Thelma
splendor of the heavens. Once Gueldmar addressed his daughter in a soft
tone.
"Thou are happy, my bird?"
She smiled--the expression of her face was almost divine in its rapture.
"Perfectly happy, my father!"
At the sound of her dulcet voice, Sigurd looked up. His large blue eyes
were full of tears, he took her hand and held it in his meagre and
wasted one.
"Mistress!" he said suddenly, "do you think I shall soon die?"
She turned her pitying eyes down upon him, startled by the vibrating
melancholy of his tone.
"Thou wilt die, Sigurd," answered Gueldmar gently, "when the gods
please,--not one second sooner or later. Art thou eager to see
Valhalla?"
Sigurd nodded dreamily. "They will understand me there!" he murmured.
"And I shall grow straight and strong and brave! Mistress, if you meet
me in Valhalla, you will love me!"
She stroked his wild fair locks. "I love you now, Sigurd," she said
tenderly. "But perhaps we shall all love each other better in heaven."
"Yes, yes!" exclaimed Sigurd, patting her hand caressingly. "When we are
all dead, dead! When our bodies crumble away and turn to flowers and
birds and butterflies,--and our souls come out like white and red
flames,--yes! . . . then we shall love each other and talk of such
strange, strange things!" He paused and laughed wildly. Then his voice
sank again into melancholy monotony--and he added: "Mistress, you are
killing poor Sigurd!"
Thelma's face grow very earnest and anxious. "Are you vexed with me,
dear?" she asked soothingly. "Tell me what it is that troubles you?"
Sigurd met her eyes with a look of speechless despair and shook his
head.
"I cannot tell you!" he muttered. "All my thoughts have gone to drown
themselves one by one in the cold sea! My heart was buried yesterday,
and I saw it sealed down into its coffin. There is something of me
left,--something that dances before me like a flame,--but it will not
rest, it does not obey me. I call it, but it will not come! And I am
getting tired, mistress--very, very tired!" His voice broke, and a low
sob escaped him,--he hid his face in the folds of her dress. Gueldmar
looked at the poor fellow compassionately.
"The wits wander further and further away!" he said to his daughter in a
low tone. "'Tis a mind like a broken rainbow, split through by
storm--'twill soon vanish. Be patient with him, child,--it cannot be for
long!"
"No, not for long!" cried Sigurd, raising his head brightly. "That is
true--not for long! Mistress, will you come to-morrow with me and gather
flowers? You used to love to wander with your poor boy in the
fields,--but you have forgotten,--and I cannot find any blossoms without
you! They will not show themselves unless you come! Will you? dear,
beautiful mistress! will you come?"
She smiled, pleased to see him a little more cheerful. "Yes, Sigurd,"
she said; "I will come. We will go together early to-morrow morning and
gather all the flowers we can find. Will that make you happy?"
"Yes!" he said, softly kissing the hem of her dress. "It will make me
happy--for the last time."
Then he rose in an attitude of attention, as though he had been called
by some one at a distance,--and with a grave, preoccupied air he moved
away, walking on tip-toe as though he feared to interrupt the sound of
some soft invisible music. Gueldmar sighed as he watched him disappear.
"May the gods make us thankful for a clear brain when we have it!" he
said devoutly; and then turning to his daughter, he bade her good night,
and laid his hands on her golden head in silent but fervent blessing.
"Child," he said tremulously, "in the new joys that await thee, never
forget how thy old father loves thee!"
Then, not trusting himself to say more, he strode into the house and
betook himself to slumber. Thelma followed his example, and the old
farmhouse was soon wrapped in the peace and stillness of the strange
night--a night of glittering sunshine. Sigurd alone was wakeful,--he lay
at the foot of one of the tallest pine-trees, and stared persistently at
the radiant sky through the network of dark branches. Now and then he
smiled as though he saw some beatific vision--sometimes he plucked
fitfully at the soft long moss on which he had made his couch, and
sometimes he broke into a low, crooning song. God alone knew the broken
ideas, the dim fancies, the half born desires, that glimmered like pale
ghosts in the desert of his brain,--God alone, in the great Hereafter,
could solve the problem of his sorrows and throw light on his soul's
darkness.
It was past six in the morning when he arose, and smoothing back his
tangled locks, went to Thelma's window and sat down beneath it, in mute
expectancy. He had not long to wait,--at the expiration of ten or
fifteen minutes, the little lattice was thrown wide open, and the girl's
face, fresh as a rose, framed in a shower of amber locks, smiled down
upon him.
"I am coming, Sigurd!" she cried softly and joyously. "How lovely the
morning is! Stay for me there! I shall not be long."
And she disappeared, leaving her window open. Sigurd heard her singing
little scraps of song to herself, as she moved about in the interior of
her room. He listened, as though his soul were drawn out of him by her
voice,--but presently the rich notes ceased, and there was a sudden
silence. Sigurd knew or guessed the reason of that hush,--Thelma was at
her prayers. Instinctively the poor forlorn lad folded his wasted
hands--most piteously and most imploringly he raised his bewildered eyes
to the blue and golden glory of the sky. His conception of God was
indefinable; his dreams of heaven, chaotic minglings of fairy-land with
Valhalla,--but he somehow felt that wherever Thelma's holy aspirations
turned, there the angels must be listening.
Presently she came out of the house, looking radiant as the morning
itself,--her luxuriant hair was thrown back over her shoulders, and fell
loosely about her in thick curls, simply confined by a knot of blue
ribbon. She carried a large osier basket, capacious, and gracefully
shaped.
"Now, Sigurd," she called sweetly, "I am ready! Where shall we go?"
Sigurd hastened to her side, happy and smiling.
"Across there," he said, pointing toward the direction of Bosekop.
"There is a stream under the trees that laughs to itself all day--you
know it, mistress? And the poppies are in the field as you go--and by
the banks there are the heart's-ease flowers--we cannot have too many of
_them_! Shall we go?"
"Wherever you like, dear," answered Thelma tenderly, looking down from
her stately height on the poor stunted creature at her side, who held
her dress as though he were a child clinging to her as his sole means of
guidance. "All the land is pleasant to-day."
They left the farm and its boundaries. A few men were at work on one of
Gueldmar's fields, and these looked up,--half in awe, half in fear,--as
Thelma and her fantastic servitor passed along.
"'Tis a fine wench!" said one man, resting on his spade, and following
with his eyes the erect, graceful figure of his employer's daughter.
"Maybe, maybe!" said another gruffly; "but a fine wench is a snare of
the devil! Do ye mind what Lovisa Elsland told us?"
"Ay, ay," answered the first speaker, "Lovisa knows,--Lovisa is the
wisest woman we have in these parts--that's true! The girl's a witch,
for sure!"
And they resumed their work in gloomy silence. Not one of them would
have willingly labored on Olaf Gueldmar's land, had not the wages he
offered been above the usual rate of hire,--and times were bad in
Norway. But otherwise, the superstitious fear of him was so great that
his fields might have gone untilled and his crops ungathered,--however,
as matters stood, none of them could deny that he was a good paymaster,
and just in his dealings with those whom he employed.
Thelma and Sigurd took their way in silence across a perfumed stretch of
meadow-land,--the one naturally fertile spot in that somewhat barren
district. Plenty of flowers blossomed at their feet, but they did not
pause to gather these, for Sigurd was anxious to get to the stream where
the purple pansies grew. They soon reached it--it was a silvery clear
ribbon of water that unrolled itself in bright folds, through green,
transparent tunnels of fern and waving grass--leaping now and then with
a swift dash over a smooth block of stone or jagged rock--but for the
most part gliding softly, with a happy, self-satisfied murmur, as though
it were some drowsy spirit dreaming joyous dreams. Here nodded the
grave, purple-leaved pansies,--legendary consolers of the heart,--their
little, quaint, expressive physiognomies turned in every direction; up
to the sky, as though absorbing the sunlight,--down to the ground, with
an almost severe air of meditation, or curled sideways on their stems in
a sort of sly reflectiveness.
Sigurd was among them at once--they were his friends,--his playmates,
his favorites,--and he gathered them quickly, yet tenderly, murmuring as
he did so, "Yes, you must all die; but death does not hurt; no! life
hurts, but not death! See! as I pluck you, you all grow wings and fly
away--away to other meadows, and bloom again." He paused, and a puzzled
look came into his eyes. He turned toward Thelma, who had seated herself
on a little knoll just above the stream, "Tell me, mistress," he said,
"do the flowers go to heaven?"
She smiled. "I think so, dear Sigurd," she said; "I hope so! I am almost
sure they do."
Sigurd nodded with an air of satisfaction.
"That is right," he observed. "It would never do to leave them behind,
you know! They would be missed, and we should have to come down again
and fetch them--" A crackling among the branches of some trees startled
him,--he looked round, and uttered a peculiar cry like the cry of a wild
animal, and exclaimed, "Spies, spies! ha! ha! secret, wicked faces that
are afraid to show themselves! Come out! Mistress, mistress! make them
come out!"
Thelma rose, surprised as his gesticulations, and came towards him; to
her utter astonishment she found herself confronted by old Lovisa
Elsland, and the Reverend Mr. Dyceworthy's servant, Ulrika. On both
women's faces there was a curious expression of mingled fear, triumph,
and malevolence. Lovisa was the first to break silence.
"At last!" she croaked, in a sort of slow, monotonous tone "At last,
Thelma Gueldmar, the Lord has delivered you into my hands!"
Thelma drew Sigurd close to her, and slipped one arm around him.
"Poor soul!" she said softly, with sweet pitying eyes fixed fearlessly
on the old hag's withered, evil visage. "You must be tired, wandering
about on the hills as you do! If you are her friend," she added,
addressing Ulrika, "why do you not make her rest at home and keep warm?
She is so old and feeble!"
"Feeble!" shrieked Lovisa; "feeble!" And she seemed choking with
passion. "If I had my fingers at your throat, you should then see if I
am feeble! I--" Ulrika pulled her by the arm, and whispered something
which had the effect of calming her a little. "Well," she said, "you
speak then! I can wait!"
Ulrika cleared her husky voice, and fixed her dull eyes on the girl's
radiant countenance.
"You must go away," she said coldly and briefly; "You and your father,
and this creature," and she pointed contemptuously to the staring
Sigurd. "Do you understand? You must leave the Alten Fjord. The people
are tired of you--tired of bad harvests, ill-luck, sickness, and
continued poverty. You are the cause of all our miseries,--and we have
resolved you shall not stay among us. Go quickly,--take the blight and
pestilence of your presence elsewhere! Go! or if you will not--"
"We shall burn, burn, burn, and utterly destroy!" interrupted Lovisa,