Thelma
a smile. "A pretty fancy of his, and linked with the crazy imaginings of
Ophelia too. 'There's pansies, that's for thoughts,' _she_ said, but
Sigurd's idea is different; he believes they are Thelma's own thoughts
in flower. 'No rough touch has spoiled their smoothness,' he declared;
he's right there, I'm sure. And shall I ruffle the sweet leaves; shall I
crush the tender petals? or shall I simply transform them, from pansies
into roses,--from the dream of love,--into love itself?"
His eyes softened as he glanced at the drooping rose he wore, which
Thelma herself had given him, and as he went to his sleeping cabin, he
carefully detached it from his button-hole, and taking down a book,--one
which he greatly prized, because it had belonged to his mother,--he
prepared to press the flower within its leaves. It was the "Imitation of
Christ," bound quaintly and fastened with silver clasps, and as he was
about to lay his fragrant trophy on the first page that opened naturally
of itself, he glanced at the words that there presented themselves to
his eyes.
"Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing stronger, nothing higher, nothing
wider, nothing more pleasant, nothing fuller or better in heaven or in
earth!" And with a smile and a warmer flush of color than usual on his
handsome face, he touched the rose lightly yet tenderly with his lips
and shut it reverently within its sacred resting-place.
CHAPTER IX.
"Our manners are infinitely corrupted, and wonderfully incline to
the worse; of our customs there are many barbarous and
monstrous."
MONTAIGNE.
The next day was very warm and bright, and that pious Lutheran divine,
the Reverend Charles Dyceworthy, was seriously encumbered by his own
surplus flesh material as he wearily rowed himself across the Fjord
towards Olaf Gueldmar's private pier. As the perspiration bedewed his
brow, he felt that Heaven had dealt with him somewhat too liberally in
the way of fat--he was provided too amply with it ever to excel as an
oarsman. The sun was burning hot, the water was smooth as oil, and very
weighty--it seemed to resist every stroke of his clumsily wielded
blades. Altogether it was hard, uncongenial work,--and, being rendered
somewhat flabby and nerveless by his previous evening's carouse with
Macfarlane's whisky, Mr. Dyceworthy was in a plaintive and injured frame
of mind, he was bound on a mission--a holy and edifying errand, which
would have elevated any minister of his particular sect. He had found a
crucifix with the name of Thelma engraved thereon,--he was now about to
return it to the evident rightful owner, and in returning it, he
purposed denouncing it as an emblem of the "Scarlet Woman, that sitteth
on the Seven Hills," and threatening all those who dared to hold it
sacred, as doomed to eternal torture, "where the worm dieth not." He had
thought over all he meant to say; he had planned several eloquent and
rounded sentences, some of which he murmured placidly to himself as he
propelled his slow boat along.
"Yea!" he observed in a mild sotto-voce--"ye shall be cut off root and
branch! Ye shall be scorched even as stubble,--and utterly destroyed."
Here he paused and mopped his streaming forehead with his clean perfumed
handkerchief. "Yea!" he resumed peacefully, "the worshippers of
idolatrous images are accursed; they shall have ashes for food and gall
for drink! Let them turn and repent themselves, lest the wrath of God
consume them as straw whirled on the wind. Repent! . . . or ye shall be
cast into everlasting fire. Beauty shall avail not, learning shall avail
not, meekness shall avail not; for the fire of hell is a searching,
endless, destroying--" here Mr. Dyceworthy, by plunging one oar with too
much determination into the watery depths, caught a crab, as the saying
is, and fell violently backward in a somewhat undignified posture.
Recovering himself slowly, he looked about him in a bewildered way, and
for the first time noticed the vacant, solitary appearance of the Fjord.
Some object was missing; he realized what it was immediately--the
English yacht _Eulalie_ was gone from her point of anchorage.
"Dear me!" said Mr. Dyceworthy, half aloud, "what a very sudden
departure! I wonder, now, if those young men have gone for good, or
whether they are coming back again? Pleasant fellows, very pleasant!
flippant, perhaps, but pleasant."
And he smiled benevolently. He had no remembrance of what had occurred,
after he had emptied young Macfarlane's flask of Glenlivet; he had no
idea that he had been almost carried from his garden into his parlor,
and there flung on the sofa and left to sleep off the effects of his
strong tipple; least of all did he dream that he had betrayed any of his
intentions towards Thelma Gueldmar, or given his religious opinions with
such free and undisguised candor. Blissfully ignorant on these points,
he resumed his refractory oars, and after nearly an hour of laborious
effort, succeeded at last in reaching his destination. Arrived at the
little pier, he fastened up his boat, and with the lofty air of a
thoroughly moral man, he walked deliberately up to the door of the
_bonde's_ house. Contrary to custom, it was closed, and the place seemed
strangely silent and deserted. The afternoon heat was so great that the
song-birds were hushed, and in hiding under the cool green leaves,--the
clambering roses round the porch hung down their bright heads for sheer
faintness,--and the only sounds to be heard were the subdued coo-cooing
of the doves on the roof and the soft trickling rush of a little
mountain stream that flowed through the grounds. Some what surprised,
though not abashed, at the evident "not-at-home" look of the farm-house,
Mr. Dyceworthy rapped loudly at the rough oaken door with his knuckles,
there being no such modern convenience as a bell or a knocker. He waited
sometime before he was answered, repeating his summons violently at
frequent intervals, and swearing irreligiously under his breath as he
did so. But at last the door was flung sharply open, and the
tangle-haired, rosy-cheeked Britta confronted him with an aspect which
was by no means encouraging or polite. Her round blue eyes sparkled
saucily, and she placed her bare, plump, red arms, wet with recent
soapsuds, akimbo on her sturdy little hips, with an air that was
decidedly impertinent.
"Well, what do you want?" she demanded with rude abruptness.
Mr. Dyceworthy regarded her in speechless dignity. Vouchsafing no reply,
he attempted to pass her and enter the house. But Britta settled her
arms more defiantly than ever, and her voice had a sharper ring as she
said--
"It's no use your coming in! There's no one here but me. The master has
gone out for the day."
"Young woman," returned Mr. Dyceworthy with polite severity, "I regret
to see that your manners stand in sore need of improvement. Your
master's absence is of no importance to me. It is with the Froeken Thelma
I desire to speak."
Britta laughed and tossed her rough brown curls back from her forehead.
Mischievous dimples came and went at the corners of her
mouth--indications of suppressed fun.
"The Froeken is out too," she said demurely. "It's time she had a little
amusement; and the gentlemen treat her as if she were a queen!"
Mr. Dyceworthy started, and his red visage became a trifle paler.
"Gentlemen? What gentlemen?" he demanded with some impatience.
Britta's inward delight evidently increased.
"The gentlemen from the yacht, of course," she said. "What other
_gentlemen_ are there?" This with a contemptuous up-and-down sort of
look at the Lutheran minister's portly form. "Sir Philip Errington was
here with his friend yesterday evening and stayed a long time--and today
a fine boat with four oars came to fetch the master and Froeken Thelma,
and they are all gone for a sail to the Kaa Fjord or some other place
near here--I cannot remember the name. And I am SO glad!" went on
Britta, clasping her plump hands in ecstasy. "They are the grandest,
handsomest _Herren_ I have ever seen, and one can tell they think
wonders of the Froeken--nothing is too good for her!"
Mr. Dyceworthy's face was the picture of dismay. This was a new turn to
the course of events, and one, more over, that he had never once
contemplated. Britta watched him amusedly.
"Will you leave any message for them when they return?" she asked.
"No," said the minister dubiously. "Yet, stay; yes! I will! Tell the
Froeken that I have found something which belongs to her, and that when
she wishes to have it, I will myself bring it."
Britta looked cross. "If it is hers you have no business to keep it,"
she said brusquely. "Why not leave it,--whatever it is,--with me?"
Mr. Dyceworthy regarded her with a bland and lofty air.
"I trust no concerns of mine or hers to the keeping of a paid domestic,"
he said. "A domestic, moreover, who deserts the ways of her own
people,--who hath dealings with the dwellers in darkness,--who even
bringeth herself to forget much of her own native tongue, and who
devoteth herself to--"
What he would have said was uncertain, as at that moment he was nearly
thrown down by a something that slipped agilely between his legs,
pinching each fat calf as it passed--a something that looked like a
ball, but proved to be a human creature--no other than the crazy Sigurd,
who, after accomplishing his uncouth gambol successfully, stood up,
shaking back his streaming fair locks and laughing wildly.
"Ha, ha!" he exclaimed. "That was good; that was clever! If I had upset
you now, you would have said your prayers backward! What are you here
for? This is no place for you! They are all gone out of it. _She_ has
gone--all the world is empty! There is nothing any where but air, air,
air!--no birds, no flowers, no trees, no sunshine! All gone with her on
the sparkling, singing water!" and he swung his arms round violently,
and snapped his fingers in the minister's face. "What an ugly man your
are!" he exclaimed with refreshing candor. "I think you are uglier than
I am! You are straight,--but you are like a load of peat--heavy and
barren and fit to burn. Now, I--I am the crooked bough of a tree, but I
have bright leaves where a bird hides and sings all day! You--you have
no song, no foliage; only ugly and barren and fit to burn!" He laughed
heartily, and, catching sight of Britta, where she stood in the doorway
entirely unconcerned at his eccentric behavior, he went up to her and
took hold of the corner of her apron. "Take me in, Britta dear--pretty
Britta!" he said coaxingly. "Sigurd is hungry! Britta, sweet little
Britta,--come and talk to me and sing! Good-bye, fat man!" he added
suddenly, turning round once more on Dyceworthy. "You will never
overtake the big ship that has gone away with Thelma over the water.
Thelma will come back,--yes! . . . but one day she will go never to come
back." He dropped his voice to a mysterious whisper. "Last night I saw a
little spirit come out of a rose,--he carried a tiny golden hammer and
nail, and a ball of cord like a rolled-up sunbeam. He flew away so
quickly I could not follow him; but I know where he went! He fastened
the nail in the heart of Thelma, deeply, so that the little drops of
blood flowed,--but she felt no pain; and then he tied the golden cord to
the nail and left her, carrying the other end of the string with him--to
whom? Some other heart must be pierced! Whose heart?" Sigurd looked
infinitely cunning as well as melancholy, and sighed deeply.
The Reverend Mr. Dyceworthy was impatient and disgusted.
"It is a pity," he said with an air of solemn patience, "that this
hapless creature, accursed of God and man, is not placed in some proper