Thelma
me,--but _pity_ me!"
He took her hands and laid them round his neck,--he drew her gently,
soothingly,--closer, closer, till he pressed her to his heart.
"Down in the dust are you?" he whispered brokenly. "My poor wife! God
forbid that I should keep you there!"
BOOK III.
THE LAND OF THE LONG SHADOW
CHAPTER XXXI.
"They have the night, who had, like us, the day--
We, whom day binds, shall have the night as they--
We, from the fetters of the light unbound,
Healed of our wound of living, shall sleep sound!"
SWINBURNE.
Night on the Altenfjord,--the long, long, changeless night of winter.
The sharp snow-covered crests of the mountains rose in white appeal
against the darkness of the sky,--the wild north wind tore through the
leafless branches of the pine-forests, bringing with it driving pellets
of stinging hail. Joyless and songless, the whole landscape lay as
though frozen into sculptured stone. The Sun slept,--and the Fjord,
black with brooding shadows, seemed silently to ask--where? Where was
the great king of Light?--the glorious god of the golden hair and ruddy
countenance?--the glittering warrior with the flaming shield and spear
invincible? Where had he found his rest? By what strange enchantment had
he fallen into so deep and long a drowsiness. The wind that had rioted
across the mountains, rooting up great trees in its shrieking career
northwards, grew hushed as it approached the Altenfjord--there a weird
stillness reigned, broken only by the sullen and monotonous plash of the
invisible waves upon the scarcely visible shore.
A few tiny, twinkling lights showed the irregular outline of Bosekop,
and now and then one or two fishing-boats with sable sails and small
colored lamps at mast and prow would flit across the inky water like
dark messengers from another world bound on some mournful errand. Human
figures, more shadowy than real, were to be seen occasionally moving on
the pier, and to the left of the little town, as the eye grew accustomed
to the moveless gloom, a group of persons, like ghosts in a dream, could
be dimly perceived, working busily at the mending of nets.
Suddenly a strange, unearthly glow flashed over the sombre scene,--a
rosy radiance deepening to brilliant streaks of fire. The dark heavens
were torn asunder, and through them streamed flaring pennons of
light,--waving, trembling, dancing, luminous ribbons of red, blue,
green, and a delicious amber, like the flowing of golden wine,--wider,
higher, more dazzlingly lustrous, the wondrous glory shone aloft, rising
upward from the horizon--thrusting long spears of lambent flame among
the murky retreating clouds, till in one magnificent coruscation of
resplendent beams a blazing arch of gold leaped from east to west,
spanning the visible breath of the Fjord, and casting towards the white
peaks above, vivid sparkles and reflections of jewel-like brightness and
color. Here was surely the Rainbow Bridge of Odin--the glittering
pathway leading to Valhalla! Long filmy threads of emerald and azure
trailed downwards from it, like ropes of fairy flowers, binding it to
the earth--above it hung a fleece-like nebulous whiteness,--a canopy
through which palpitated sudden flashes of amethyst. Then, as though the
arch were a bent bow for the hand of some heavenly hunter, crimson beams
darted across it in swift succession, like arrows shot at the dark
target of the world. Round and round swept the varying circles of
color--now advancing--now retreating--now turning the sullen waters
beneath into a quivering mass of steely green--now beating against the
snow-covered hills till they seemed pinnacles of heaped-up pearls and
diamonds. The whole landscape was transformed,--and the shadowy cluster
of men and women on the shore paused in their toil, and turned their
pale faces towards the rippling splendor,--the heavy fishing-nets
drooping from their hands like dark webs woven by giant spiders.
"'Tis the first time we have seen the Arch of Death this year," said one
in awed accents.
"Ay, ay!" returned another, with a sigh. "And some one is bound to cross
it, whether he will or no. 'Tis a sure sign!"
"Sure!" they all agreed, in hushed voices as faint and far-off as the
breaking of the tide against the rocks on the opposite coast.
As they spoke, the fairy-like bridge in the sky parted asunder and
vanished! The brilliant aurora borealis faded by swift degrees--a few
moments, and the land was again enveloped in gloom.
It might have been midnight--yet by the clock it was but four in the
afternoon. Dreary indeed was the Altenfjord,--yet the neighboring
village of Talvag was even drearier. There, desolation reigned
supreme--it was a frozen region of bitter, shelterless cold, where the
poverty-stricken inhabitants, smitten by the physical torpor and mental
stupefaction engendered by the long, dark season, scarcely stirred out
of their miserable homes, save to gather extra fuel. This is a time in
Norway, when beyond the Arctic Circle, the old gods yet have sway--when
in spite of their persistent, sometimes fanatical, adherence to the
strictest forms of Christianity, the people almost unconsciously revert
to the superstitions of their ancestors. Gathering round the blazing
pine-logs, they recount to one another in low voices the ancient legends
of dead and gone heroes,--and listening to the yell of the storm-wind
round their huts, they still fancy they hear the wild war-cries of the
Valkyries rushing past air full gallop on their coal-black steeds, with
their long hair floating behind them.
On this particular afternoon the appearance of the "Death-Arch," as they
called that special form of the aurora, had impressed the Talvig folk
greatly. Some of them were at the doors, and, regardless of the piercing
cold, occupied themselves in staring languidly at a reindeer sledge
which stood outside one of the more distant huts, evidently waiting for
some person within. The hoofs of the animals made no impression on the
hardened snow--now and again they gently shook the tinkling bells on
their harness, but otherwise were very patient. The sledge was in charge
of a youthful Laplander--a hideous, stunted specimen of humanity, who
appeared to be literally sewed up from head to foot in skins.
This cortege was evidently an object of curiosity,--the on-lookers eyed
it askance, and with a sort of fear. For did it not belong to the
terrible _bonde_, Olaf Gueldmar?--and would not the Laplander,--a useful
boy, well known in Talvig,--come to some fatal harm by watching, even
for a few minutes, the property of an acknowledged pagan? Who could
tell? The very reindeer might be possessed by evil spirits,--they were
certainly much sleeker and finer than the ordinary run of such animals.
There was something uncanny in the very look of them! Thus the
stupefied, unreasoning Talvig folk muttered, one to another, leaning
drowsily out of their half-open doors.
"'Tis a strange thing," said one man, "that woman as strong in the fear
of the Lord as Lovisa Elsland should call for one of the wicked to visit
her on her death-bed."
"Strange enough!" answered his neighbor, blinking over his pipe, and
knocking down some of the icicles pendent from his roof. "But maybe it
is to curse him with the undying curse of the godly."
"She's done that all her life," said the first speaker.
"That's true! She's been a faithful servant of the Gospel. All's right
with her in the next world--she'll die easily."
"Was it for her the Death-Arch shone?" asked an old woman, suddenly
thrusting her head, wrapped in a red woollen hood, out of a low doorway,
through which the light of a fire sparkled from the background, sending
vivid flashes across the snow.
The man who had spoken last shook his head solemnly.
"The Death-Arch never shone for a Christian yet," he said gravely. "No!
There's something else in the wind. We can't see it--but it will
come--it must come! That sign never fails."
And presently, tired of watching the waiting sledge and the passive
Laplander, he retreated within his house, shutting his door against the
darkness and the bitter wind. His neighbors followed his example,--and,
save for two or three red glimmers of light here and there, the little
village looked as though it had been deserted long ago--a picture of
frost-bound silence and solitude.
Meanwhile, in Lovisa Elsland's close and comfortless dwelling, stood
Olaf Gueldmar. His strong, stately figure, wrapped in furs, seemed almost
to fill the little place--he had thrown aside the thick scarf of wadmel
in which he had been wrapped to the eyes while driving in the teeth of
the wind,--and he now lifted his fur cap, thus displaying his silvery
hair, ruddy features, and open, massive brow. At that moment a woman who
was busying herself in putting fresh pine-logs on the smouldering fire,
turned and regarded him intently.
"Lord, Lord!" she muttered--"'tis a man of men,--he rejoiceth in his
strength, even as the lion,--and of what avail shall the curse of the
wicked avail against the soul that is firmly established!"
Gueldmar heard her not--he was looking towards a low pallet bed, on which
lay, extended at full length, an apparently insensible form.
"Has she been long thus?" he asked, in a low voice.
"Since last night," replied the woman--no other than Mr. Dyceworthy's
former servant, Ulrika. "She wakened suddenly, and bade me send for you.
To-day she has not spoken."
The _bonde_ sighed somewhat impatiently. He approached the now blazing
pine-logs, and as he drew off his thick fur driving-gloves, and warmed
his hands at the cheerful blaze, Ulrika again fixed her dull eyes upon
him with something of wonder and reluctant admiration. Presently she
trimmed an oil-lamp, and set it, burning dimly, on the table. Then she
went to the bed and bent over it,--after a pause of several minutes, she
turned and made a beckoning sign with her finger. Gueldmar advanced a
little,--when a sudden eldritch shriek startled him back, almost
curdling the blood in his veins. Out of the deep obscurity, like some
gaunt spectre rising from the tomb, started a face, wrinkled,
cadaverous, and distorted by suffering,--a face in which the fierce,
fevered eyes glittered with a strange and dreadful brilliancy--the face
of Lovisa Elsland, stern, forbidding, and already dark with the shadows
of approaching death. She stared vacantly at Gueldmar, whose picturesque
head was illumined by the ruddy glow of the fire--and feebly shaded her
eyes as though she saw something that hurt them. Ulrika raised her on
her tumbled pillow, and saying, in cold, unmoved tones--"Speak now, for
the time is short," she once more beckoned the _bonde_ imperatively.
He approached slowly.
"Lovisa Elsland," he began in distinct tones, addressing himself to
that ghastly countenance still partly shaded by one hand. "I am
here--Olaf Gueldmar. Dost thou know me?"
At the sound of his voice, a strange spasm contorted the withered
features of the dying woman. She bent her head as though to listen to
some far-off echo, and held up her skinny finger as though enjoining
silence.
"Know thee!" she babbled whisperingly. "How should I not know the
brown-haired Olaf! Olaf of the merry eye--Olaf, the pride of the Norse
maiden?" She lifted herself in a more erect attitude, and stretching out
her lean arms, went on as though chanting a monotonous recitative.
"Olaf, the wanderer over wild seas,--he comes and goes in his ship that
sails like a white bird on the sparkling waters--long and silent are the
days of his absence--mournful are the Fjelds and Fjords without the
smile of Olaf--Olaf the King!"
She paused, and Gueldmar regarded her in pitying wonder. Her face changed