entered the room, her eyes were very
red, and he saw that she had been weeping. She threw a shawl over her
shoulders, beckoned to him with her hand, and he arose and followed her.
She led the way silently until they reached a thick copse of birch and
alder near the strand. She dropped down upon a bench between two trees,
and he took his seat at her side.

“Ralph,” began she, with a visible effort, “I hardly know what to say to
you; but there is something which I must tell you--my father wishes you
to leave us at once.”

“And YOU, Bertha?”

“Well--yes--I wish it too.”

She saw the painful shock which her words gave him, and she strove hard
to speak. Her lips trembled, her eyes became suffused with tears, which
grew and grew, but never fell; she could not utter a word.

“Well, Bertha,” answered he, with a little quiver in his voice, “if you,
too, wish me to go, I shall not tarry. Good-bye.”

He rose quickly, and, with averted face, held out his hand to her; but
as she made no motion to grasp the hand, he began distractedly to button
his coat, and moved slowly away.

“Ralph.”

He turned sharply, and, before he knew it, she lay sobbing upon his
breast.

“Ralph,” she murmured, while the tears almost choked her words, “I could
not have you leave me thus. It is hard enough--it is hard enough--”

“What is hard, beloved?”

She raised her head abruptly, and turned upon him a gaze full of hope
and doubt, and sweet perplexity.

“Ah, no, you do not love me,” she whispered, sadly.

“Why should I come to seek you, after these many years, dearest, if I
did not wish to make you my wife before God and men? Why should I--”

“Ah, yes, I know,” she interrupted him with a fresh fit of weeping, “you
are too good and honest to wish to throw me away, now when you have seen
how my soul has hungered for the sight of you these many years, how even
now I cling to you with a despairing clutch. But you cannot disguise
yourself, Ralph, and I saw from the first moment that you loved me no
more.”

“Do not be such an unreasonable child,” he remonstrated, feebly. “I do
not love you with the wild, irrational passion of former years; but I
have the tenderest regard for you, and my heart warms at the sight of
your sweet face, and I shall do all in my power to make you as happy as
any man can make you who--”

“Who does not love me,” she finished.

A sudden shudder seemed to shake her whole frame, and she drew herself
more tightly up to him.

“Ah, no,” she continued, after a while, sinking back upon her seat.
“It is a hopeless thing to compel a reluctant heart. I will accept no
sacrifice from you. You owe me nothing, for you have acted toward me
honestly and uprightly, and I shall be a stronger, or--at least--a
better woman for what you gave me--and--for what you could not give me,
even though you would.”

“But, Bertha,” exclaimed he, looking mournfully at her, “it is not true
when you say that I owe you nothing. Six years ago, when first I wooed
you, you could not return my love, and you sent me out into the world,
and even refused to accept any pledge or promise for the future.”

“And you returned,” she responded, “a man, such as my hope had pictured
you; but, while I had almost been standing still, you had outgrown me,
and outgrown your old self, and, with your old self, outgrown its love
for me, for your love was not of your new self, but of the old. Alas! it
is a sad tale, but it is true.”

She spoke gravely now, and with a steadier voice, but her eyes hung upon
his face with an eager look of expectation, as if yearning to detect
there some gleam of hope, some contradiction of the dismal truth. He
read that look aright, and it pierced him like a sharp sword. He made a
brave effort to respond to its appeal, but his features seemed hard as
stone, and he could only cry out against his destiny, and bewail his
misfortune and hers.

Toward evening, Ralph was sitting in an open boat, listening to the
measured oar-strokes of the boatmen who were rowing him out to the
nearest stopping-place of the steamer. The mountains lifted their great
placid heads up among the sun-bathed clouds, and the fjord opened its
cool depths as if to make room for their vast reflections. Ralph felt as
if he were floating in the midst of the blue infinite space, and, with
the strength which this feeling inspired, he tried to face boldly the
thought from which he had but a moment ago shrunk as from something
hopelessly sad and perplexing.

And in that hour he looked fearlessly into the gulf which separates the
New World from the Old. He had hoped to bridge it; but, alas! it cannot
be bridged.




A SCIENTIFIC VAGABOND.




I.

THE steamer which as far back as 1860 passed every week on its northward
way up along the coast of Norway, was of a very sociable turn of mind.
It ran with much shrieking and needless bluster in and out the calm,
winding fjords, paid unceremonious little visits in every out-of-the-way
nook and bay, dropped now and then a black heap of coal into the
shining water, and sent thick volleys of smoke and shrill little echoes
careering aimlessly among the mountains. It seemed, on the whole, from
an aesthetic point of view, an objectionable phenomenon--a blot upon the
perfect summer day. By the inhabitants, however, of these remote regions
(with the exception of a few obstinate individuals, who had at first
looked upon it as the sure herald of dooms-day, and still were vaguely
wondering what the world was coming to,) it was regarded in a very
different light. This choleric little monster was to them a friendly
and welcome visitor, which established their connection with the outside
world, and gave them a proud consciousness of living in the very heart
of civilization. Therefore, on steamboat days they flocked en masse
down on the piers, and, with an ever-fresh sense of novelty, greeted the
approaching boat with lively cheers, with firing of muskets and waving
of handkerchiefs. The men of condition, as the judge, the sheriff, and
the parson, whose dignity forbade them to receive the steamer in person,
contented themselves with watching it through an opera-glass from their
balconies; and if a high official was known to be on board, they perhaps
displayed the national banner from their flag-poles, as a delicate
compliment to their superior.

But the Rev. Mr. Oddson, the parson of whom I have to speak, had this
day yielded to the gentle urgings of his daughters (as, indeed, he
always did), and had with them boarded the steamer to receive his
nephew, Arnfinn Vording, who was returning from the university for
his summer vacation. And now they had him between them in their pretty
white-painted parsonage boat, with the blue line along the gunwale,
beleaguering him with eager questions about friends and relatives in
the capital, chums, university sports, and a medley of other things
interesting to young ladies who have a collegian for a cousin. His uncle
was charitable enough to check his own curiosity about the nephew’s
progress in the arts and sciences, and the result of his recent
examinations, till he should have become fairly settled under his roof;
and Arnfinn, who, in spite of his natural brightness and ready humor,
was anything but a “dig,” was grateful for the respite.

The parsonage lay snugly nestled at the end of the bay, shining
contentedly through the green foliage from a multitude of small
sun-smitten windows. Its pinkish whitewash, which was peeling off from
long exposure to the weather, was in cheerful contrast to the broad
black surface of the roof, with its glazed tiles, and the starlings’
nests under the chimney-tops. The thick-leaved maples and walnut-trees
which grew in random clusters about the walls seemed loftily conscious
of standing there for purposes of protection; for, wherever their
long-fingered branches happened to graze the roof, it was always with a
touch, light, graceful, and airily caressing. The irregularly paved yard
was inclosed on two sides by the main building, and on the third by
a species of log cabin, which, in Norway, is called a brew-house; but
toward the west the view was but slightly obscured by an elevated
pigeon cot and a clump of birches, through whose sparse leaves the
fjord beneath sent its rapid jets and gleams of light, and its strange
suggestions of distance, peace and unaccountable gladness.

Arnfinn Vording’s career had presented that subtle combination of farce
and tragedy which most human lives are apt to be; and if the tragic
element had during his early years been pr

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