Thelma
wistful and earnest, and when she spoke again her voice was mellow with
a suave gentleness, that had something in it of compassion.
"If you do not love life itself," she said, "you love the beautiful
things of life, do you not? See yonder! There is what we call the
meeting of night and morning. One is glad to be alive at such a moment.
Look quickly! The light soon fades."
She pointed towards the east. Her companion gazed in that direction, and
uttered an exclamation,--almost a shout,--of wonder and admiration.
Within the space of the past few minutes the aspect of the heavens had
completely changed. The burning scarlet and violet hues had all melted
into a transparent yet brilliant shade of pale mauve,--as delicate as
the inner tint of a lilac blossom,--and across this stretched two
wing-shaped gossamer clouds of watery green, fringed with soft primrose.
Between these cloud-wings, as opaline in lustre as those of a
dragon-fly, the face of the sun shone like a shield of polished gold,
while his rays, piercing spear-like through the varied tints of emerald,
brought an unearthly radiance over the landscape--a lustre as though the
moon were, in some strange way, battling with the sun for mastery over
the visible universe though, looking southward, she could dimly be
perceived, the ghost of herself--a poor, fainting, pallid goddess,--a
perishing Diana.
Bringing his glance down from the skies, the young man turned it to the
face of the maiden near him, and was startled at her marvellous
beauty--beauty now heightened by the effect of the changeful colors that
played around her. The very boat in which she sat glittered with a
bronze-like, metallic brightness as it heaved gently to and fro on the
silvery green water; the midnight sunshine bathed the falling glory of
her long hair, till each thick tress, each clustering curl, appeared to
emit an amber spark of light. The strange, weird effect of the sky
seemed to have stolen into her eyes, making them shine with witch-like
brilliancy,--the varied radiance flashing about her brought into strong
relief the pureness of her profile, drawing as with a fine pencil the
outlines of her noble forehead, sweet mouth, and rounded chin. It
touched the scarlet of her bodice, and brightened the quaint old silver
clasps she wore at her waist and throat, till she seemed no longer an
earthly being, but more like some fair wondering sprite from the
legendary Norse kingdom of _Alfheim_, the "abode of the Luminous Genii."
She was gazing upwards,--heavenwards,--and her expression was one of
rapt and almost devotional intensity. Thus she remained for some
moments, motionless as the picture of an expectant angel painted by
Raffaele or Correggio; then reluctantly and with a deep sigh she turned
her eyes towards earth again. In so doing she met the fixed and too
visibly admiring gaze of her companion. She started, and a wave of vivid
color flushed her cheeks. Quickly recovering her serenity, however, she
saluted him slightly, and, moving her oars in unison, was on the point
of departure.
Stirred by an impulse he could not resist, he laid one hand detainingly
on the rim of her boat.
"Are you going now?" he asked.
She raised her eyebrows in some little surprise and smiled.
"Going?" she repeated. "Why, yes. I shall be late in getting home as it
is."
"Stop a moment," he said eagerly, feeling that he could not let this
beautiful creature leave him as utterly as a midsummer night's dream
without some clue as to her origin and destination. "Will you not tell
me your name?"
She drew herself erect with a look of indignation.
"Sir, I do not know you. The maidens of Norway do not give their names
to strangers."
"Pardon me," he replied, somewhat abashed. "I mean no offense. We have
watched the midnight sun together, and--and--I thought--"
He paused, feeling very foolish, and unable to conclude his sentence.
She looked at him demurely from under her long, curling lashes.
"You will often find a peasant girl on the shores of the Altenfjord
watching the midnight sun at the same time as yourself," she said, and
there was a suspicion of laughter in her voice. "It is not unusual. It
is not even necessary that you should remember so little a thing."
"Necessary or not, I shall never forget it," he said with sudden
impetuosity. "You are no peasant! Come; if I give you my name will you
still deny me yours?"
Her delicate brows drew together in a frown of haughty and decided
refusal. "No names please my ears save those that are familiar," she
said, with intense coldness. "We shall not meet again. Farewell!"
And without further word or look, she leaned gracefully to the oars, and
pulling with a long, steady, resolute stroke, the little boat darted
away as lightly and swiftly as a skimming swallow out on the shimmering
water, he stood gazing after it till it became a distant speck sparkling
like a diamond in the light of sky and wave, and when he could no more
watch it with unassisted eyes, he took up his field glass and followed
its course attentively. He saw it cutting along as straightly as an
arrow, then suddenly it dipped round to the westward, apparently making
straight for some shelving rocks, that projected far into the Fjord. It
reached them; it grew less and less--it disappeared. At the same time
the lustre of the heavens gave way to a pale pearl-like uniform grey
tint, that stretched far and wide, folding up as in a mantle all the
regal luxury of the Sun-king's palace. The subtle odor and delicate
chill of the coming dawn stole freshly across the water. A light haze
rose and obscured the opposite islands. Something of the tender
melancholy of autumn, though it was late June, toned down the aspect of
the before brilliant landscape. A lark rose swiftly from its nest in an
adjacent meadow, and, soaring higher and higher, poured from its tiny
throat a cascade of delicious melody. The midnight sun no longer shone
at midnight; his face smiled with a sobered serenity through the faint
early mists of approaching morning.
CHAPTER II.
"Viens donc--je te chanterai des chansons que les esprits des
cimetieres m'ont apprises!"
MATURIN.
"Baffled!" he exclaimed, with a slight vexed laugh, as the boat vanished
from his sight. "By a woman, too! Who would have thought it?"
Who would have thought it, indeed! Sir Philip Bruce-Errington, Baronet,
the wealthy and desirable parti for whom many match-making mothers had
stood knee-deep in the chilly though sparkling waters of society,
ardently plying rod and line with patient persistence, vainly hoping to
secure him as a husband for one of their highly proper and passionless
daughters,--he, the admired, long-sought-after "eligible," was suddenly
rebuffed, flouted--by whom? A stray princess, or a peasant. He vaguely
wondered, as he lit a cigar and strolled up and down on the shore,
meditating, with a puzzled, almost annoyed expression on his handsome
features. He was not accustomed to slights of any kind, however
trifling; his position being commanding and enviable enough to attract
flattery and friendship from most people. He was the only son of a
baronet as renowned for eccentricity as for wealth. He had been the
spoilt darling of his mother; and now, both his parents being dead, he
was alone in the world, heir to his father's revenues, and entire master
of his own actions. And as part of the penalty he had to pay for being
rich and good-looking to boot, he was so much run after by women that he
found it hard to understand the haughty indifference with which he had
just been treated by one of the most fair, if not the fairest of her
sex. He was piqued, and his _amour propre_ was wounded.
"I'm sure my question was harmless enough," he mused, half crossly, "She
might have answered it."
He glanced out impatiently over the Fjord. There was no sign of his
returning yacht as yet.
"What a time those fellows are!" he said to himself. "If the pilot were
not on board, I should begin to think they had run the _Eulalie_
aground."
He finished his cigar and threw the end of it into the water; then he
stood moodily watching the ripples as they rolled softly up and caressed
the shining brown shore at his feet, thinking all the while of that
strange girl, so wonderfully lovely in face and form, so graceful and
proud of bearing, with her great blue eyes and masses of dusky gold
hair.
His meeting with her was a sort of adventure in its way--the first of
the kind he had had for some time. He was subject to fits of weariness
or caprice, and it was in one of these that he had suddenly left London
in the height of the season, and had started for Norway on a yachting
cruise with three chosen companions, one of whom, George Lorimer, once
an Oxford fellow-student, was now his "chum"--the Pythias to his Damon,
the _fidus Achates_ of his closest confidence. Through the unexpected
wakening up of energy in the latter young gentleman, who was usually of
a most sleepy and indolent disposition, he happened to be quite alone on
this particular occasion, though, as a general rule, he was accompanied
in his rambles by one if not all three of his friends. Utter solitude
was with him a rare occurrence, and his present experience of it had
chanced in this wise. Lorimer the languid, Lorimer the lazy, Lorimer who
had remained blandly unmoved and drowsy through all the magnificent
panorama of the Norwegian coast, including the Sogne Fjord and the
toppling peaks of the Justedal glaciers; Lorimer who had slept
peacefully in a hammock on deck, even while the yacht was passing under
the looming splendors of Melsnipa; Lorimer, now that he had arrived at
the Alton Fjord, then at its loveliest in the full glory of the
continuous sunshine, developed a new turn of mind, and began to show
sudden and abnormal interest in the scenery. In this humor he expressed
his desire to "take a sight" of the midnight sun from the island of
Seiland, and also declared his resolve to try the nearly impossible
ascent of the great Jedke glacier.
Errington laughed at the idea. "Don't tell me," he said, "that you are
going in for climbing. And do you suppose I believe that you are
interested--_you_ of all people--in the heavenly bodies?"
"Why not?" asked Lorimer, with a candid smile. "I'm not in the least
interested in earthly bodies, except my own. The sun's a jolly fellow. I
sympathize with him in his present condition. He's in his cups--that's
what's the matter--and he can't be persuaded to go to bed. I know his
feelings perfectly; and I want to survey his gloriously inebriated face
from another point of view. Don't laugh, Phil; I'm in earnest! And I
really have quite a curiosity to try my skill in amateur mountaineering.
Jedke's the very place for a first effort. It offers difficulties,
and"--this with a slight yawn--"I like to surmount difficulties; it's
rather amusing."
His mind was so evidently set upon the excursion, that Sir Philip made
no attempt to dissuade him from it, but excused himself from
accompanying the party on the plea that he wanted to finish a sketch he
had recently begun. So that when the _Eulalie_ got up her steam, weighed
anchor, and swept gracefully away towards the coast of the adjacent
islands, her owner was left, at his desire, to the seclusion of a quiet
nook on the shore of the Altenfjord, where he succeeded in making a bold
and vivid picture of the scene before him. The colors of the sky had,
however, defied his palette, and after one or two futile attempts to
transfer to his canvas a few of the gorgeous tints that illumed the
landscape, he gave up the task in despair, and resigned himself to the
_dolce far niente_ of absolute enjoyment. From his half pleasing, half