Thelma
grand fall--all for what? To sit with me and watch me spinning, and you
would grow so very sleepy! Now, if I were a man, I would go with you."
"I'm very glad you're not a man!" said Errington, pressing the little
hand that had just buckled his shoulder-strap. "Though I wish you _were_
going with us. But I say, Thelma, darling, won't you be lonely?"
She laughed gaily. "Lonely? I? Why, Britta is with me--besides, I am
never lonely _now_." She uttered the last word softly, with a shy,
upward glance. "I have so much to think about--" She paused and drew her
hand away from her lover's close clasp. "Ah," she resumed, with a
mischievous smile, "you are a conceited boy! You want to be missed! You
wish me to say that I shall feel most miserable all the time you are
away! If I do, I shall not tell you!"
"Thelma, child?" called Olaf Gueldmar, at this juncture "keep the gates
bolted and doors barred while we are absent. Remember, thou and Britta
must pass the night alone here,--we cannot be at home till late in the
evening of to-morrow. Let no one inside the garden, and deny thyself to
all comers. Dost thou hear?"
"Yes, father," she responded meekly.
"And let Britta keep good guard that her crazy hag of a grandam come not
hither to disturb or fright thee with her croaking,--for thou hast not
even Sigurd to protect thee."
"Not even Sigurd!" said that personage, with a meditative smile. "No,
mistress; not even poor Sigurd!"
"One of us might remain behind," suggested Lorimer, with a side-look at
his friend.
"Oh no, no!" exclaimed Thelma anxiously. "It would vex me so much!
Britta and I have often been alone before. We are quite safe, are we
not, father?"
"Safe enough!" said the old man, with a laugh. "I know of no one save
Lovisa Elsland who has the courage to face thee, child! Still, pretty
witch as thou art, 'twill not harm thee to put the iron bar across the
house door, and to lock fast the outer gate when we have gone. This
done, I have no fear of thy safety. Now," and he kissed his daughter
heartily, "now lads, 'tis time we were on the march! Sigurd, my boy,
lead on!"
"Wait!" cried Sigurd, springing to Thelma's side. "I must say good-bye!"
And he caught the girl's hand and kissed it,--then plucking a rose, he
left it between her fingers. "That will remind you of Sigurd, mistress!
Think of him once to-day!--once again when the midnight glory shines.
Good-bye, mistress! that is what the dead say, . . . Good-bye!"
And with a passionate gesture of farewell, he ran and placed himself at
the head of the little group that waited for him, saying exultingly--
"Now follow me! Sigurd knows the way! Sigurd is the friend of all the
wild waterfall! Up the hills,--across the leaping stream,--through the
sparkling foam!" And he began chanting to himself a sort of wild
mountain song.
Macfarlane looked at him dubiously. "Are ye sure?" he said to Gueldmar.
"Are ye sure that wee chap kens whaur he's gaun? He'll no lead us into a
ditch an' leave us there, mistakin' it for the Fall?"
Gueldmar laughed heartily. "Never fear! Sigurd's the best guide you can
have, in spite of his fancies. He knows all the safest and surest paths;
and Njedegorze is no easy place to reach, I can tell you!"
"_Pardon!_ How is it called?" asked Duprez eagerly.
"Njedegorze."
The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders. "I give it up!" he said smilingly.
"Mademoiselle Gueldmar, if anything happens to me at this cascade with
the name unpronounceable, you will again be my doctor, will you not?"
Thelma laughed as she shook hands with him. "Nothing will happen," she
rejoined; "unless, indeed, you catch cold by sleeping in a hut all
night. Father, you must see that they do not catch cold!"
The _bonde_ nodded, and motioned the party forward, Sigurd leading the
way,--Errington, however, lingered behind on pretense of having
forgotten something, and, drawing his betrothed in his arms, kissed her
fondly.
"Take care of yourself, darling!" he murmured,--and then hurrying away
he rejoined his friends, who had discreetly refrained from looking back,
and therefore had not seen the lovers embrace.
Sigurd, however, had seen it, and the sight apparently gave fresh
impetus to his movements, for he sprang up the adjacent hill with so
much velocity that those who followed had some difficulty to keep up
with him,--and it was not till they were out of sight of the farmhouse
that he resumed anything like a reasonable pace.
As soon as they had disappeared, Thelma turned into the house and seated
herself at her spinning-wheel. Britta soon entered the room, carrying
the same graceful implement of industry, and the two maidens sat
together for some time in a silence unbroken, save by the low melodious
whirring of the two wheels, and the mellow complaints of the strutting
doves on the window-sill.
"Froeken Thelma!" said Britta at last, timidly.
"Yes, Britta?" And her mistress looked up inquiringly.
"Of what use is it for you to spin now?" queried the little handmaid.
"You will be a great lady, and great ladies do not work at all!"
Thelma's wheel revolved more and more slowly, till at last it stopped
altogether.
"Do they not?" she said half inquiringly and musingly. "I think you must
be wrong, Britta. It is impossible that there should be people who are
always idle. I do not know what great ladies are like."
"I do!" And Britta nodded her curly head sagaciously. "There was a girl
from Hammerfest who went to Christiania to seek service--she was handy
at her needle, and a fine spinner, and a great lady took her right away
from Norway to London. And the lady bought her spinning-wheel for a
curiosity she said,--and put it in the corner of a large parlor, and
used to show it to her friends, and they would all laugh and say, 'How
pretty!' And Jansena,--that was the girl--never span again--she wore
linen that she got from the shops,--and it was always falling into
holes, and Jansena was always mending, mending, and it was no good!"
Thelma laughed. "Then it is better to spin, after all, Britta--is it
not?"
Britta looked dubious. "I do not know," she answered; "but I am sure
great ladies do not spin. Because, as I said to you, Froeken, this
Jansena's mistress was a great lady, and she never did anything,--no!
nothing at all,--but she put on wonderful dresses, and sat in her room,
or was driven about in a carriage. And that is what you will do also,
Froeken!"
"Oh no, Britta," said Thelma decisively. "I could not be so idle. Is it
not fortunate I have so much linen ready? I have quite enough for
marriage."
The little maid looked wistful. "Yes, dear Froeken," she murmured
hesitatingly; "but I was thinking if it is right for you to wear what
you have spun. Because, you see, Jansena's mistress had wonderful things
all trimmed with lace,--and they would all come back from the washing
torn and hanging in threads, and Jansena had to mend those as well as
her own clothes. You see, they do not last at all--and they cost a large
sum of money; but it is proper for great ladies to wear them."
"I am not sure of that, Britta," said Thelma, still musingly. "But
still, it may be--my bridal things may not please Philip. If you know
anything about it, you must tell me what is right."
Britta was in a little perplexity. She had gathered some idea from her
friend Jansena concerning life in London,--she had even a misty notion
of what was meant by a "trousseau" with all its dainty, expensive, and
often useless fripperies; but she did not know how to explain herself
to her young mistress, whose simple, almost severe tastes would, she
instinctively felt, recoil from anything like ostentation in dress, so
she was discreetly silent.
"You know, Britta," continued Thelma gently, "I shall be Philip's wife,
and I must not vex him in any little thing. But I do not quite
understand. I have always dressed in the same way,--and he has never
said that he thought me wrongly clothed."
And she looked down with quite a touching pathos at her straight, white
woolen gown, and smoothed its folds doubtfully. The impulsive Britta
sprang to her side and kissed her with girlish and unaffected
enthusiasm.
"My dear, my dear! You are more lovely and sweet than anybody in the
world!" she cried. "And I am sure Sir Philip thinks so too!"
A beautiful roseate flush suffused Thelma's cheeks, and she smiled.
"Yes, I know he does!" she replied softly. "And, after all, it does not
matter what one wears."
Britta was meditating,--she looked lovingly at her mistress's rippling
wealth of hair.
"Diamonds!" she murmured to herself in a sort of satisfied soliloquy.
"Diamonds, like those you have on your finger, Froeken,--diamonds all
scattered among your curls like dew-drops! And white satin, all shining,
shining!--people would take you for an angel!"
Thelma laughed merrily. "Britta, Britta! You are talking such nonsense!
Nobody dresses so grandly except queens in fairy-tales."
"Do they not?" and the wise Britta looked more profound than ever.
"Well, we shall see, dear Froeken--we shall see!"
"_We?_" queried Thelma with surprised emphasis.
Her little maid blushed vividly, and looked down demurely, twisting and
untwisting the string of her apron.
"Yes, Froeken," she said in a low tone. "I have asked Sir Philip to let
me go with you when you leave Norway."
"Britta!" Thelma's astonishment was too great for more than this
exclamation.
"Oh, my dear! don't be angry with me!" implored Britta, with sparkling
eyes, rosy cheeks, and excited tongue all pleading eloquently together,
"I should die here without you! I told the _bonde_ so; I did, indeed!
And then I went to Sir Philip--he is such a grand gentleman,--so proud
and yet so kind,--and I asked him to let me still be your servant. I
said I knew all great ladies had a maid, and if I was not clever enough
I could learn, and--and--" here Britta began to sob, "I said I did not
want any wages--only to live in a little corner of the same house where
you were,--to sew for you, and see you, and hear your voice sometimes--"
Here the poor little maiden broke down altogether and hid her face in
her apron crying bitterly.
The tears were in Thelma's eyes too, and she hastened to put her arm
round Britta's waist, and tried to soothe her by every loving word she
could think of.
"Hush, Britta dear! you must not cry," she said tenderly. "What did
Philip say?"
"He said," jerked out Britta convulsively, "that I was a g-good little
g-girl, and that he was g-glad I wanted to g-go!" Here her two sparkling
wet eyes peeped out of the apron inquiringly, and seeing nothing but the
sweetest affection on Thelma's attentive face, she went on more
steadily. "He p-pinched my cheek, and he laughed--and he said he would
rather have me for your maid than anybody--there!"
And this last exclamation was uttered with so much defiance that she
dashed away the apron altogether, and stood erect in self-congratulatory
glory, with a particularly red little nose and very trembling lips.
Thelma smiled, and caressed the tumbled brown curls.
"I am very glad, Britta!" she said earnestly. "Nothing could have
pleased me more! I must thank Philip. But it is of father I am
thinking--what will father and Sigurd do?"
"Oh, that is all settled, Froeken," said Britta, recovering herself
rapidly from her outburst. "The _bonde_ means to go for one of his long
voyages in the _Valkyrie_--it is time she was used again, I'm sure,--and
Sigurd will go with him. It will do them both good--and the tongues of
Bosekop can waggle as much as they please, none of us will be here to
mind them!"
"And you will escape your grandmother!" said Thelma amusedly, as she
once more set her spinning-wheel in motion.