XIMagnus was waiting in the hall, dressed in snow stockings and a long cape overcoat, rough and worn and belted about the waist. His face was stamped with the deep lines which in a strong man stand for resignation and in a weak one for despair. Thora thought she had never seen him look so big and brawny, but his voice when he spoke to her was as soft as a woman's, and he broke into the sunniest of smiles. She closed the door of the sitting-room to shut out the sound of the piano, and then came forward and held out her hand, feeling little and weak in her kirtle and the bridal crown across her forehead."I came to say good-by and to wish you a good voyage," he said."I'm so glad you've come," said Thora. "I heard you had gone away, and I was afraid I was going to miss you.""I've brought you this for a wedding present," said Magnus, taking up from the hall table a large white bear's skin which Thora had not noticed before."What a magnificent rug!" said Thora."Is it a good one?" said Magnus."It is perfectly beautiful. I have never seen anything like it. It must have cost you a fortune.""No, not a great deal. I bought it in the Northlands.""Then it was to get this that you went there?""Yes.""In the winter, too--such a long, cold journey!""I am strong, Thora--I never feel the cold."His sad eyes were glistening, and Thora's throat was thick."I shall use it on the ship and in the train and everywhere," she said. "And whenever I use it I will always think of you.""Will you?""Indeed I will. But we are going south, you know.""I know.""To England and France--perhaps to Italy.""It will do you good, Thora. The sun will do you good. And you will see the fruit and the flowers growing--it will be beautiful.""Will it not?"The piano was becoming louder, and there was a sound of shuffling feet--the people in the sitting-room were beginning to dance."And what do you think--Helga is going with us," said Thora."Helga!""Didn't Anna tell you?""Is Helga to go with you to Italy?""Oh, yes, and we are delighted to have her. She's so clever and bright--Oscar can never be dull for a moment while Helga is with us."The grave face looked sideways for a moment, and then he said, in a still gentler voice:"I hope you'll be happy on your journey, Thora.""I'm sure I shall. We shall all be happy. We sail by the 'Laura' to-morrow morning.""So mother told me--I've been taking your baggage aboard and seeing to your cabin.""And you have been doing that while we----""I wanted to do something for you, Thora.""But, Magnus, you ought to have been here by rights. Oscar always wished it. In fact he wanted you to be his best man.""Oscar did?""Indeed he did, but you couldn't be found, because you had gone on your journey."Over the sound of the music and the dancing the Governor's voice came from within, mingled with the Factor's hearty laughter."Perhaps it was just as well I was away," said Magnus. "The old people have never forgiven me for what I did, and if they ever came to suspect that somebody else was responsible----"He stopped, and then Thora dropped her eyes and said:"I was so glad you were in the cathedral.""It was beautiful," said Magnus."You have no feeling against Oscar now?""Not now. When I saw you kneeling together at the communion rails I thought of the day when we all knelt there. And then--then Oscar was my little brother once again.""Magnus--won't you--won't you kiss me?"He hesitated for a moment, but she held her sweet face up to him--pure as a saint's and wet with tears--and he opened his great arms and gathered the little white figure to his breast and kissed her on the forehead under the bridal crown."Good-by, little girl, and God bless you and make you very happy. But if you ever want me say 'Come,' and I'll come to you--if it's to the farthest corner of the earth."Thora began to cry audibly and Magnus bustled about and made for the door. He must be off, he had a long journey before him."And then Silvertop is outside--I must not keep him waiting."Silvertop?""Mother told me to take care of him until you return--so I'm taking him back to the farm.""Let me say good-by to him," said Thora.Magnus covered her from head to foot in the bear's skin and led her down the steps to the street. It was dark, but the stars were out and the northern lights were cleaving the sky as with the sweep of a mighty saber. All was white and silent, save for the deadened beat of the piano and the thud of the feet of the dancers. Two horses, saddled and bridled, stood quietly in the snow with their reins hanging over their heads, and Magnus, mounting one of them, said:"This is Golden Mane--Silvertop's big brother."Thora found her own pony, stroked its ears and kissed its nose, and then fled back to the door out of the frosty air."Good brothers go well together; we'll be home by midnight," cried Magnus.Thora watched them go. A glittering shaft of the aurora lit up the three as they turned the corner of the road--Magnus riding Golden Mane, and Silvertop, with an empty saddle, running briskly beside him.XIIWhen Thora returned to the sitting-room Oscar and Helga, both with sparkling eyes and flushed faces, were waltzing vigorously. Then Thora herself danced with the Governor, the Factor, the Hector, and, of course, with Oscar. But the room grew hot and stuffy, too full of excitement, and after a while Thora became pale and faint. Seeing this, after Aunt Margret had called attention to it, Oscar began to say it was time to break up. The young men bantered him ("Want to get rid of us, eh?") and Helga, who grew more and more hysterical, protested that the evening was still young, but Oscar sent his bride up-stairs to prepare for the journey to her husband's house."Let us all take her home, then," said one of the bridesmaids, and when Thora reappeared, muffled up for her night walk, with only eyes, nose, and mouth visible, she was surrounded by a group of merry girls, similarly bandaged, and chirping over her like linnets in spring.At last the final moment came when Thora had to leave her father's house for good, and then Aunt Margret, whose face had become grotesquely long and watery, broke down altogether."It's no use," she said. "I'm losing her, and I don't know what they'll do with my precious now.""Nonsense, Margret," said the Factor. "Oscar will take care of her.""He'd better, or I'll murder him," said Aunt Margret; and the idea of Aunt Margret murdering anybody was so amusing to the company that they broke up merrily.The Factor's family went to the door to see them off, and Helga, who was hot with dancing and excitement, but wore no wraps, stood on the top of the steps holding a lamp above her head to light them down the road. It was a paraffin lamp with a glass reservoir, but she paid no heed to any warning."Take care, Helga, do take care," said Oscar, but she only cried:"Good night, pleasant dreams!" and continued to wave the flickering lamp above her head."Helga, for mercy's sake, Helga!" shouted Oscar, and Thora said:"Yes, dear, don't let us have an accident on our wedding-day.""The better the day the better the deed," cried Helga, and she sent a ringing, hysterical laugh after them as they disappeared in the darkness.The wedding party went off in two batches, Oscar in the midst of the young men, whose arms were round his shoulders, and Thora in the midst of the young women, who were holding her by the waist and stopping at intervals to whisper mischievous messages in her ears. The crisp snow crackled under their feet, and the starry sky, with its northern lights, pulsed and throbbed like the hearts in their bosoms.When they came to the gate of Government House somebody suggested that Oscar, as a zealous Sagaman, ought to carry out the ancient custom of lifting his bride across the threshold; and then to Thora's delight, amid a squealing chorus of laughter, Oscar picked her up in his arms and carried her into the house, where Anna (who had gone on ahead) smuggled her up-stairs while the others went into the drawing-room to drink the last toast before parting.A bright fire was burning in the bridal chamber, the curtains were drawn, the bed was laid open, and the room looked like a white nest of eiderdown when Thora, with a fluttering heart, stepped into it."What a day it has been!" she said."Hasn't it?" said Anna, closing the door behind them."Well, I can always say I had a wonderful wedding-day, can't I?""Indeed, you can. A woman has only two days in her life that are her own--her very own--and her wedding-day is one of them.""And what is the other day, Anna?""The other? Oh, the other day is too far away for you to think about it yet, but all the days between belong to somebody else--her children or her husband.""But how sweet! How beautiful! To live in your husband, to give up everything to him, your life, yourself, everything! There's happiness in that, isn't there, Anna?""Indeed, there is, my dear, and pain, too, perhaps. But there's something better in this life than happiness, Thora, and that's blessedness, you know."This made Thora think of Magnus, but she heard Oscar laughing in the room below, and soon forgot everything else in a delicious shuddering which suddenly came over her. Anna helped her to undress, and when the crown and the kirtle were laid aside, she moved about for some moments without speaking. Then she said, softly:"Will you go to bed now, dearest, or shall I give you your dressing-gown?""Give me my dressing-gown," said Thora faintly.Anna moved about on tiptoe a moment or two longer, turning the lamp down and fixing the shade. Then she opened the door and stood for an instant on the threshold looking back at Thora where she sat combing out her hair before the stove. All at once her middle-aged, homely face became young and beautiful by the magic of a memory of her own, and going softly back she kissed Thora without saying a word, and then crept silently out of the room.Left alone, Thora looked timidly around her, and seeing things of Oscar's lying among her own she felt a new and still more delicious sense of happiness. During the days preceding the wedding she had thought that as soon as the service in the cathedral had come to an end and she was Oscar's wife a mysterious change would come over her, but that had not been so, and all day long she had felt quite the same. But now it was different, and in this room she had become another being--not herself only, but Oscar also. It was very sweet and beautiful, but it was a little frightening, too, and to ease her fast-beating heart she got into bed and covered up her face.She could hear the company breaking up below, and a little later she heard their footsteps crunching the snow under her window, which fronted the road. They stood there and sang a bridal song. It was the song of the "Two Roses."The winter was cold and the ground was white, but two roses of love still grew in the garden of God. The frost could not freeze the two roses of love, for they were warmed by the air of heaven; the sun could not scorch the two roses of love, for they were watered from the well of life. Two roses of love on a single stem; two roses of love in two fond young hearts; two roses of love and joy!When the song came to an end there was some merry giggling under the window, followed by shouts of "Good night, Thora!" "Happy dreams!" Then as the company went off they started the bridal song again, and in her mind's eye Thora could see them going back to the town, arm in arm, young girls and young men.Thora listened to the voices dying down the street, and for a moment all life seemed to be set to the music of love; Oscar and she would be children always, never growing older, but rambling hand in hand through a flowery world where everybody loved them and they loved everybody, and there could be no real trouble because love was all in all.But just then the cathedral clock struck eleven, and she remembered Magnus. She could see him crossing the desolate white heath under the shooting stream of the northern lights--a lonesome man riding one horse, while another, with an empty saddle, was running by his side. Poor Magnus! But there was no help for it!The voices died away in the distance, and there was a moment of silence in the cozy nest--a warm, muffled, secret kind of silence, broken by nothing but the underthrob of the ceaseless sea. Thora closed her eyes and held her breath. How happy she was! She was trembling like a bird caught and held in the hand, but even her fear was full of happiness.At the next moment there was a noiseless footstep on the floor, a sense of somebody in the room, and then--Oscar was leaning over her and kissing her on the lips.PART IIIYet ah, that spring should vanish with the rose!That youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close!The nightingale that in the branches sang,Ah, whence, and whither flown again, who knows?IThe wedding being over, and the wedding party gone, Anna went on a visit to Magnus in order to bear him company during the first weeks of his first winter, and to see that his house was in order.The farm was thirty-odd miles from the capital, not far from the scene of the sheep-gathering and in the middle of the great plain of Thingvellir--an historic spot, formerly the place of the Icelandic parliament, for the neglected Mount of Laws may still be seen there.There were only two houses on the plain--the farmhouse and the parsonage, with its little church beside it. The farmhouse was the larger of the two, and being on the line of road from the capital to the chief market of the Northland it had become a resting place for travelers.The Inn-farm had belonged to Anna's family for many generations and her father had been the last to hold it. He was a worthy man, silent and serious, much like Magnus in personal character, but he left the place badly embarrassed, having fallen into the hands of a defaulting factor. After his daughter married he lost his wife and then he died suddenly--people said of drink. Since then the estate had been twenty years in the hands of a steward, but the Governor had paid off the mortgage out of the savings of his salary and the farm was free.It was an endless delight to Anna to bring the place back to its former condition. She began with the sleeping accommodation, for sin comes with a laugh, she said, but goes with a cry. The shepherd and his wife she put in the upper bedroom (the Badstofa), the maids in the lower one, and the farm-boys in the loft. Each of the rooms was under its own roof, and the homestead as a whole was less like a single house than a group of houses, or like a gipsy encampment, with its peaked tents going off in different directions. The principal apartment was a large square hall, with two guest-rooms opening out of it. Magnus was to sleep in one of these guest rooms, except when both were wanted for travelers, and then he was to lie on a mattress stretched on the floor.Anna inspected the kitchen (the Elt House) and the storehouse (the Skemma)--examined the winter's stock of potted meat and dried and salted cod and whale, and put a lock on the Bur, for seldom does the servant-maid starve in the larder, she said. Finally she turned her attention to the Hall, which was the general living room, and furnished it afresh with a settle, an armchair, a Bornholme clock, and a big German stove. As a finishing stroke she hung two large photographs on the walls, one of the Governor, the other of herself. The Governor was gorgeous in his gold-braided uniform, but she was homely in her black hufa, and on second thoughts she would have taken her own picture down but Magnus said something nice about it and she allowed it to remain.Anna's visit was a long one, but as often as she prepared to go, saying home was the best place for the stupid, Magnus answered that in that case Gudrun must unpack her trunk, for the Governor could not be expecting her. In this way she stayed at Thingvellir until the snow began to be honeycombed by the thaw and the ribs of the landscape to be revealed again.Meantime her life at the farm was simple and primitive and every day had its own duty. Before it was light in the morning she rang the bell in the hall which awakened the household, and sent the maids to the shippons and the boys to the beasts in their pens. And when the short day had closed in she rang the bell again for supper, and finally for prayers, when the house-father (Magnus now) gave out a hymn and read a lesson.On Sunday she went to church, and met the fifty-odd people who had ridden over from the farms that bordered the plain. She sat in the seat in front of the communion rail, with its picture of Christ in white robes among warm eastern foliage. Magnus sat in the choir and put up the figures on the plate that gave the numbers of the hymns. He had little voice and no music, but Anna listened and was happy.Though the nights were long the household was never idle. While the servants had to mend and make blankets in their own quarters, Magnus would weave on a loom he set up in the hall and his mother would spin or knit stockings. He was full of great projects again, and though his former schemes were impossible to him now he had others of equal consequence.What Iceland wanted was roads; roads were the landmarks of civilization; without roads the most productive country in the world could not prosper, for what was the use of a cow that gave much milk if it kicked over the pail?Night after night in the pauses of the loom Anna had to listen to this story and to assent to the schemes that were tied on to it. Yes, Magnus was going to be very comfortable and she could go home in content."After all, perhaps everything was for the best," she said, "and if there were only a mistress in the house----"But Magnus rattled at the loom and nothing more was heard for some moments."John and Gudrun are very well, in their way, but it's thin blood that isn't thicker than water, and when I go back----"The loom rattled still louder."But a young man who couldn't be satisfied with a girl like Thora isn't likely to find many to his liking."And then the loom rattled louder than ever, and nothing more was said that night.IIAt intervals during Anna's visit to the farm there came news of the wedding party--the letters being sent on by the weekly post from Government House and from the Factor's. The first to come was from England, and it was a joint letter to everybody written by all three of the wanderers. Oscar began it, with a playful review of their journey from the time of the departure of the "Laura.""As soon as we set foot on the ship we were told that Captain Zimsen had given up his own cabin to us, and from that hour to this everybody has shown us boundless hospitality, especially father's old college friends, the professor at Oxford and the banker here in London. Naturally we know we owe everything to the magic of the Governor's name, and consequently I am cultivating an extraordinary reverence for it, though I doubt if I shall ever find it more beautiful than I did on the morning of our wedding at the bottom of that splendid check.""Ha, ha, the mouse knows where to come back for his cheese," said Anna.Helga came next, with a glowing account of the London theaters, opera-houses, and picture-galleries."The half had not been told me, as the big Book says, and I wonder more than ever why a poor girl should be doomed to waste her life in a wilderness when she might live in a world of so many clever and beautiful people.""M'm! It's poor work pouring water on a rock," said Anna.Thora came last with a rather sad little note. It was all very wonderful, no doubt, but she was feeling just a wee bit home-sick. Did not care so very much for operas and picture-galleries, so Oscar had to take Helga by herself."I like best to sit in the window of the hotel and look at the crowds in the square. Such multitudes! Always going and coming and hardly anybody ever speaking to anybody else! That's what strikes you at first as most extraordinary. It is so strange to think that the people in the streets do not even know each other by sight, and that every young woman who goes by has her own family somewhere--her own husband and perhaps her own children--and that she is hurrying away to them. I don't know why, but it makes me feel so lonely, and then I almost want to be back in my dear, sweet, homely old Iceland."Magnus had to read this letter aloud--for Anna was no reader of handwriting--and when he came to Thora's part his voice thickened and broke.The next letter came from Paris, and Helga wrote the whole of it."Such sights! Such luxury! Such gaiety! And such dreams of dresses! And then the opera--Chopin, Verdi, Wagner, Greig! We are at the opera every night--that is to say, Oscar and I are, Thora not caring very much for music. Thora's chief pleasure is to walk in the flower market by the Madeleine and watch the children playing, and look as if she wished she were one of them.""Just like our Thora," said Anna."Neils is here--Neils Finsen you know. Neils has finished his course at the Musical College, and is connected in some way with Covent Garden and has come to Paris on managerial business. He seems to be getting along wonderfully and it makes me feel almost envious. Oh, to get on in life! To escape forever from that grey sky and all those freezing surroundings! What I would give to do it! Nothing should stand between me and success in life if I only saw the chance of it. And who knows--perhaps I may some day! Neils declares that my voice has improved wonderfully and I am practising constantly. But to have any real opportunity in music one ought to be here or in London or Dresden, and it is so expensive. I'm nearly penniless as it is, and I am so shockingly dowdy that if some one does not send me----"The letter was to the Factor and he had cut away the end of it."M'm! M'm!" said Anna. "What the Miss is used to, the Misses keeps up." And then they ate their supper of smoked mutton and black bread in silence and rang the bell for prayers.The third letter from the wedding party came from Italy, and it was written by Oscar only. The post that brought it had been delayed by a snow-storm, and had sheltered two nights on the Moss Fell Heath. At the Inn-farm the cattle-pens had been completely buried, and Magnus and the men had worked up to their waists from daylight to dark, digging a way out of the snow that the beasts might be fed and watered."The world will be white with you in Iceland, but here in Italy the roses are in bud, and the sky is blue and the air is balmy. What a time we have had of it! We came down from Venice, the city of silence and dream, through Florence, the city of sunshine, and Rome, the mother of cities, to Naples, the city of song. Italy seems to set all Europe to music! Lovely and beloved Italy! If only some one could do the same for Iceland! Rugged, gaunt, grand old Iceland! But wait--only wait--perhaps somebody will do it yet!""Ah, Oscar, Oscar," said Anna, "it's easier to count twelve mountains than to climb one.""Helga is enjoying the trip tremendously. Out every minute of the day and making friends on every side. Thora does not seem so well, poor child, and she hardly cares to go about. We are going on to the Riviera next week and thence back to Iceland. I must, of course, be home for the opening of Althing, but Helga is grudging every day. It is now two o'clock in the morning and we have just returned from a Veglioni--that is to say a masque ball--this (yesterday) being the last of Lent. Flowers, streamers, confetti, and such dresses! Helga looked magnificent in a pale blue chiffon of the latest model and was, out of all comparison, the belle of the evening. Poor Thora did not care to go, so she stayed in the hotel and went to bed early."Magnus and his mother also went to bed early on the night they read that letter. Anna rung the bell that hung from the ceiling of the hall, and the servants in their skin slippers and woolen stockings trooped in for prayers. The lesson was the story of the widow's cruise and the hymn was--"Meek and low, meek and low,I shall soon my Jesus know."The last letter they received from the wanderers came on the first day of spring, when the thaw had set in, and the water was running down the discolored snow on the mountains like tears on a wrinkled face, and the sheep were beginning to lamb. It was from Monte Carlo and was written by Thora to Anna herself."This place is so beautiful, Anna, yet I do not think I like it very much. The houses are all splendid palaces, but they don't seem so comfortable as the little homes in Iceland. I dare not say this to Oscar, lest he should think me ungrateful, and certainly there is no fog or mist here, and no big white waves, because the sea is always blue; and of course the trees are so wonderful and the blossoms so beautiful! Sometimes they have a carnival, and then wagon-loads of flowers are flung about everywhere; but next day it is quite pitiful to see the lovely roses that have been trampled upon being swept up in the streets."In the afternoon a band plays in a garden and you drive in a carriage round and round it. At night you go to a restaurant--bigger than the Artisan's Institute--and there another band plays while you eat your dinner--two or three hundred at once, and all the ladies in low dresses. After that you go to a Casino, where all is silent and rather dark and people sit round tables and play cards for money. Everybody plays cards here because everybody seems to be always taking a holiday.""Ah, but the devil never does," said Anna."It is shocking to hear, though, how much is sometimes lost in a moment. Last night Oscar pointed out a pale-faced young man who had gambled away the whole of his estate--larger and more valuable than the Inn-farm itself. They say he had not intended to play at all when he went into the room, but the fever mastered him and he could not resist it."Ay, ay, we don't see the ruts when the snow covers them," said Anna."It made me feel ill and I couldn't stay any longer, but Helga wished to remain, so Oscar put me in a carriage and I came back to the hotel and went to bed. I do wish Helga were not so fond of such places. She is, however, and as a consequence Oscar is compelled to go with her, although he does not want to, and sometimes he comes back very depressed. Since we came here his sleep has been much broken, and his manner very restless. I shall be glad when we leave this place."But we have had such a wonderful time altogether, and Oscar has been so kind to me and I have been so happy. All the same, I shall be glad to be home again, to see all the dear old faces--yours and Auntie Margret's and father's and the Governor's. I suppose Magnus does not talk of me now--does he? How is Silvertop? Tell Magnus to rub his ears for me and kiss his rough old nose. What a romp we'll have over the Heath some day! But I suppose I must not romp too much now, must I? It is so strange, Anna--there are hardly any babies about this place! Not like Italy, where you see them everywhere, with their poor little legs wrapped up like a mummy's."We are to be back for the first of summer, and I'm counting the days already. Give our love to everybody and if anybody asks after me in particular say I am so well and so happy."The loom in the hall lay idle on the night when Magnus read this letter. Nobody spoke until Anna lit two candles and gave one of them to Magnus, saying:"Here! You're tired, and no wonder, being up before daybreak. How many lambs this morning, Magnus?""Twenty-two, but one of the best of them is dead.""That's the way of it always. Good night!""Good night!"At the door of his bedroom Magnus paused, candle in hand."Mother!""Well?""Do you think she is so very happy?""Our Thora? God knows, my son!" said Anna.IIIThe snow was gone and the pale ground was green and golden with the raiment and the jewels of spring when the travelers returned to Iceland. Rounding the head of the fiord in the early morning, when the little capital was smoking for breakfast, Captain Zimsen had fired a cannon in honor of their home-coming, and everybody ran out-of-doors in delight, thinking the man-of-war had come from Copenhagen, but there was greater joy still when the "Laura" dropped her anchor and the little boats that had gone out to meet her came back with the news that the wedding party had returned.Half the men of the town went down to the jetty to welcome the wanderers; among them the Governor in his gala uniform, the Factor in his best scull-cap, smoking his best German pipe, the Sheriff, the Rector, and the Bishop.The Factor's big white boat had been sent off instantly to fetch the three ashore, and when it was coming back there was a good deal of curiosity as to how they would look after their long journey. Oscar, who was standing in the bow, was seen to be sunburnt, and slightly older-looking, having grown a small, fair mustache, which was curled up at the ends. It was observed by somebody that he wore the latest pattern of waistcoat and carried an Italian cloak over his arm. Helga, who was standing in the middle of the boat, looked a shade more buxom, and wore a new French hat. She had a kodak swung over her shoulder and was looking at the people on the jetty through an ivory-framed field-glass. And Thora, who was sitting in the stern in the costume in which she went away, with Magnus's white bearskin across her knees, looked a thought thinner than before, but her face was bright with smiles, though there were tears in her sparkling eyes.When the boat came alongside the salutations were lusty and robustious. Such laughter! Such chaff! Such prolonged handshaking and slapping on the back! After the Governor and the Factor had kissed Thora they found their cheeks were wet, but Helga was as bright as the day and Oscar made everybody happy. He shook hands all round and hailed even the fishermen and boatmen by name. "He doesn't forget an old friend, eh?" said an old fellow in bare feet.Then away they trooped to Government House, where Anna was waiting in apron and hufa at the door of the porch. Thora cried for joy at sight of her, and had to be carried off to her bedroom. And when Aunt Margret came in her oiled ringlets and Oscar would have kissed her she beat him off with a playful pat on the cheek, and saying, "I must see what you've done with my child first," ran straight upstairs.Helga went up also to take off her hat, and the Governor and the Factor carried Oscar into the drawing-room, where the Bishop, the Sheriff and the Rector joined them. Maria brought in coffee and chocolate, and the old men charged their pipes and plied Oscar with questions. The Governor asked about English politics, the Factor about custom-house duties, the Bishop about the Vatican, and the Rector about the excavations in the Roman Forum.Oscar answered all of them with a dash and emphasis that had the look of knowledge and the effect of wit, and then glancing off the heavy ground of fact he went tobogganing down the slippery slopes of fiction, with amusing tales of their travels and of the ridiculous things that had and had not happened to them.All his stories told, every time he pulled the trigger his pistol fired, and the old men laughed until they cried. "What a boy he is!" "He plays with every finger." His high spirits affected them like sunshine after dark days, like a breeze after a calm at sea, like the swing of a boat after the first dip of the oar. He was the same reckless, irresponsible, lovable prodigal as before, and it was not until afterward that anybody remembered there had been a hollow ring in his hilarity, a false note in his joy.Helga came down to the drawing-room and the men received her with a shout."How plump she has grown!" said the Governor."She has certainly filled out on the trip," said the Factor."Hasn't she?" said Oscar. "Just what she wanted--all she wanted.""Nonsense! Let us talk of something serious," said Helga.Thora came next, with Anna and Aunt Margret buzzing and humming about her like bees. She had changed to her old Iceland dress--just for remembrance--and now that she could be seen without her veil she was undoubtedly thinner, and she had a pinched look about the nostrils and a feverish spot in the middle of her cheeks. But her face was shining with timid smiles and she was overflowing with gratitude."Anna has given us such beautiful rooms, Oscar, the big one overlooking the road and the long one behind it, though I don't know what in the world we are going to do with two.""Oh, don't worry yourself about that, dear--we may find a use for them by and by," said Anna with a knowing nod of the head, and then the color flew up to Thora's eyes like a flag of distress, and the men began to smile.Anna was smiling also and making signals to the Governor and chuckling to him behind her hand. "Is it so?" "Yes, indeed, I asked her up-stairs and it's just as I expected." Then the Governor in his turn began to chuckle and to whisper to the Factor. "No? Is it a fact?" "So Anna tells me." And then they chuckled together, until everybody laughed at them, whereupon the Factor said:"And now, Oscar, you've told us all about London and Paris and Rome, but not a word about the place where they make money without working for it.""Monte Carlo? Haven't I?" said Oscar. "Oh, well--a beautiful place! In fact an absolute paradise.""An absolute hell if half one hears is true," said the Governor."Well, yes--yes, that's so, too," said Oscar."I once heard of a man who made ten pounds in a single night--think of that," said the Factor."Goodness' sake!" cried Aunt Margret."But what's the good of having a chest full of gold if the devil keeps the key?" said the Governor.Then Helga, who was sitting on the piano-stool, began to play softly, and Oscar swung round to her."Ah, 'Addio Napoli!' We must sing you some of the Neapolitan songs, father."This was received with a chorus of approval, and for the next half-hour Helga played and Oscar sang the gay ditties with which Naples fills the air of Italy with song. And when at one moment the Factor would have come back to the man who made ten pounds in a single night, Helga struck up the tarantella and Oscar danced it.At length the Governor said, "Everything has a stopping place except Time. It's late, and Thora is looking tired, so I'm going to turn out everybody who doesn't live here.""Quite right, too," said Aunt Margret, "and I'm going to carry Helga off to her own quarters.""Iwill take Helga home," said Oscar, and with further handshaking and well-wishing the party began to break up."After all I suppose you are glad to be back, Thora?" said the Bishop."Very, very glad," replied Thora."Ha, ha! It isn't easy to hobble a home-sick pony," laughed the Rector. "And you, Helga?""I'm not glad at all, Rector. Who could be glad to leave all that loveliness for a wilderness like this."That chilled everybody for a moment, and thinking to come to Helga's relief, Oscar said:"There's something in what Helga says, certainly.""Then you, also, Oscar----""No, Rector, no--that is to say--well, I'm glad to be back and I shall be glad to go away again."And then everybody was as happy as before.IV
XI
Magnus was waiting in the hall, dressed in snow stockings and a long cape overcoat, rough and worn and belted about the waist. His face was stamped with the deep lines which in a strong man stand for resignation and in a weak one for despair. Thora thought she had never seen him look so big and brawny, but his voice when he spoke to her was as soft as a woman's, and he broke into the sunniest of smiles. She closed the door of the sitting-room to shut out the sound of the piano, and then came forward and held out her hand, feeling little and weak in her kirtle and the bridal crown across her forehead.
"I came to say good-by and to wish you a good voyage," he said.
"I'm so glad you've come," said Thora. "I heard you had gone away, and I was afraid I was going to miss you."
"I've brought you this for a wedding present," said Magnus, taking up from the hall table a large white bear's skin which Thora had not noticed before.
"What a magnificent rug!" said Thora.
"Is it a good one?" said Magnus.
"It is perfectly beautiful. I have never seen anything like it. It must have cost you a fortune."
"No, not a great deal. I bought it in the Northlands."
"Then it was to get this that you went there?"
"Yes."
"In the winter, too--such a long, cold journey!"
"I am strong, Thora--I never feel the cold."
His sad eyes were glistening, and Thora's throat was thick.
"I shall use it on the ship and in the train and everywhere," she said. "And whenever I use it I will always think of you."
"Will you?"
"Indeed I will. But we are going south, you know."
"I know."
"To England and France--perhaps to Italy."
"It will do you good, Thora. The sun will do you good. And you will see the fruit and the flowers growing--it will be beautiful."
"Will it not?"
The piano was becoming louder, and there was a sound of shuffling feet--the people in the sitting-room were beginning to dance.
"And what do you think--Helga is going with us," said Thora.
"Helga!"
"Didn't Anna tell you?"
"Is Helga to go with you to Italy?"
"Oh, yes, and we are delighted to have her. She's so clever and bright--Oscar can never be dull for a moment while Helga is with us."
The grave face looked sideways for a moment, and then he said, in a still gentler voice:
"I hope you'll be happy on your journey, Thora."
"I'm sure I shall. We shall all be happy. We sail by the 'Laura' to-morrow morning."
"So mother told me--I've been taking your baggage aboard and seeing to your cabin."
"And you have been doing that while we----"
"I wanted to do something for you, Thora."
"But, Magnus, you ought to have been here by rights. Oscar always wished it. In fact he wanted you to be his best man."
"Oscar did?"
"Indeed he did, but you couldn't be found, because you had gone on your journey."
Over the sound of the music and the dancing the Governor's voice came from within, mingled with the Factor's hearty laughter.
"Perhaps it was just as well I was away," said Magnus. "The old people have never forgiven me for what I did, and if they ever came to suspect that somebody else was responsible----"
He stopped, and then Thora dropped her eyes and said:
"I was so glad you were in the cathedral."
"It was beautiful," said Magnus.
"You have no feeling against Oscar now?"
"Not now. When I saw you kneeling together at the communion rails I thought of the day when we all knelt there. And then--then Oscar was my little brother once again."
"Magnus--won't you--won't you kiss me?"
He hesitated for a moment, but she held her sweet face up to him--pure as a saint's and wet with tears--and he opened his great arms and gathered the little white figure to his breast and kissed her on the forehead under the bridal crown.
"Good-by, little girl, and God bless you and make you very happy. But if you ever want me say 'Come,' and I'll come to you--if it's to the farthest corner of the earth."
Thora began to cry audibly and Magnus bustled about and made for the door. He must be off, he had a long journey before him.
"And then Silvertop is outside--I must not keep him waiting.
"Silvertop?"
"Mother told me to take care of him until you return--so I'm taking him back to the farm."
"Let me say good-by to him," said Thora.
Magnus covered her from head to foot in the bear's skin and led her down the steps to the street. It was dark, but the stars were out and the northern lights were cleaving the sky as with the sweep of a mighty saber. All was white and silent, save for the deadened beat of the piano and the thud of the feet of the dancers. Two horses, saddled and bridled, stood quietly in the snow with their reins hanging over their heads, and Magnus, mounting one of them, said:
"This is Golden Mane--Silvertop's big brother."
Thora found her own pony, stroked its ears and kissed its nose, and then fled back to the door out of the frosty air.
"Good brothers go well together; we'll be home by midnight," cried Magnus.
Thora watched them go. A glittering shaft of the aurora lit up the three as they turned the corner of the road--Magnus riding Golden Mane, and Silvertop, with an empty saddle, running briskly beside him.
XII
When Thora returned to the sitting-room Oscar and Helga, both with sparkling eyes and flushed faces, were waltzing vigorously. Then Thora herself danced with the Governor, the Factor, the Hector, and, of course, with Oscar. But the room grew hot and stuffy, too full of excitement, and after a while Thora became pale and faint. Seeing this, after Aunt Margret had called attention to it, Oscar began to say it was time to break up. The young men bantered him ("Want to get rid of us, eh?") and Helga, who grew more and more hysterical, protested that the evening was still young, but Oscar sent his bride up-stairs to prepare for the journey to her husband's house.
"Let us all take her home, then," said one of the bridesmaids, and when Thora reappeared, muffled up for her night walk, with only eyes, nose, and mouth visible, she was surrounded by a group of merry girls, similarly bandaged, and chirping over her like linnets in spring.
At last the final moment came when Thora had to leave her father's house for good, and then Aunt Margret, whose face had become grotesquely long and watery, broke down altogether.
"It's no use," she said. "I'm losing her, and I don't know what they'll do with my precious now."
"Nonsense, Margret," said the Factor. "Oscar will take care of her."
"He'd better, or I'll murder him," said Aunt Margret; and the idea of Aunt Margret murdering anybody was so amusing to the company that they broke up merrily.
The Factor's family went to the door to see them off, and Helga, who was hot with dancing and excitement, but wore no wraps, stood on the top of the steps holding a lamp above her head to light them down the road. It was a paraffin lamp with a glass reservoir, but she paid no heed to any warning.
"Take care, Helga, do take care," said Oscar, but she only cried:
"Good night, pleasant dreams!" and continued to wave the flickering lamp above her head.
"Helga, for mercy's sake, Helga!" shouted Oscar, and Thora said:
"Yes, dear, don't let us have an accident on our wedding-day."
"The better the day the better the deed," cried Helga, and she sent a ringing, hysterical laugh after them as they disappeared in the darkness.
The wedding party went off in two batches, Oscar in the midst of the young men, whose arms were round his shoulders, and Thora in the midst of the young women, who were holding her by the waist and stopping at intervals to whisper mischievous messages in her ears. The crisp snow crackled under their feet, and the starry sky, with its northern lights, pulsed and throbbed like the hearts in their bosoms.
When they came to the gate of Government House somebody suggested that Oscar, as a zealous Sagaman, ought to carry out the ancient custom of lifting his bride across the threshold; and then to Thora's delight, amid a squealing chorus of laughter, Oscar picked her up in his arms and carried her into the house, where Anna (who had gone on ahead) smuggled her up-stairs while the others went into the drawing-room to drink the last toast before parting.
A bright fire was burning in the bridal chamber, the curtains were drawn, the bed was laid open, and the room looked like a white nest of eiderdown when Thora, with a fluttering heart, stepped into it.
"What a day it has been!" she said.
"Hasn't it?" said Anna, closing the door behind them.
"Well, I can always say I had a wonderful wedding-day, can't I?"
"Indeed, you can. A woman has only two days in her life that are her own--her very own--and her wedding-day is one of them."
"And what is the other day, Anna?"
"The other? Oh, the other day is too far away for you to think about it yet, but all the days between belong to somebody else--her children or her husband."
"But how sweet! How beautiful! To live in your husband, to give up everything to him, your life, yourself, everything! There's happiness in that, isn't there, Anna?"
"Indeed, there is, my dear, and pain, too, perhaps. But there's something better in this life than happiness, Thora, and that's blessedness, you know."
This made Thora think of Magnus, but she heard Oscar laughing in the room below, and soon forgot everything else in a delicious shuddering which suddenly came over her. Anna helped her to undress, and when the crown and the kirtle were laid aside, she moved about for some moments without speaking. Then she said, softly:
"Will you go to bed now, dearest, or shall I give you your dressing-gown?"
"Give me my dressing-gown," said Thora faintly.
Anna moved about on tiptoe a moment or two longer, turning the lamp down and fixing the shade. Then she opened the door and stood for an instant on the threshold looking back at Thora where she sat combing out her hair before the stove. All at once her middle-aged, homely face became young and beautiful by the magic of a memory of her own, and going softly back she kissed Thora without saying a word, and then crept silently out of the room.
Left alone, Thora looked timidly around her, and seeing things of Oscar's lying among her own she felt a new and still more delicious sense of happiness. During the days preceding the wedding she had thought that as soon as the service in the cathedral had come to an end and she was Oscar's wife a mysterious change would come over her, but that had not been so, and all day long she had felt quite the same. But now it was different, and in this room she had become another being--not herself only, but Oscar also. It was very sweet and beautiful, but it was a little frightening, too, and to ease her fast-beating heart she got into bed and covered up her face.
She could hear the company breaking up below, and a little later she heard their footsteps crunching the snow under her window, which fronted the road. They stood there and sang a bridal song. It was the song of the "Two Roses."
The winter was cold and the ground was white, but two roses of love still grew in the garden of God. The frost could not freeze the two roses of love, for they were warmed by the air of heaven; the sun could not scorch the two roses of love, for they were watered from the well of life. Two roses of love on a single stem; two roses of love in two fond young hearts; two roses of love and joy!
When the song came to an end there was some merry giggling under the window, followed by shouts of "Good night, Thora!" "Happy dreams!" Then as the company went off they started the bridal song again, and in her mind's eye Thora could see them going back to the town, arm in arm, young girls and young men.
Thora listened to the voices dying down the street, and for a moment all life seemed to be set to the music of love; Oscar and she would be children always, never growing older, but rambling hand in hand through a flowery world where everybody loved them and they loved everybody, and there could be no real trouble because love was all in all.
But just then the cathedral clock struck eleven, and she remembered Magnus. She could see him crossing the desolate white heath under the shooting stream of the northern lights--a lonesome man riding one horse, while another, with an empty saddle, was running by his side. Poor Magnus! But there was no help for it!
The voices died away in the distance, and there was a moment of silence in the cozy nest--a warm, muffled, secret kind of silence, broken by nothing but the underthrob of the ceaseless sea. Thora closed her eyes and held her breath. How happy she was! She was trembling like a bird caught and held in the hand, but even her fear was full of happiness.
At the next moment there was a noiseless footstep on the floor, a sense of somebody in the room, and then--Oscar was leaning over her and kissing her on the lips.
PART III
Yet ah, that spring should vanish with the rose!That youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close!The nightingale that in the branches sang,Ah, whence, and whither flown again, who knows?
Yet ah, that spring should vanish with the rose!That youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close!The nightingale that in the branches sang,Ah, whence, and whither flown again, who knows?
Yet ah, that spring should vanish with the rose!
That youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close!
The nightingale that in the branches sang,
Ah, whence, and whither flown again, who knows?
I
The wedding being over, and the wedding party gone, Anna went on a visit to Magnus in order to bear him company during the first weeks of his first winter, and to see that his house was in order.
The farm was thirty-odd miles from the capital, not far from the scene of the sheep-gathering and in the middle of the great plain of Thingvellir--an historic spot, formerly the place of the Icelandic parliament, for the neglected Mount of Laws may still be seen there.
There were only two houses on the plain--the farmhouse and the parsonage, with its little church beside it. The farmhouse was the larger of the two, and being on the line of road from the capital to the chief market of the Northland it had become a resting place for travelers.
The Inn-farm had belonged to Anna's family for many generations and her father had been the last to hold it. He was a worthy man, silent and serious, much like Magnus in personal character, but he left the place badly embarrassed, having fallen into the hands of a defaulting factor. After his daughter married he lost his wife and then he died suddenly--people said of drink. Since then the estate had been twenty years in the hands of a steward, but the Governor had paid off the mortgage out of the savings of his salary and the farm was free.
It was an endless delight to Anna to bring the place back to its former condition. She began with the sleeping accommodation, for sin comes with a laugh, she said, but goes with a cry. The shepherd and his wife she put in the upper bedroom (the Badstofa), the maids in the lower one, and the farm-boys in the loft. Each of the rooms was under its own roof, and the homestead as a whole was less like a single house than a group of houses, or like a gipsy encampment, with its peaked tents going off in different directions. The principal apartment was a large square hall, with two guest-rooms opening out of it. Magnus was to sleep in one of these guest rooms, except when both were wanted for travelers, and then he was to lie on a mattress stretched on the floor.
Anna inspected the kitchen (the Elt House) and the storehouse (the Skemma)--examined the winter's stock of potted meat and dried and salted cod and whale, and put a lock on the Bur, for seldom does the servant-maid starve in the larder, she said. Finally she turned her attention to the Hall, which was the general living room, and furnished it afresh with a settle, an armchair, a Bornholme clock, and a big German stove. As a finishing stroke she hung two large photographs on the walls, one of the Governor, the other of herself. The Governor was gorgeous in his gold-braided uniform, but she was homely in her black hufa, and on second thoughts she would have taken her own picture down but Magnus said something nice about it and she allowed it to remain.
Anna's visit was a long one, but as often as she prepared to go, saying home was the best place for the stupid, Magnus answered that in that case Gudrun must unpack her trunk, for the Governor could not be expecting her. In this way she stayed at Thingvellir until the snow began to be honeycombed by the thaw and the ribs of the landscape to be revealed again.
Meantime her life at the farm was simple and primitive and every day had its own duty. Before it was light in the morning she rang the bell in the hall which awakened the household, and sent the maids to the shippons and the boys to the beasts in their pens. And when the short day had closed in she rang the bell again for supper, and finally for prayers, when the house-father (Magnus now) gave out a hymn and read a lesson.
On Sunday she went to church, and met the fifty-odd people who had ridden over from the farms that bordered the plain. She sat in the seat in front of the communion rail, with its picture of Christ in white robes among warm eastern foliage. Magnus sat in the choir and put up the figures on the plate that gave the numbers of the hymns. He had little voice and no music, but Anna listened and was happy.
Though the nights were long the household was never idle. While the servants had to mend and make blankets in their own quarters, Magnus would weave on a loom he set up in the hall and his mother would spin or knit stockings. He was full of great projects again, and though his former schemes were impossible to him now he had others of equal consequence.
What Iceland wanted was roads; roads were the landmarks of civilization; without roads the most productive country in the world could not prosper, for what was the use of a cow that gave much milk if it kicked over the pail?
Night after night in the pauses of the loom Anna had to listen to this story and to assent to the schemes that were tied on to it. Yes, Magnus was going to be very comfortable and she could go home in content.
"After all, perhaps everything was for the best," she said, "and if there were only a mistress in the house----"
But Magnus rattled at the loom and nothing more was heard for some moments.
"John and Gudrun are very well, in their way, but it's thin blood that isn't thicker than water, and when I go back----"
The loom rattled still louder.
"But a young man who couldn't be satisfied with a girl like Thora isn't likely to find many to his liking."
And then the loom rattled louder than ever, and nothing more was said that night.
II
At intervals during Anna's visit to the farm there came news of the wedding party--the letters being sent on by the weekly post from Government House and from the Factor's. The first to come was from England, and it was a joint letter to everybody written by all three of the wanderers. Oscar began it, with a playful review of their journey from the time of the departure of the "Laura."
"As soon as we set foot on the ship we were told that Captain Zimsen had given up his own cabin to us, and from that hour to this everybody has shown us boundless hospitality, especially father's old college friends, the professor at Oxford and the banker here in London. Naturally we know we owe everything to the magic of the Governor's name, and consequently I am cultivating an extraordinary reverence for it, though I doubt if I shall ever find it more beautiful than I did on the morning of our wedding at the bottom of that splendid check."
"Ha, ha, the mouse knows where to come back for his cheese," said Anna.
Helga came next, with a glowing account of the London theaters, opera-houses, and picture-galleries.
"The half had not been told me, as the big Book says, and I wonder more than ever why a poor girl should be doomed to waste her life in a wilderness when she might live in a world of so many clever and beautiful people."
"M'm! It's poor work pouring water on a rock," said Anna.
Thora came last with a rather sad little note. It was all very wonderful, no doubt, but she was feeling just a wee bit home-sick. Did not care so very much for operas and picture-galleries, so Oscar had to take Helga by herself.
"I like best to sit in the window of the hotel and look at the crowds in the square. Such multitudes! Always going and coming and hardly anybody ever speaking to anybody else! That's what strikes you at first as most extraordinary. It is so strange to think that the people in the streets do not even know each other by sight, and that every young woman who goes by has her own family somewhere--her own husband and perhaps her own children--and that she is hurrying away to them. I don't know why, but it makes me feel so lonely, and then I almost want to be back in my dear, sweet, homely old Iceland."
Magnus had to read this letter aloud--for Anna was no reader of handwriting--and when he came to Thora's part his voice thickened and broke.
The next letter came from Paris, and Helga wrote the whole of it.
"Such sights! Such luxury! Such gaiety! And such dreams of dresses! And then the opera--Chopin, Verdi, Wagner, Greig! We are at the opera every night--that is to say, Oscar and I are, Thora not caring very much for music. Thora's chief pleasure is to walk in the flower market by the Madeleine and watch the children playing, and look as if she wished she were one of them."
"Just like our Thora," said Anna.
"Neils is here--Neils Finsen you know. Neils has finished his course at the Musical College, and is connected in some way with Covent Garden and has come to Paris on managerial business. He seems to be getting along wonderfully and it makes me feel almost envious. Oh, to get on in life! To escape forever from that grey sky and all those freezing surroundings! What I would give to do it! Nothing should stand between me and success in life if I only saw the chance of it. And who knows--perhaps I may some day! Neils declares that my voice has improved wonderfully and I am practising constantly. But to have any real opportunity in music one ought to be here or in London or Dresden, and it is so expensive. I'm nearly penniless as it is, and I am so shockingly dowdy that if some one does not send me----"
The letter was to the Factor and he had cut away the end of it.
"M'm! M'm!" said Anna. "What the Miss is used to, the Misses keeps up." And then they ate their supper of smoked mutton and black bread in silence and rang the bell for prayers.
The third letter from the wedding party came from Italy, and it was written by Oscar only. The post that brought it had been delayed by a snow-storm, and had sheltered two nights on the Moss Fell Heath. At the Inn-farm the cattle-pens had been completely buried, and Magnus and the men had worked up to their waists from daylight to dark, digging a way out of the snow that the beasts might be fed and watered.
"The world will be white with you in Iceland, but here in Italy the roses are in bud, and the sky is blue and the air is balmy. What a time we have had of it! We came down from Venice, the city of silence and dream, through Florence, the city of sunshine, and Rome, the mother of cities, to Naples, the city of song. Italy seems to set all Europe to music! Lovely and beloved Italy! If only some one could do the same for Iceland! Rugged, gaunt, grand old Iceland! But wait--only wait--perhaps somebody will do it yet!"
"Ah, Oscar, Oscar," said Anna, "it's easier to count twelve mountains than to climb one."
"Helga is enjoying the trip tremendously. Out every minute of the day and making friends on every side. Thora does not seem so well, poor child, and she hardly cares to go about. We are going on to the Riviera next week and thence back to Iceland. I must, of course, be home for the opening of Althing, but Helga is grudging every day. It is now two o'clock in the morning and we have just returned from a Veglioni--that is to say a masque ball--this (yesterday) being the last of Lent. Flowers, streamers, confetti, and such dresses! Helga looked magnificent in a pale blue chiffon of the latest model and was, out of all comparison, the belle of the evening. Poor Thora did not care to go, so she stayed in the hotel and went to bed early."
Magnus and his mother also went to bed early on the night they read that letter. Anna rung the bell that hung from the ceiling of the hall, and the servants in their skin slippers and woolen stockings trooped in for prayers. The lesson was the story of the widow's cruise and the hymn was--
"Meek and low, meek and low,I shall soon my Jesus know."
"Meek and low, meek and low,I shall soon my Jesus know."
"Meek and low, meek and low,
I shall soon my Jesus know."
The last letter they received from the wanderers came on the first day of spring, when the thaw had set in, and the water was running down the discolored snow on the mountains like tears on a wrinkled face, and the sheep were beginning to lamb. It was from Monte Carlo and was written by Thora to Anna herself.
"This place is so beautiful, Anna, yet I do not think I like it very much. The houses are all splendid palaces, but they don't seem so comfortable as the little homes in Iceland. I dare not say this to Oscar, lest he should think me ungrateful, and certainly there is no fog or mist here, and no big white waves, because the sea is always blue; and of course the trees are so wonderful and the blossoms so beautiful! Sometimes they have a carnival, and then wagon-loads of flowers are flung about everywhere; but next day it is quite pitiful to see the lovely roses that have been trampled upon being swept up in the streets.
"In the afternoon a band plays in a garden and you drive in a carriage round and round it. At night you go to a restaurant--bigger than the Artisan's Institute--and there another band plays while you eat your dinner--two or three hundred at once, and all the ladies in low dresses. After that you go to a Casino, where all is silent and rather dark and people sit round tables and play cards for money. Everybody plays cards here because everybody seems to be always taking a holiday."
"Ah, but the devil never does," said Anna.
"It is shocking to hear, though, how much is sometimes lost in a moment. Last night Oscar pointed out a pale-faced young man who had gambled away the whole of his estate--larger and more valuable than the Inn-farm itself. They say he had not intended to play at all when he went into the room, but the fever mastered him and he could not resist it.
"Ay, ay, we don't see the ruts when the snow covers them," said Anna.
"It made me feel ill and I couldn't stay any longer, but Helga wished to remain, so Oscar put me in a carriage and I came back to the hotel and went to bed. I do wish Helga were not so fond of such places. She is, however, and as a consequence Oscar is compelled to go with her, although he does not want to, and sometimes he comes back very depressed. Since we came here his sleep has been much broken, and his manner very restless. I shall be glad when we leave this place.
"But we have had such a wonderful time altogether, and Oscar has been so kind to me and I have been so happy. All the same, I shall be glad to be home again, to see all the dear old faces--yours and Auntie Margret's and father's and the Governor's. I suppose Magnus does not talk of me now--does he? How is Silvertop? Tell Magnus to rub his ears for me and kiss his rough old nose. What a romp we'll have over the Heath some day! But I suppose I must not romp too much now, must I? It is so strange, Anna--there are hardly any babies about this place! Not like Italy, where you see them everywhere, with their poor little legs wrapped up like a mummy's.
"We are to be back for the first of summer, and I'm counting the days already. Give our love to everybody and if anybody asks after me in particular say I am so well and so happy."
The loom in the hall lay idle on the night when Magnus read this letter. Nobody spoke until Anna lit two candles and gave one of them to Magnus, saying:
"Here! You're tired, and no wonder, being up before daybreak. How many lambs this morning, Magnus?"
"Twenty-two, but one of the best of them is dead."
"That's the way of it always. Good night!"
"Good night!"
At the door of his bedroom Magnus paused, candle in hand.
"Mother!"
"Well?"
"Do you think she is so very happy?"
"Our Thora? God knows, my son!" said Anna.
III
The snow was gone and the pale ground was green and golden with the raiment and the jewels of spring when the travelers returned to Iceland. Rounding the head of the fiord in the early morning, when the little capital was smoking for breakfast, Captain Zimsen had fired a cannon in honor of their home-coming, and everybody ran out-of-doors in delight, thinking the man-of-war had come from Copenhagen, but there was greater joy still when the "Laura" dropped her anchor and the little boats that had gone out to meet her came back with the news that the wedding party had returned.
Half the men of the town went down to the jetty to welcome the wanderers; among them the Governor in his gala uniform, the Factor in his best scull-cap, smoking his best German pipe, the Sheriff, the Rector, and the Bishop.
The Factor's big white boat had been sent off instantly to fetch the three ashore, and when it was coming back there was a good deal of curiosity as to how they would look after their long journey. Oscar, who was standing in the bow, was seen to be sunburnt, and slightly older-looking, having grown a small, fair mustache, which was curled up at the ends. It was observed by somebody that he wore the latest pattern of waistcoat and carried an Italian cloak over his arm. Helga, who was standing in the middle of the boat, looked a shade more buxom, and wore a new French hat. She had a kodak swung over her shoulder and was looking at the people on the jetty through an ivory-framed field-glass. And Thora, who was sitting in the stern in the costume in which she went away, with Magnus's white bearskin across her knees, looked a thought thinner than before, but her face was bright with smiles, though there were tears in her sparkling eyes.
When the boat came alongside the salutations were lusty and robustious. Such laughter! Such chaff! Such prolonged handshaking and slapping on the back! After the Governor and the Factor had kissed Thora they found their cheeks were wet, but Helga was as bright as the day and Oscar made everybody happy. He shook hands all round and hailed even the fishermen and boatmen by name. "He doesn't forget an old friend, eh?" said an old fellow in bare feet.
Then away they trooped to Government House, where Anna was waiting in apron and hufa at the door of the porch. Thora cried for joy at sight of her, and had to be carried off to her bedroom. And when Aunt Margret came in her oiled ringlets and Oscar would have kissed her she beat him off with a playful pat on the cheek, and saying, "I must see what you've done with my child first," ran straight upstairs.
Helga went up also to take off her hat, and the Governor and the Factor carried Oscar into the drawing-room, where the Bishop, the Sheriff and the Rector joined them. Maria brought in coffee and chocolate, and the old men charged their pipes and plied Oscar with questions. The Governor asked about English politics, the Factor about custom-house duties, the Bishop about the Vatican, and the Rector about the excavations in the Roman Forum.
Oscar answered all of them with a dash and emphasis that had the look of knowledge and the effect of wit, and then glancing off the heavy ground of fact he went tobogganing down the slippery slopes of fiction, with amusing tales of their travels and of the ridiculous things that had and had not happened to them.
All his stories told, every time he pulled the trigger his pistol fired, and the old men laughed until they cried. "What a boy he is!" "He plays with every finger." His high spirits affected them like sunshine after dark days, like a breeze after a calm at sea, like the swing of a boat after the first dip of the oar. He was the same reckless, irresponsible, lovable prodigal as before, and it was not until afterward that anybody remembered there had been a hollow ring in his hilarity, a false note in his joy.
Helga came down to the drawing-room and the men received her with a shout.
"How plump she has grown!" said the Governor.
"She has certainly filled out on the trip," said the Factor.
"Hasn't she?" said Oscar. "Just what she wanted--all she wanted."
"Nonsense! Let us talk of something serious," said Helga.
Thora came next, with Anna and Aunt Margret buzzing and humming about her like bees. She had changed to her old Iceland dress--just for remembrance--and now that she could be seen without her veil she was undoubtedly thinner, and she had a pinched look about the nostrils and a feverish spot in the middle of her cheeks. But her face was shining with timid smiles and she was overflowing with gratitude.
"Anna has given us such beautiful rooms, Oscar, the big one overlooking the road and the long one behind it, though I don't know what in the world we are going to do with two."
"Oh, don't worry yourself about that, dear--we may find a use for them by and by," said Anna with a knowing nod of the head, and then the color flew up to Thora's eyes like a flag of distress, and the men began to smile.
Anna was smiling also and making signals to the Governor and chuckling to him behind her hand. "Is it so?" "Yes, indeed, I asked her up-stairs and it's just as I expected." Then the Governor in his turn began to chuckle and to whisper to the Factor. "No? Is it a fact?" "So Anna tells me." And then they chuckled together, until everybody laughed at them, whereupon the Factor said:
"And now, Oscar, you've told us all about London and Paris and Rome, but not a word about the place where they make money without working for it."
"Monte Carlo? Haven't I?" said Oscar. "Oh, well--a beautiful place! In fact an absolute paradise."
"An absolute hell if half one hears is true," said the Governor.
"Well, yes--yes, that's so, too," said Oscar.
"I once heard of a man who made ten pounds in a single night--think of that," said the Factor.
"Goodness' sake!" cried Aunt Margret.
"But what's the good of having a chest full of gold if the devil keeps the key?" said the Governor.
Then Helga, who was sitting on the piano-stool, began to play softly, and Oscar swung round to her.
"Ah, 'Addio Napoli!' We must sing you some of the Neapolitan songs, father."
This was received with a chorus of approval, and for the next half-hour Helga played and Oscar sang the gay ditties with which Naples fills the air of Italy with song. And when at one moment the Factor would have come back to the man who made ten pounds in a single night, Helga struck up the tarantella and Oscar danced it.
At length the Governor said, "Everything has a stopping place except Time. It's late, and Thora is looking tired, so I'm going to turn out everybody who doesn't live here."
"Quite right, too," said Aunt Margret, "and I'm going to carry Helga off to her own quarters."
"Iwill take Helga home," said Oscar, and with further handshaking and well-wishing the party began to break up.
"After all I suppose you are glad to be back, Thora?" said the Bishop.
"Very, very glad," replied Thora.
"Ha, ha! It isn't easy to hobble a home-sick pony," laughed the Rector. "And you, Helga?"
"I'm not glad at all, Rector. Who could be glad to leave all that loveliness for a wilderness like this."
That chilled everybody for a moment, and thinking to come to Helga's relief, Oscar said:
"There's something in what Helga says, certainly."
"Then you, also, Oscar----"
"No, Rector, no--that is to say--well, I'm glad to be back and I shall be glad to go away again."
And then everybody was as happy as before.
IV