Thelma
"Take care!" he echoed derisively. "It is you who should take care!
You,--poor miserable moth on the edge of a mad storm! It is you to
fear--not I! See how the light rains over the broad sky. All for me!
Yes, all the light, all the glory for me; all the darkness, all the
shame for you!"
Errington listened to these ravings with an air of patience and pitying
gentleness, then he said with perfect coolness--
"You are quite right, Sigurd! You are always right, I am sure. Come up
here and see me; I won't hurt you! Come along!"
The friendly tone and gentle manner appeared to soothe the unhappy
dwarf, for he stared doubtfully, then smiled,--and finally, as though
acting under a spell, he took up an oar and propelled himself skillfully
enough to the gangway, where Errington let down the ladder and with his
own hand assisted his visitor to mount, not forgetting to fasten the
boat safely to the steps as he did so. Once on deck, Sigurd gazed about
him perplexedly. He had brought his bunch of pansies with him, and he
fingered their soft leaves thoughtfully. Suddenly his eyes flashed.
"You are alone here?" he asked abruptly.
Fearing to scare his strange guest by the mention of his companions,
Errington answered simply--"Yes, quite alone just now, Sigurd."
Sigurd took a step closer towards him. "Are you not afraid?" he said in
an awe-struck, solemn voice.
Sir Philip smiled. "I never was afraid of anything in my life!" he
answered.
The dwarf eyed him keenly. "You are not afraid," he went on, "that I
shall kill you?"
"Not in the least," returned Errington calmly. "You would not do
anything so foolish, my friend."
Sigurd laughed. "Ha ha! You call me 'friend.' You think that word a
safeguard! I tell you, no! There are no friends now; the world is a
great field of battle,--each man fights the other. There is no
peace,--none anywhere! The wind fights with the forests; you can hear
them slashing and slaying all night long--when it _is_ night--the long,
long night! The sun fights with the sky, the light with the dark, and
life with death. It is all a bitter quarrel; none are satisfied, none
shall know friendship any more; it is too late! We cannot be friends!"
"Well, have it your own way," said Philip good-naturedly, wishing that
Lorimer were awake to interview this strange specimen of human wit gone
astray; "we'll fight if you like. Anything to please you!"
"We _are_ fighting," said Sigurd with intense passion in his voice. "You
may not know it; but I know it! I have felt the thrust of your sword; it
has crossed mine. Stay!" and his eyes grew vague and dreamy. "Why was I
sent to seek you out--let me think--let me think!"
And he seated himself forlornly on one of the deck chairs and seemed
painfully endeavoring to put his scattered ideas in order. Errington
studied him with a gentle forbearance; inwardly he was very curious to
know whether this Sigurd had any connection with the Gueldmars, but he
refrained from asking too many questions. He simply said in a cheery
tone--
"Yes, Sigurd,--why did you come to see me? I'm glad you did; it's very
kind of you, but I don't think you even know my name."
To his surprise, Sigurd looked up with a more settled and resolved
expression of face, and answered almost as connectedly as any sane man
could have done.
"I know your name very well," he said in a low composed manner. "You are
Sir Philip Errington, a rich English nobleman. Fate led you to _her_
grave--a grave that no strange feet have ever passed, save yours--and so
I know you are the man for whom her spirit has waited,--she has brought
you hither. How foolish to think she sleeps under the stone, when she is
always awake and busy,--always at work opposing me! Yes, though I pray
her to lie still, she will not!"
His voice grew wild again, and Philip asked quietly--
"Of whom are you speaking, Sigurd?"
His steady tone seemed to have some compelling influence on the confused
mind of the half-witted creature, who answered readily and at once--
"Of whom should I speak but Thelma? Thelma, the beautiful rose of the
northern forest--Thelma--"
He broke off abruptly with a long shuddering sigh, and rocking himself
drearily to and fro, gazed wistfully out to the sea. Errington hazarded
a guess as to the purpose of that coffin hidden in the shell cavern.
"Do you mean Thelma living? . . . or Thelma dead?"
"Both," answered Sigurd promptly. "They are one and the same,--you
cannot part them. Mother and child,--rose and rosebud! One walks the
earth with the step of a queen, the other floats in the air like a
silvery cloud; but I see them join and embrace and melt into each
other's arms till they unite in one form, fairer than the beauty of
angels! And you--you know this as well as I do--you have seen Thelma,
you have kissed the cup of friendship with her; but remember!--not with
me--not with me!"
He started from his seat, and, running close up to Errington, laid one
meagre hand on his chest.
"How strong you are, how broad and brave," he exclaimed with a sort of
childish admiration. "And can you not be generous too?"
Errington looked down upon him compassionately. He had learned enough
from his incoherent talk to clear up what had seemed a mystery. The
scandalous reports concerning Olaf Gueldmar were incorrect,--he had
evidently laid the remains of his wife in the shell-cavern, for some
reason connected with his religious belief, and Thelma's visits to the
sacred spot were now easy of comprehension. No doubt it was she who
placed fresh flowers there every day, and kept the little lamp burning
before the crucifix as a sign of the faith her departed mother had
professed, and which she herself followed. But who was Sigurd, and what
was he to the Gueldmars? Thinking this, he replied to the dwarf's
question by a counter-inquiry.
"How shall I be generous, Sigurd? Tell me! What can I do to please you?"
Sigurd's wild blue eyes sparkled with pleasure.
"Do!" he cried. "You can go away, swiftly, swiftly, over the seas, and
the Altenfjord need know you no more! Spread your white sails!" and he
pointed excitedly up to the tall tapering masts of the _Eulalie_. "You
are king here. Command and you are obeyed! Go from us, go! What is there
here to delay you? Our mountains are dark and gloomy,--the fields are
wild and desolate,--there are rocks, glaciers and shrieking torrents
that hiss like serpents gliding into the sea! Oh, there must be fairer
lands than this one,--lands where oceans and sky are like twin jewels
set in one ring,--where there are sweet flowers and fruits and bright
eyes to smile on you all day--yes! for you are as a god in your strength
and beauty--no woman will be cruel to _you_! Ah! say you will go away!"
and Sigurd's face was transfigured into a sort of pained beauty as he
made his appeal. "That is what I came to seek you for,--to ask you to
set sail quickly and go, for why should you wish to destroy me? I have
done you no harm as yet. Go!--and Odin himself shall follow your path
with blessings!"
He paused, almost breathless with his own earnest pleading. Errington
was silent. He considered the request a mere proof of the poor
creature's disorder. The very idea that Sigurd seemed to entertain of
his doing him any harm, showed a reasonless terror and foreboding that
was simply to be set down as caused by his unfortunate mental condition.
To such an appeal there could be no satisfactory reply. To sail away
from the Altenfjord and its now most fascinating attractions, because a
madman asked him to do so, was a proposition impossible of acceptance,
so Sir Philip said nothing. Sigurd, however, watching his face intently,
saw, or thought he saw, a look of resolution in the Englishman's clear,
deep grey eyes,--and with the startling quickness common to many whose
brains, like musical instruments, are jarred, yet not quite unstrung, he
grasped the meaning of that expression instantly.
"Ah! cruel and traitorous!" he exclaimed fiercely. "You will not go; you
are resolved to tear my heart out for your sport! I have pleaded with
you as one pleads with a king and all in vain--all in vain! You will not
go? Listen, see what you will do," and he held up the bunch of purple
pansies, while his voice sank to an almost feeble faintness. "Look!" and
he fingered the flowers, "look! . . . they are dark and soft as a purple
sky,--cool and dewy and fresh;--they are the thoughts of Thelma; such
thoughts! So wise and earnest, so pure and full of tender shadows!--no
hand has grasped them rudely, no rough touch has spoiled their
smoothness! They open full-faced to the sky, they never droop or
languish; they have no secrets, save the marvel of their beauty. Now you
have come, you will have no pity,--one by one you will gather and play
with her thoughts as though they were these blossoms,--your burning hand
will mar their color,--they will wither and furl up and die, all of
them,--and you,--what will you care? Nothing! no man ever cares for a
flower that is withered,--not even though his own hand slew it."
The intense melancholy that vibrated through Sigurd's voice touched his
listener profoundly. Dimly he guessed that the stricken soul before him
had formed the erroneous idea that he, Errington, had come to do some
great wrong to Thelma or her belongings, and he pitied the poor creature
for his foolish self-torture.
"Listen to me, Sigurd," he said, with a certain imperativeness; "I
cannot promise you to go away, but I can promise that I will do no harm
to you or to--to--Thelma. Will that content you?"
Sigurd smiled vacantly and shook his head. He looked at the pansies
wistfully and laid them down very gently on one of the deck benches.
"I must go," he said in a faint voice:--"She is calling me."
"Who is calling you?" demanded Errington astonished.
"She is," persisted Sigurd, walking steadily to the gangway. "I can hear
her! There are the roses to water, and the doves to feed, and many other
things." He looked steadily at Sir Philip, who, seeing he was bent on
departure, assisted him to descend the companion ladder into his little
boat. "You are sure you will not sail away?"
Errington balanced himself lightly on the ladder and smiled.
"I am sure, Sigurd! I have no wish to sail away. Are you all right
there?"
He spoke cheerily, feeling in his own mind that it was scarcely safe for
a madman to be quite alone in a cockle-shell of a boat on a deep Fjord,
the shores of which were indented with dangerous rocks as sharp as the
bristling teeth of fabled sea-monsters, but Sigurd answered him almost
contemptuously.
"All right!" he echoed. "That is what the English say always. All right!
As if it were ever wrong with me, and the sea! We know each other,--we
do each other no harm. _You_ may die on the sea, but _I_ shall not! No,
there is another way to Valhalla!"
"Oh, I dare say there are no end of ways," said Errington
good-temperedly, still poising himself on the ladder, and holding on to
the side of his yacht, as he watched his late visitor take the oars and
move off. "Good-bye, Sigurd! Take care of yourself! Hope I shall see you
again soon."
But Sigurd replied not. Bending to the oars, he rowed swiftly and
strongly, and Sir Philip, pulling up the ladder and closing the gangway,
saw the little skiff flying over the water like a bird in the direction
of the Gueldmar's landing-place. He wondered again and again what
relationship, if any, this half-crazed being bore to the _bonde_ and his
daughter. That he knew all about them was pretty evident; but how?
Catching sight of the pansies left on the deck bench, Errington took
them, and, descending to the saloon, set them on the table in a tumbler
of water.
"Thelma's thoughts, the poor little fellow called them," he mused, with