IXAnna was right about Oscar and the baby--he could not willingly allow it to be out of his sight for any five minutes of the day or night. When it was to be bathed he felt it necessary to superintend the operation, and when it was fed he was compelled to keep watch and ward. He had a thousand fears of accidents that might happen to it and became dizzy when it lay naked on the edge of Aunt Margret's lap. If it cried while he was in the dining-room he rushed upstairs, and if anything fell on the floor above he turned pale and trembled. Sleeping in the room next to the nursery he kept his door open at night, and if the baby was fretful he walked Aunt Margret to and fro (being afraid to carry the child himself) as if she had taken too much laudanum.Two days passed in this way and he was never once out-of-doors. Thora overheard him in the adjoining room, coaxing and scolding Aunt Margret, and talking or laughing to the child, and her heart overflowed with happiness. "But will it last?" she asked herself.Meantime Helga, sitting at home, shut out from these joys, was feeling herself neglected. On the third day Oscar had a message from her, saying she wished to see him on an important matter and asking him to come round immediately. He could not resist it. The little scented envelope drew him like a magnet. Going out for a walk, to think of what he should do, every step took him in the direction of the Factor's. Within half an hour he found himself in the little sitting-room overlooking the lake, and Helga was standing before him with head down, more meek and modest, but also more beautiful and irresistible than ever before."I have a confession to make to you," she said, "and if you are angry with me I must bear it."She had been the cause of poor Thora's sudden illness. Stung by the disappointment of some days ago she had gone across to Government House to reproach her sister with the humiliation she had put upon her. Perhaps she had said too much, and more than was true, and she was sorry and ashamed. She could wish to ask Thora's forgiveness, and if Oscar would do it for her----"With pleasure, Helga," said Oscar. "But all's well that ends well, and why should we say more on this subject?""There is another that I wished to speak of," said Helga, and then came the real burden of her message.Poor Thora's delirium had been homicidal. She had threatened to take the life of her unborn child. What a frightful thing it would be if out of her weakness and hallucination she should attempt to carry out her threat!"But that's all over now, Helga," said Oscar. "Since her baby came Thora had been as gentle as a lamb, and running over with tenderness and love.""So I thought until this morning," said Helga. "But father tells me that your mother sees signs of dementia still.""Good heavens!" cried Oscar."Everybody appears to have heard of it except you. I thought it was wrong to keep you in the dark, and so I've told you.""Thanks, Helga, it is good of you, and if poor Thora is still suffering in that way----""There can't be a doubt of it, Oscar. She told your mother she wished she could die, and baby with her.""She must be watched--the child, too. There must be nurses night and day.""Is that enough, Oscar? You know how cunning people are when they are suffering from dementia. And then a child is such a frail thing--its life might be snuffed out in an instant.""You mean that baby should be removed?""It might be safest--for a time at least. It might come here--I should take the greatest care of it. But it needn't change its nurse--Aunt Margret must come home soon in any case.""It must be done, Helga. It would be too awful if anything happened to the child. I should go mad.""And then think of Thora. It would be ten thousand times more terrible for her.""Poor Thora! It will break her heart," said Oscar. "It seems as if I am doomed to bring grief and pain and death to her.""We must be cruel only to be kind, Oscar. But don't act on my advice only and for mercy's sake don't say I suggested anything. Ask somebody else.""I will.""Ask the Governor.""The Governor?"At the mention of that name they paused and looked at each other in silence, as if a ghost had passed between them."Any news from Monte Car--I mean Copenhagen?" asked Helga."Nothing yet, but I am in daily fear of something happening.""Whatever happens I shall never forget that you did that for me, Oscar."She held out her hand to him, and he took it, kept it for a moment, then kissed it passionately and fled from the house.Later the same day a family conference was held at Government House to consider what ought to be done. The Governor and the Factor were there, as well as Oscar and Anna. Aunt Margret came down last, having left one of the maids in charge of the child."Magnus is in the nursery too," she said. "He came up with wood for the stove and Thora heard his voice, so now they are talking through the open door."Doctor Olesen had been called into consultation and he gave a guarded opinion. Such forms of homicidal mania were due to weakness and were usually transient. Since the night of the confinement he had seen no signs of it himself, but if Anna had seen them he would not take the responsibility of opposing the step that was suggested.Anna rocked herself and moaned and said that after all she could not be certain. She might have mistaken what had fallen from Thora. Perhaps the poor child had been thinking of something quite different.Aunt Margret was now of the same mind, but much more emphatic. "I don't believe a word of it," she said, "and I'm sorry I ever doubted her. Thora is a Neilsen, and she wouldn't hurt a hair of the child's head.""This is no time to indulge sentimental feelings," said the Governor. "If Thora is suffering from dementia, however transient, we must protect her from the dangers of her weakness.""I agree, Stephen," said the Factor. "I'm sorry--I'm sorry for my daughter--but I agree, I agree.""That is our duty--our plain duty," continued the Governor, "first to the child who is the offspring--at present the only probable offspring--of two families, and next to the poor young mother herself, than whom no one would have more right to reproach us if we failed to do it and a disaster occurred.""No one, Stephen, no one," said the Factor."It seems so cruel, so dreadfully cruel," said Anna."But it's all for Thora's own good, mother," said Oscar."I know, Oscar, I know, yet it's cruel for all that.""But I should like to know who's going to do it," said Aunt Margret. "I'm not, I tell you flat.""Then Anna must do it herself," said the Governor."No, no, don't ask me," said Anna."Why not? Who so proper to do such an act of mercy and love? And Oscar, too--Oscar himself if need be must carry the child over to the Factor's."Oscar's lips whitened and quivered and his heart clutched at his ribs.It was decided that the child should be taken from the mother that night, as soon as she was asleep and the house was quiet."But she goes to sleep with the child at her breast and always awakes when it wants the bottle," said Anna. "I'll give her a draught--she'll sleep until morning," said the Doctor."Oh, dear me! Oh, dear me! I shall feel like a thief," said Anna."Or like a murderer," said Aunt Margret.XMeantime Magnus in the nursery was looking down at the little face in the cot, sometimes blinking at the light, sometimes digging its little fist into its face, sometimes gripping with its tiny soft hand his own coarse finger. Through the open door to the adjoining room there came the voice that he knew so well, a little weaker, a little thinner, but more joyous and silvery than before."Is that you, Magnus?""Yes, Thora.""Have you seen my little Elin?""I'm looking at her now, Thora.""Isn't she beautiful? Isn't she a darling?""She's like a little angel, Thora."A joyous thrill came from the other room, and then the silvery voice began again: "She's awake, isn't she? Can't I hear her laughing? She laughs already, the little rogue! Do you know you are to be her godfather, Magnus?""I am?""Yes, Oscar agreed to it immediately, and the baptism is to take place soon.""It will be the happiest moment of my life, Thora.""Oh, she'll give you lots of trouble. She's going to be such a little mischief. Can't you see her growing up, Magnus?""I see her just like her mother when she was a child, Thora."Another joyous trill came through the open door and then the silvery voice once more: "She'll be going to stay with you at the farm some day, and then she'll pull up all the flowers in your garden.""She shall do whatever she likes, Thora.""But there are chasms and caves and rifts in the earth there, aren't there?""I'll keep watch on her, Thora.""If she should slip anywhere----""I'll keep watch on her all her life, Thora."The joyous trill came again, but with a slightly different note: Then: "Magnus?""Yes, Thora?""Why don't you marry and have a little Elin of your own, you know?""I? Oh, no." And then a gruff laugh and something about "a poor farmer.""Don't say that, Magnus."Then the silvery voice that came to him through the open door became serious and sweetly patronizing, hoping he would be happy and prosperous at Thingvellir. It wasn't a great life, certainly, not a distinguished career like Oscar's--that is to say what Oscar was to be--and it wanted hard work early and late, yet still----"But, Magnus, you've been here three days, haven't you? How have you been able to spare them?""I'll make up for them when I get home, Thora.""But Anna says you haven't been to bed since you came, and now the Proclamation is near and you'll be kept busy at the Inn with that.""I'm strong, Thora--fearfully strong," said Magnus.Thora lay back in her bed and with a blush there was none to see said:"Magnus, I think--I really think you would do anything in the world for me."A gruff laugh came back to her, half smothered as in a man's beard, and then a choking voice said, "I believe I would, Thora.""And if I wanted you--or baby wanted you--I think you would follow us to the ends of the earth.""Only say 'Come' and I'll come, Thora."There was a moment's silence, and then a merry laugh came rippling out to him, and he felt hot to the roots of the hair."But of course that can not happen, Magnus. We have Oscar, so we can never need you.""No, you can never need me, Thora."At that moment Anna and Aunt Margret came back, heated and nervous after the conference, and bundled Magnus out of the room. Then while baby was being bathed for bed, behind closed doors, to the customary chorus of screams, Anna combed out Thora's hair for the night, and Thora talked of Magnus."People think him heavy and stupid, but he'll startle them some day," she said."Is it to be plaited as usual?" asked Anna."Just as usual. But how your hands tremble to-night, mother! That's nursing, you know. Poor Magnus! He hasn't a selfish thought in his heart. Any girl might love him, and perhaps if I had never known Oscar----""Doctor Olesen says you are to take a powder to-night, child. It will make you sleep until morning.""It's you that should take the powder--you and Aunt Margret.""Ah, if I could take it for you I would, dear," said Anna. "But here it is--take it quickly or I may."Thora drank from the glass Anna gave her and said, "There! It's gone! Now bring me baby."Aunt Margret came with the child, hushing it to sleep, and put it gently down into the mother's arms."The darling! She needs no sleeping draught. My precious, precious pet! But I declare--Aunt Margret's hands are trembling, too! I've worn you out, both of you.""Nonsense! Go to sleep. I'm going to put down the light," said Aunt Margret, and she lowered the lamp and put it to stand on a table behind the bed-curtains."How good you are to me! Everybody is good to me," came in a fainter voice from the shadow of the bed."That is because everybody loves you, Thora," said Anna in a husky murmur. "You must always believe that, whatever happens.""How sweet it is to be loved! If I could only think that it would last----"The baby became fretful, and Thora began to sing it to sleep."Sleep, baby, sleep,Angels bright thy slumbers keep,Sleep, baby, sleep."Her drowsy voice ran a line and stopped; then ran another line and stopped again, and then the faint voice said:"How sweet it would be to fall asleep like this some day--baby and I--and awake in heaven!""Hush!""I should be sorry for Oscar, but still----"The faint voice lisped, the soft breathing lengthened, the blue eyelids closed, the pale lips parted, the white arms slackened, and then the two children, mother and babe, lay together in the lap of sleep.There was silence for some minutes, wherein the two older women who sat in the gloom like guilty things heard nothing but the ticking of a clock. Then Aunt Margret crept over to where Anna sat with her head covered by her black silk apron and whispered:"Oscar is waiting at the door. If it has to be done at all let it be done now."Anna uncovered her face and saw Oscar on the threshold in his cloak and hat. She rose on trembling limbs and felt her way to the bedside. There she stood listening for a moment to Thora's measured breathing. Then she drew the mother's white arms apart and lifted the baby out of them.Aunt Margret wrapped a shawl about the sleeping child and Oscar covered it with his cloak."The night is warm, she will take no harm," he faltered. At the next moment he had gone and Aunt Margret had followed him. Then Anna tottered into the outer room and sank into a chair and covered her head again. "Oh, God forgive me! God forgive me! God forgive me!" she said.XIThe sun was shining into the bedroom when Thora awoke, with a slight flush on her pale cheeks and a look of happiness in her eyes, and saw Anna rocking herself sadly by the bedside."Where is baby?" asked Thora."Presently, dear, presently," said Anna."Where is she?""Lie quiet, Thora. You shall hear everything by and by.""But tell me where is my little Elin, Anna?""Promise me not to excite yourself, Thora, and I will tell you all about her."Thora raised herself on her elbow and said with quick-coming breath, "You don't mean that you have taken her away?""There now, you are exciting yourself already, Thora.""Have you stolen my child away from me?" cried Thora."Oh, dear! Oh, dear! What things you are saying, Thora."Thora thought a moment and then she said, "I am sorry I said that, Anna. It was very, very wrong of me. I know you wouldn't hurt me for worlds. But why don't you tell me where my little girl is? She's in the nursery, isn't she? You took her away from me in the night, and now she's asleep in her cot--isn't that so? Or perhaps Aunt Margret has taken her down to the door? There! Isn't that she?--that child crying in the home-field? Or was it somebody else's baby in the road? Speak, Anna! You are only teasing me, I know. But I'm so weak, so foolish, and my heart is beating like a drum."Anna continued to rock herself and to moan, "Oh, dear! Oh, dear!"Thora watched her for a moment with eyes that filled with fear, and then called in a shrill voice, "Aunt Margret! Aunt Margret! Aunt Margret!""Aunt Margret has gone, Thora," said Anna."Gone! And my baby--has she gone too?"Anna only rocked herself and moaned, "Oh, dear! Oh, dear!"Thora struggled to raise herself in bed, but her cheeks whitened and her eyes rolled and with a loud scream she fell back fainting.The maids came running into the bedroom and opened Thora's clinched hands while Anna bathed her forehead."What have I done? Oh, those doctors! Little they know of a mother's feelings! It will kill her in any case. My poor child! My poor child! Come, then; come, then!"Thora recovered consciousness after a moment, and looked about her with dazed eyes."Oscar!" she said, "I want to see Oscar.""And so you shall, dear," said Anna, and she sent one of the maids across to the Factor's to fetch him instantly. Oscar came up-stairs four steps at a stride and entered the room like a rush of wind."My poor Thora!" he said with panting breath, and he leaned over the bed to kiss her.Thora's eyes, which had been dry and hard, now melted and grew wet. "Oscar," she said, "your mother has sent our little Elin away--stolen her from me in the night--and I am so weak and faint I can not get up to follow her.""Ah, no, dear, not mother," said Oscar. "Lie quiet and I will explain.""Fetch her back to me, Oscar. I love my baby. I can not live without her.""I know you love her, Thora, and I promise you that you shall have her back in due time.""No, no, dear, now.""Not just yet, Thora, but I give you my word for it that baby is safe. They are taking every care of her.""Whatrighthave they to take care of my baby?" cried Thora. "I must have her back. Iwillhave her back."In Thora's flashing eyes, which changed the character of her countenance, and in her voice, which was husky with rage and hatred, there was something of the fierce animal which has been robbed of its young. Oscar shuddered at sight of the convulsed and livid face, but he answered quietly:"Thora, if you give way to feelings like those you will make yourself ill again, and then baby will never come back to you. If you will only listen, I will tell you everything. You were very bad before baby came, and doctor feared you might even do some harm to her. Therefore to save you from pain and shame I took her away from you for a little while--only for a little while--until you were better and more sure of yourself, Thora."Then a great silence fell on Thora's bewailing and she said in a husky whisper:"So it was you, Oscar?""Well--yes, dear, it was I--but what I did was for your own good--yours and our little Elin's. And if you will only wait, only be patient, your baby shall be brought back to you and we shall be happy."Thora's wet eyes dried of themselves, but it was a glassy and smileless light that came into them."Where is my baby now?" she asked."Not far away. In fact, only at your father's. Aunt Margret wrapped her in a shawl and I took her across myself.""Then you gave my child to Helga?" said Thora."Well--yes, I gave her to Helga. But Aunt Margret is there now. And besides, I intend to go over myself off and on all day long, so you are not to worry or be anxious about anything--not about any single thing. You understand everything now, dear, do you not?""Yes, I understand everything now," said Thora.The glassy, smileless eyes continued to look up at him, but he mistook the light that shone in them."That's a dear, good girl," he said. "Everybody will be delighted to hear you are so reasonable and resigned, because everybody thought you would be inconsolable--everybody except Helga.""Helga?""Helga said you would be yourself within an hour, and she was right. Helga knew you better than any of us.""Yes, Helga knew me better than any of you," said Thora.Then he sat on the end of the bed and chatted gaily on many subjects, while Anna, crying for joy of the change in Thora's spirits, called for her breakfast and coaxed her to swallow some of it. He talked of his work--of the work he was going to do when he began, which would be soon, very soon now. Then of his ambitions in Parliament, and finally of the Proclamation. It was fixed for the day after to-morrow, everybody was going to it and the town would be empty. As for himself, he had made up his mind to stay at home with Thora, but seeing that the celebration at Thingvellir had been his idea and that he had taken such a prominent part in it, people were saying that it would be a thousand pities if he could not be present."Then there's the hymn, you know," said Oscar. "I've been rehearsing the choir and they are very shaky, but if I thought the organist could hold them together I shouldn't go in any case.""What does Helga say?" asked Thora."Helga? Oh, Helga? Helga says I must go," replied Oscar."So do I," said Thora."You do? Really? What a sweet, unselfish soul it is, to be sure," said Oscar, and kissing Thora on the forehead he ran back to see Elin.The glassy, smileless eyes on the pillow followed him out of the room, but their light was the light of despair.XIIGoing out of Government House Oscar came upon Magnus, who was standing at the foot of the staircase, riding-whip in hand, and with Golden Mane at the door of the porch. By the dark cloud on Magnus's face Oscar could see that his brother was in a sullen and rebellious mood, and to avoid further hostilities he saluted him and tried to run on."Wait," said Magnus."Another time," said Oscar."Now," said Magnus, and laying his big hand on Oscar's arm, he drew him back into the hall.Oscar flushed up at the indignity and said sharply, "Well, what is it?""Oscar," said Magnus, "I heard what passed in the bedroom.""Then you were listening?""I was.""You are not ashamed to say you were listening on the stairs--on your hands and knees perhaps--to my conversation with my wife?""I would have listened on my belly if need be," said Magnus, and his face darkened more and more."May I ask why you listened?" said Oscar."Because I could not do otherwise.""How so?""I had given my word to be here when wanted.""To my wife?""Yes.""You will excuse my saying, Magnus, that it would be much better if you attended to your own business.""This is my own business. Oscar, you must give the child back to Thora.""Really, Magnus, you are taking a most unwarrantable liberty. If you were not my brother----""Shah! Give the mother her child.""Good Lord, man," said Oscar, breathing hard as if he had been running, "do you really think that I am going to allow an outsider, even if he is my brother, to dictate to me what I shall do with my family difficulties and to travel all the way from Thingvellir to conduct my domestic affairs? What right have you to mix yourself in my business--the business of my wife and me?"The cloud that contracted Magnus's face grew darker every moment, and he said:"You ask me what right?""I do.""I loved Thora Neilsen.""You think it necessary to tell me that?" said Oscar. "To remind me that she threw you up for me?""That's a lie, Oscar Stephenson.""Strong!" said Oscar, with a laugh, but he was trembling visibly."I gave her up when I could have kept her to her word. I decided in favor of the girl's happiness against my own. I gave her up to you that you might make her happy. Those were the terms on which I gave her up to you, and what is the result? What is the result, I ask you? You have allowed another woman to take her place.""Another woman?" said Oscar. "Is that the way you talk of her own sister--of Helga?""Sister or not, she has tortured Thora by every art her selfish soul could think of," said Magnus. "That's what she has done, and you have helped her, and the treasure I valued more than my life you have flung away."Oscar made a cry of protest, but Magnus bore him down with a torrent of words such as never came from his silent lips before."Do you think I don't know what kind of life you led that poor unhappy child while you were away--you and the girl together? And now that her baby comes and her husband returns to her, as he must if he is a man, you let her sister's scheming heart rob her of her only happiness."Again Oscar with his whitening lips did his best to laugh. "Magnus," he said, "it is impossible to be angry with you. Apparently you do not know that it was with the consent of the family and by the advice of the doctor that the child was taken from its mother!""Bah! Do you think I don't know who suggested it? ... Do you think that I don't see her object? Do you think I don't hear her pitiful pleas--the same as if I had listened to them! The little innocent is in danger of its life! It must come to her--she must take charge of it. Why? To bring you back to her feet--to attach you to her at any cost. And you like a fool fall into her plans--because you want to--because you don't know yourself or your wife or the woman that isn't worthy to tie her shoes."Oscar winced under Magnus's words, for they cut him to the bone."Oscar," said Magnus again, "you will give the child back to the mother--it will be best, I promise you.""I have my own opinion of what is best," said Oscar, bridling, "and if I think that for the time being mother and child are best apart----""Oscar Stephenson," interrupted Magnus, "you will give the child back to the mother.""And if I refuse, by what right will you command me?" said Oscar."By the right I acquired when I gave Thora up to you," replied Magnus."And by the right I acquired when she became my wife I will do with her child as I think proper," said Oscar.At that Magnus lost all control of himself."Is she a dog that you can take her whelps?" he cried."The law gives me the right to dispose of her offspring as I think proper," said Oscar."Then damn the law," cried Magnus. "And if you are deaf to my entreaties I--I will----""Go on," said Oscar. "It will not be the first time that you have threatened to break the law.""You are breaking that poor girl's heart, yet you talk to me about breaking the law. But I'll do more than that. If you will not give the child to its mother I will take it by force and give it back to her myself. And if any man tries to prevent me, no matter who he is or what he is, by God I'll break his teeth down his throat."Flinging down his riding-whip Magnus had taken a step forward and lifted his clinched fist into Oscar's quivering face when a cry came from the head of the staircase: "Magnus! Oscar! Magnus! Magnus!"It was Anna. She ran down and put herself between the two men--the slight, lithe, figure and fair head of Oscar, and the burly form and swarthy face of Magnus, both panting hard and livid with rage and hate."My sons! My sons! For shame! For shame!" she cried. "Every word could be heard in the bedroom and Thora is crying her eyes out."Magnus dropped his arm and fell aside a pace or two, rebuked and ashamed, but Oscar stood with an unflinching front where his mother had found him."Magnus--Oscar," continued Anna, "if you both love the poor girl who is lying helpless up-stairs, isn't that a reason why you should be friends and not enemies? And then think of me, my sons. I am your mother. Surely the sons of one mother can live at peace. I nursed you both when you were little ones and if there should be strife between you now, and blows and perhaps bloodshed, it would kill me--I could never survive it."Then she turned toward Magnus and said, as well as she could for the tears that choked her:"Magnus, you mustn't be angry with Oscar. He is your younger brother, remember. You and he slept in the same bed when you were children. And when he was a boy you used to carry him on your back and fight all his battles."Magnus groaned and turned again until he stood sideways to his mother, and thinking he was not to be moved, she faced about to Oscar."Oscar," she said, "you must make peace with Magnus. You must, if only for Thora's sake. Remember, you have got her, Oscar, and if it is true that Magnus gave her up to you, although he loved her himself, think of the sacrifice he must have made for both of you! Perhaps he loves her still, and has condemned himself to life-long loneliness because he has lost her. And perhaps he weeps his heart out for her the long nights through. Love that suffers like that has a great excuse, Oscar. Doesn't it give him a right to look to Thora's happiness? And if he thinks she is suffering for want of her little Elin----"Oscar's throat was hurting him, and in a husky voice he said, "She shall have the child back, mother. If the doctor says it is safe she shall have the child back immediately.""There!" said Anna. "That's fair--nothing could be fairer than that, Magnus. Come, now, you must shake hands with Oscar."She put her hand on Magnus's arm, but he did not move."Magnus," she said, "your mother's love may be all that is left to you now, but it will last long, my son. You need not give it up to any one, and no one can take it away. After all a mother's love is best. It will cling to you and comfort you whatever you do and whatever the world may do to you. Magnus, you must make friends with your brother--for your mother's sake, Magnus----"Magnus turned about and saw Oscar before him with broken face and outstretched hand. Then his own hand swung out, drew back, swung out again, and at the next moment the big, burly fellow had flung his arms about Oscar's neck and was sobbing over him like a child.Two minutes later Magnus was on his way home, cracking his long whip over Golden Mane's flying head and whooping and galloping like a madman.PART IV"For some we loved, the loveliest and the bestThat from his vintage rolling time hath prest,Have drunk their cup a round or two before,And one by one crept silently to rest."IThe day of the Proclamation of the Laws was to be kept as a general holiday. A hundred pack horses, carrying tents and provisions, had left the little capital for Thingvellir the day before. The Danish man-of-war anchored in the fiord had lent half its flags and the Order of Good Templars had sent all their insignia. It was to be a great and gorgeous spectacle.Before daybreak the town was astir, and elderly people on slow ponies were setting out on their journey. Everybody was on horseback, for the way was long and Iceland had few roads and no coaches. Soon after dawn the Governor started off in his cocked hat, and with his Inverness belted over the bright gold of his official uniform. Factor Neilsen rode beside him, and the Bishop, the Chief Justice and most of the Thingmen followed in his train. The idea of reviving a great ceremony of ancient days, and clasping hands with the mighty dead over a gulf of a thousand years, had taken hold of everybody's imagination.Oscar Stephenson, who had been the first to think of it, was among the last to go. He had been round to the Factor's house to see the child and to fetch Helga. The sun was reddening the sky over the eastern hills when they mounted their fleet young ponies. It was a quiet morning, with the promise of a radiant day.Helga wore her woolen helmet and a fur cape over a white jersey. Oscar was in riding dress, with his new Italian cloak hung loose from his shoulders. Their way out of the town lay past the end of Government House, under the windows of Thora's bedroom, and Oscar stopped and called up to it."Helloa! Helloa!" cried Oscar."Is it worth while to waken her?" said Helga.But the window opened and Anna's face appeared at it."It's Oscar," she said, facing back into the room."Good-by, Thora! We'll be back this evening."There was an indistinct murmur from within, and then Anna said, "Thora says 'Good-by' and you are not to hurry home on her account."Oscar laughed and answered, "We'll see, we'll see." And then the riders put their heels to their ponies and bounded away. Helga was in high spirits, but the clouds hung on Oscar and he tried in vain to banish them."All goes well, doesn't it?" asked Helga."God knows," said Oscar. "She's quiet certainly, and apparently resigned. Yet her eyes are so dry, her lips so pale, and her cheeks so white and thin----""But what else can you expect four days after her confinement?" said Helga."True! But I've never seen her quite like this before. It is almost as if a wall of ice had frozen about her soul.""You took my advice, didn't you?""I did.""And what did the Governor say?""He said Magnus's interference was an impertinence, and he wouldn't hear of it for a moment.""So things are to remain as they are?""As they are," said Oscar."And what about Magnus himself?" asked Helga."Magnus is at the farm.""But if he should come back while everybody is away?""He can not come back to-day--his guests will keep him busy.""But if he should in spite of everything?""In that case," said Oscar, dropping his voice and turning his head, "the Sheriff has orders to deal with him."By this time they had come to the tail of the train which had started before them, and the dust and the noise of the clattering caravan were too much for Helga."Let us go round by the hot springs and come out ahead of them," she said, and they went cantering down a lane to the left where vapor floated over a flowing stream. Half an hour later they returned to the main road, forded a river and toited up a hill beyond it. The cavalcade was now far behind them, and the little wooden capital was a long way off, with its feet in the grey fiord and the white encircling arms of the snow-covered hills stretching out to the brightening line of the sea and sky."There!" said Helga, drawing rein and looking at Oscar with a sparkle in her eyes."Poor little Thora! I was sorry to leave her. But I dare say everything will be well," said Oscar."Sure to be," said Helga."Is that a steamer out there--out by the head?" asked Oscar."Undoubtedly it is a steamer," replied Helga."The 'Laura' is a day late--she was due to arrive yesterday.""Then it's the 'Laura' to a certainty."The sun had now risen, but Oscar shivered as with cold. "I must be a miserable coward, Helga, for the sight of a mail-ship frightens me," he said.But Helga only laughed and held up a warning hand. "We'll not talk of that to-day, Oscar--not to-day at all events. Look!" she cried, pointing to the line of moving forms on the brown streak of road that ran through the plain of black lava. "Look at your tribe down yonder. Don't you feel like Mahomet going back to Mecca? Or like Jacob going up to the Mount of Gilead with his flocks and his herds and----""And his wives?" said Oscar."Yes, and his wives," laughed Helga, and then both laughed together.They put heels to their ponies again and Helga sang to herself as they swung along."What a fool I am," thought Oscar. "Why should I meet misfortune before it comes? And why should I trouble so much about Thora? Isn't Helga as greatly to be pitied? In the wretched tangle of our fate hers is the knot that can never be untied. Yet how happy she looks! Why shouldn't I be happy?""Helga!" said Oscar, when they slowed down again, "you wouldn't like to have lived in those old days I suppose?""Certainly I should," said Helga."What? And share your husband with another woman?""That's nothing. Women do the same in these days, you know."And then they laughed again, though with a dubious gaiety, and broke into a canter once more."I'm a brute," thought Oscar. "And badly as I have injured Thora the wrong I have done to Helga is still more terrible. For her there is no outlook, no prospect, no future. She must go back to Denmark and I must go on with my duty. But why shouldn't we have one day of happiness first? One day of delight before the dream is over?"They drew up at a river that ran by the road to water their ponies and to take off their cloaks and pack them behind their saddles, for the sun was now bright and the air was warm."There's one curious point about the patriarchs," said Oscar."And what's that?" asked Helga."Clearly they thought it possible for a man to love more than one woman.""And can't he?" said Helga."I ask you," said Oscar--"can't a man love more than one woman?""Why not? Aren't we all told to love one another?" laughed Helga, and then Oscar lifted her in his arms and swung her back to her saddle and they started on their journey afresh.Their road lay through a bleak and barren country, past red hills of volcanic sand and jagged mouths of extinct volcanoes, over a deep dale of lava rocks, rutted with paths and scored with fissures, but brightened by a farmstead here and there with its little green-roofed elt house smoking for breakfast and its hummocked home-field gleaming like a gem in a wilderness of waste. At the last of these farms they stopped to rest their ponies and to refresh themselves, being now half-way to Thingvellir, with the caravan far behind them.An untidy man in his shirt-sleeves took possession of their ponies and a slatternly housewife in a soiled apron brought them milk and skyr. She was still young, but already she had three children. One of them was whimpering at her breast, another was dragging at her skirts and the third was bellowing for her from the floor above. She belonged to the capital and had once been considered a beauty, but she was seven years married and it was six since she had seen the town."There!" said Oscar, when they returned to the road. "That's the patriarchal life, if you please.""Then I'm done with it," said Helga. "Ugh! To think of being buried in a place like that, year in year out, with three children and only one man! It might do for Thora, but give me life, life, life!""And the man who gives you that may have you body and soul, perhaps?" said Oscar."Body and soul," laughed Helga.For the next hour their course lay across an almost trackless heath, bare as a desert and flat as an inland sea. The mountains that bounded it were stark and cold and far away--on the one side steep with running screes and on the other side clouded with steaming vapor, which rose out of the glistening snow. Not a house was to be seen on any side, not a tree or a bush or a flower or a plant, and hardly a blade of grass, but only a broad stretch of silver moss, leaden and dull, like the mold on a dead man's face. No birds sang in that solitude, but sometimes the wimbrel sent its long love cry across the waste; sometimes the wild swan sped far overhead and uttered its eerie ululation, and sometimes the raven perched on a stone and croaked out its melancholy note. A line of beacons, broken and old, each with a projecting stone like an amputated arm, showed the course of the road, going on and on like soldiers in single file tramping back after a lost battle. Midway on the Heath there was a House of Rest for travelers overtaken by the storms of winter--a little hut, half cubicle and half stable, with nothing but a plank bed and a truss of hay."Gracious heavens, what a place to be lost in in a snowstorm," said Helga."But what a country for Saga and song," said Oscar, "and if some one could set it to music, grim as its glaciers and fierce as its fires, it would take the world by storm.""Do it, Oscar, do it, and I'll love you," cried Helga."As we are commanded to love one another?" asked Oscar."Perhaps," laughed Helga, and when he swung her to the saddle again her hand slipped from his shoulder and his lips touched her cheek.After that they both sang as they cantered along, for the clouds that had hung over Oscar had gone by this time, and if the ground was grey the sky was blue and their blood was red and warm.But suddenly a new scene opened at their feet--a deep plain with a shining blue lake in the midst of it, splashed with islands like spots on an eagle's egg and fenced by soft green fells. It was a dream in a desolate land, a cistern of sunshine encircled by countless peaks which stood round it clothed in white, like a surpliced choir that were singing their hymns to God. The black lava was there as elsewhere, and the valley was blistered with mounds and wrinkled with ruts and scored with fissures; but the blood-root grew in the clefts of the jagged rocks and the blueberry hung over the face of the gaping chasms, and it was almost as if an angel had passed over the surface torn by earthquakes and brushed it with the bloom of his wings.This was Thingvellir, the place of the Proclamation, the Thing-place of the Northlands, the scene of a hundred Sagas, the subject of a thousand songs.Oscar and Helga were now near the end of their journey and they watched for the townspeople to overtake them. Half an hour later the caravan came up in a cloud of dust, all noisy, but good-natured and ravenous for breakfast. There were some shouts at the pioneers, and certain dubious compliments, but Oscar did not hear and Helga did not heed. They took their places behind the Governor, and went down to the law-plain in his train.The way to it was through a wide chasm whose parallel walls stood up on either side of the steep causeway like the ruined street of some prehistoric city, but thrice grander and more awesome than any work of the hand of man, because straight from the loins of nature and rent from the womb of the earth. There were great openings as of arches, empty spaces as of windows, broken peaks as of pediments and curious stones as of carvings, all shaken from their foundations and toppling as if to fall; while over them, from beetling side to side, hung the gay flags of the Danish man-of-war, and through them came the bright shafts of the morning sun.Half-way down the gorge there was a mound like a platform (the "Law-mount" explained Oscar to Helga) and at the foot of it there was a pool whose clear green depths looked cold and chill in the palm of the cliffs that darkened it."That's the drowning pool," said Oscar. "When a woman was unfaithful to her husband they hurled her from the rocks into the water.""And what did they do with the unfaithful men?" laughed Helga.From the edge of the pool a frothy river fell with a thunderous clamor over a precipice to the valley below, where it forked into many fingers and ran off to the margin of the lake. Beyond these rivulets there was the rutted plain, now dotted over with tents, but having only two houses within sight--the little wooden parsonage with its tiny church built of stone and shingles and the Inn-farm of Magnus Stephenson.Magnus himself stood waiting there, washed and dressed, after working the whole night through with his man John Vidalin, to prepare for his expected guests. And when Oscar rode up, a little excited and confused, he received him with the cheerful face of one who had made his peace with his brother and meant to keep it."How's Thora to-day?" asked Magnus, as he loosened the girths of Oscar's saddle; and Oscar answered nervously:"Better--that is to say--well, perhaps not so very well to-day, Magnus.""Her child has been given back to her?" said Magnus."Not yet," said Oscar. "To tell you the truth, the Governor--," and then he faltered out the sequel to his broken promise. Magnus's face darkened, and he said:"So the doctor has not been consulted at all?""No. In the teeth of the Governor's orders it was plainly impossible----""And Thora is still at Government House and her child is still at the Factor's?""That is so."Magnus looked from Oscar to Helga, who now stood beside him, and his face darkened more and more."John Vidalin," he cried in a thick voice over his shoulder to a man behind him, "saddle my horse--I am going to Reykjavik.""But Magnus," said the servant-man, "with all this work to do to-day and all this money coming----""Saddle it quick," cried Magnus, like a man who was choking."Magnus," said Oscar, "for your own sake I think it only right to tell you----"But Magnus cut him short by turning on his heel."Let him go," said Helga, and before the people in the tents and the Inn-farm had settled down to breakfast Magnus was riding back to town.
IX
Anna was right about Oscar and the baby--he could not willingly allow it to be out of his sight for any five minutes of the day or night. When it was to be bathed he felt it necessary to superintend the operation, and when it was fed he was compelled to keep watch and ward. He had a thousand fears of accidents that might happen to it and became dizzy when it lay naked on the edge of Aunt Margret's lap. If it cried while he was in the dining-room he rushed upstairs, and if anything fell on the floor above he turned pale and trembled. Sleeping in the room next to the nursery he kept his door open at night, and if the baby was fretful he walked Aunt Margret to and fro (being afraid to carry the child himself) as if she had taken too much laudanum.
Two days passed in this way and he was never once out-of-doors. Thora overheard him in the adjoining room, coaxing and scolding Aunt Margret, and talking or laughing to the child, and her heart overflowed with happiness. "But will it last?" she asked herself.
Meantime Helga, sitting at home, shut out from these joys, was feeling herself neglected. On the third day Oscar had a message from her, saying she wished to see him on an important matter and asking him to come round immediately. He could not resist it. The little scented envelope drew him like a magnet. Going out for a walk, to think of what he should do, every step took him in the direction of the Factor's. Within half an hour he found himself in the little sitting-room overlooking the lake, and Helga was standing before him with head down, more meek and modest, but also more beautiful and irresistible than ever before.
"I have a confession to make to you," she said, "and if you are angry with me I must bear it."
She had been the cause of poor Thora's sudden illness. Stung by the disappointment of some days ago she had gone across to Government House to reproach her sister with the humiliation she had put upon her. Perhaps she had said too much, and more than was true, and she was sorry and ashamed. She could wish to ask Thora's forgiveness, and if Oscar would do it for her----
"With pleasure, Helga," said Oscar. "But all's well that ends well, and why should we say more on this subject?"
"There is another that I wished to speak of," said Helga, and then came the real burden of her message.
Poor Thora's delirium had been homicidal. She had threatened to take the life of her unborn child. What a frightful thing it would be if out of her weakness and hallucination she should attempt to carry out her threat!
"But that's all over now, Helga," said Oscar. "Since her baby came Thora had been as gentle as a lamb, and running over with tenderness and love."
"So I thought until this morning," said Helga. "But father tells me that your mother sees signs of dementia still."
"Good heavens!" cried Oscar.
"Everybody appears to have heard of it except you. I thought it was wrong to keep you in the dark, and so I've told you."
"Thanks, Helga, it is good of you, and if poor Thora is still suffering in that way----"
"There can't be a doubt of it, Oscar. She told your mother she wished she could die, and baby with her."
"She must be watched--the child, too. There must be nurses night and day."
"Is that enough, Oscar? You know how cunning people are when they are suffering from dementia. And then a child is such a frail thing--its life might be snuffed out in an instant."
"You mean that baby should be removed?"
"It might be safest--for a time at least. It might come here--I should take the greatest care of it. But it needn't change its nurse--Aunt Margret must come home soon in any case."
"It must be done, Helga. It would be too awful if anything happened to the child. I should go mad."
"And then think of Thora. It would be ten thousand times more terrible for her."
"Poor Thora! It will break her heart," said Oscar. "It seems as if I am doomed to bring grief and pain and death to her."
"We must be cruel only to be kind, Oscar. But don't act on my advice only and for mercy's sake don't say I suggested anything. Ask somebody else."
"I will."
"Ask the Governor."
"The Governor?"
At the mention of that name they paused and looked at each other in silence, as if a ghost had passed between them.
"Any news from Monte Car--I mean Copenhagen?" asked Helga.
"Nothing yet, but I am in daily fear of something happening."
"Whatever happens I shall never forget that you did that for me, Oscar."
She held out her hand to him, and he took it, kept it for a moment, then kissed it passionately and fled from the house.
Later the same day a family conference was held at Government House to consider what ought to be done. The Governor and the Factor were there, as well as Oscar and Anna. Aunt Margret came down last, having left one of the maids in charge of the child.
"Magnus is in the nursery too," she said. "He came up with wood for the stove and Thora heard his voice, so now they are talking through the open door."
Doctor Olesen had been called into consultation and he gave a guarded opinion. Such forms of homicidal mania were due to weakness and were usually transient. Since the night of the confinement he had seen no signs of it himself, but if Anna had seen them he would not take the responsibility of opposing the step that was suggested.
Anna rocked herself and moaned and said that after all she could not be certain. She might have mistaken what had fallen from Thora. Perhaps the poor child had been thinking of something quite different.
Aunt Margret was now of the same mind, but much more emphatic. "I don't believe a word of it," she said, "and I'm sorry I ever doubted her. Thora is a Neilsen, and she wouldn't hurt a hair of the child's head."
"This is no time to indulge sentimental feelings," said the Governor. "If Thora is suffering from dementia, however transient, we must protect her from the dangers of her weakness."
"I agree, Stephen," said the Factor. "I'm sorry--I'm sorry for my daughter--but I agree, I agree."
"That is our duty--our plain duty," continued the Governor, "first to the child who is the offspring--at present the only probable offspring--of two families, and next to the poor young mother herself, than whom no one would have more right to reproach us if we failed to do it and a disaster occurred."
"No one, Stephen, no one," said the Factor.
"It seems so cruel, so dreadfully cruel," said Anna.
"But it's all for Thora's own good, mother," said Oscar.
"I know, Oscar, I know, yet it's cruel for all that."
"But I should like to know who's going to do it," said Aunt Margret. "I'm not, I tell you flat."
"Then Anna must do it herself," said the Governor.
"No, no, don't ask me," said Anna.
"Why not? Who so proper to do such an act of mercy and love? And Oscar, too--Oscar himself if need be must carry the child over to the Factor's."
Oscar's lips whitened and quivered and his heart clutched at his ribs.
It was decided that the child should be taken from the mother that night, as soon as she was asleep and the house was quiet.
"But she goes to sleep with the child at her breast and always awakes when it wants the bottle," said Anna. "I'll give her a draught--she'll sleep until morning," said the Doctor.
"Oh, dear me! Oh, dear me! I shall feel like a thief," said Anna.
"Or like a murderer," said Aunt Margret.
X
Meantime Magnus in the nursery was looking down at the little face in the cot, sometimes blinking at the light, sometimes digging its little fist into its face, sometimes gripping with its tiny soft hand his own coarse finger. Through the open door to the adjoining room there came the voice that he knew so well, a little weaker, a little thinner, but more joyous and silvery than before.
"Is that you, Magnus?"
"Yes, Thora."
"Have you seen my little Elin?"
"I'm looking at her now, Thora."
"Isn't she beautiful? Isn't she a darling?"
"She's like a little angel, Thora."
A joyous thrill came from the other room, and then the silvery voice began again: "She's awake, isn't she? Can't I hear her laughing? She laughs already, the little rogue! Do you know you are to be her godfather, Magnus?"
"I am?"
"Yes, Oscar agreed to it immediately, and the baptism is to take place soon."
"It will be the happiest moment of my life, Thora."
"Oh, she'll give you lots of trouble. She's going to be such a little mischief. Can't you see her growing up, Magnus?"
"I see her just like her mother when she was a child, Thora."
Another joyous trill came through the open door and then the silvery voice once more: "She'll be going to stay with you at the farm some day, and then she'll pull up all the flowers in your garden."
"She shall do whatever she likes, Thora."
"But there are chasms and caves and rifts in the earth there, aren't there?"
"I'll keep watch on her, Thora."
"If she should slip anywhere----"
"I'll keep watch on her all her life, Thora."
The joyous trill came again, but with a slightly different note: Then: "Magnus?"
"Yes, Thora?"
"Why don't you marry and have a little Elin of your own, you know?"
"I? Oh, no." And then a gruff laugh and something about "a poor farmer."
"Don't say that, Magnus."
Then the silvery voice that came to him through the open door became serious and sweetly patronizing, hoping he would be happy and prosperous at Thingvellir. It wasn't a great life, certainly, not a distinguished career like Oscar's--that is to say what Oscar was to be--and it wanted hard work early and late, yet still----
"But, Magnus, you've been here three days, haven't you? How have you been able to spare them?"
"I'll make up for them when I get home, Thora."
"But Anna says you haven't been to bed since you came, and now the Proclamation is near and you'll be kept busy at the Inn with that."
"I'm strong, Thora--fearfully strong," said Magnus.
Thora lay back in her bed and with a blush there was none to see said:
"Magnus, I think--I really think you would do anything in the world for me."
A gruff laugh came back to her, half smothered as in a man's beard, and then a choking voice said, "I believe I would, Thora."
"And if I wanted you--or baby wanted you--I think you would follow us to the ends of the earth."
"Only say 'Come' and I'll come, Thora."
There was a moment's silence, and then a merry laugh came rippling out to him, and he felt hot to the roots of the hair.
"But of course that can not happen, Magnus. We have Oscar, so we can never need you."
"No, you can never need me, Thora."
At that moment Anna and Aunt Margret came back, heated and nervous after the conference, and bundled Magnus out of the room. Then while baby was being bathed for bed, behind closed doors, to the customary chorus of screams, Anna combed out Thora's hair for the night, and Thora talked of Magnus.
"People think him heavy and stupid, but he'll startle them some day," she said.
"Is it to be plaited as usual?" asked Anna.
"Just as usual. But how your hands tremble to-night, mother! That's nursing, you know. Poor Magnus! He hasn't a selfish thought in his heart. Any girl might love him, and perhaps if I had never known Oscar----"
"Doctor Olesen says you are to take a powder to-night, child. It will make you sleep until morning."
"It's you that should take the powder--you and Aunt Margret."
"Ah, if I could take it for you I would, dear," said Anna. "But here it is--take it quickly or I may."
Thora drank from the glass Anna gave her and said, "There! It's gone! Now bring me baby."
Aunt Margret came with the child, hushing it to sleep, and put it gently down into the mother's arms.
"The darling! She needs no sleeping draught. My precious, precious pet! But I declare--Aunt Margret's hands are trembling, too! I've worn you out, both of you."
"Nonsense! Go to sleep. I'm going to put down the light," said Aunt Margret, and she lowered the lamp and put it to stand on a table behind the bed-curtains.
"How good you are to me! Everybody is good to me," came in a fainter voice from the shadow of the bed.
"That is because everybody loves you, Thora," said Anna in a husky murmur. "You must always believe that, whatever happens."
"How sweet it is to be loved! If I could only think that it would last----"
The baby became fretful, and Thora began to sing it to sleep.
"Sleep, baby, sleep,Angels bright thy slumbers keep,Sleep, baby, sleep."
"Sleep, baby, sleep,Angels bright thy slumbers keep,Sleep, baby, sleep."
"Sleep, baby, sleep,
Angels bright thy slumbers keep,
Sleep, baby, sleep."
Her drowsy voice ran a line and stopped; then ran another line and stopped again, and then the faint voice said:
"How sweet it would be to fall asleep like this some day--baby and I--and awake in heaven!"
"Hush!"
"I should be sorry for Oscar, but still----"
The faint voice lisped, the soft breathing lengthened, the blue eyelids closed, the pale lips parted, the white arms slackened, and then the two children, mother and babe, lay together in the lap of sleep.
There was silence for some minutes, wherein the two older women who sat in the gloom like guilty things heard nothing but the ticking of a clock. Then Aunt Margret crept over to where Anna sat with her head covered by her black silk apron and whispered:
"Oscar is waiting at the door. If it has to be done at all let it be done now."
Anna uncovered her face and saw Oscar on the threshold in his cloak and hat. She rose on trembling limbs and felt her way to the bedside. There she stood listening for a moment to Thora's measured breathing. Then she drew the mother's white arms apart and lifted the baby out of them.
Aunt Margret wrapped a shawl about the sleeping child and Oscar covered it with his cloak.
"The night is warm, she will take no harm," he faltered. At the next moment he had gone and Aunt Margret had followed him. Then Anna tottered into the outer room and sank into a chair and covered her head again. "Oh, God forgive me! God forgive me! God forgive me!" she said.
XI
The sun was shining into the bedroom when Thora awoke, with a slight flush on her pale cheeks and a look of happiness in her eyes, and saw Anna rocking herself sadly by the bedside.
"Where is baby?" asked Thora.
"Presently, dear, presently," said Anna.
"Where is she?"
"Lie quiet, Thora. You shall hear everything by and by."
"But tell me where is my little Elin, Anna?"
"Promise me not to excite yourself, Thora, and I will tell you all about her."
Thora raised herself on her elbow and said with quick-coming breath, "You don't mean that you have taken her away?"
"There now, you are exciting yourself already, Thora."
"Have you stolen my child away from me?" cried Thora.
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! What things you are saying, Thora."
Thora thought a moment and then she said, "I am sorry I said that, Anna. It was very, very wrong of me. I know you wouldn't hurt me for worlds. But why don't you tell me where my little girl is? She's in the nursery, isn't she? You took her away from me in the night, and now she's asleep in her cot--isn't that so? Or perhaps Aunt Margret has taken her down to the door? There! Isn't that she?--that child crying in the home-field? Or was it somebody else's baby in the road? Speak, Anna! You are only teasing me, I know. But I'm so weak, so foolish, and my heart is beating like a drum."
Anna continued to rock herself and to moan, "Oh, dear! Oh, dear!"
Thora watched her for a moment with eyes that filled with fear, and then called in a shrill voice, "Aunt Margret! Aunt Margret! Aunt Margret!"
"Aunt Margret has gone, Thora," said Anna.
"Gone! And my baby--has she gone too?"
Anna only rocked herself and moaned, "Oh, dear! Oh, dear!"
Thora struggled to raise herself in bed, but her cheeks whitened and her eyes rolled and with a loud scream she fell back fainting.
The maids came running into the bedroom and opened Thora's clinched hands while Anna bathed her forehead.
"What have I done? Oh, those doctors! Little they know of a mother's feelings! It will kill her in any case. My poor child! My poor child! Come, then; come, then!"
Thora recovered consciousness after a moment, and looked about her with dazed eyes.
"Oscar!" she said, "I want to see Oscar."
"And so you shall, dear," said Anna, and she sent one of the maids across to the Factor's to fetch him instantly. Oscar came up-stairs four steps at a stride and entered the room like a rush of wind.
"My poor Thora!" he said with panting breath, and he leaned over the bed to kiss her.
Thora's eyes, which had been dry and hard, now melted and grew wet. "Oscar," she said, "your mother has sent our little Elin away--stolen her from me in the night--and I am so weak and faint I can not get up to follow her."
"Ah, no, dear, not mother," said Oscar. "Lie quiet and I will explain."
"Fetch her back to me, Oscar. I love my baby. I can not live without her."
"I know you love her, Thora, and I promise you that you shall have her back in due time."
"No, no, dear, now."
"Not just yet, Thora, but I give you my word for it that baby is safe. They are taking every care of her."
"Whatrighthave they to take care of my baby?" cried Thora. "I must have her back. Iwillhave her back."
In Thora's flashing eyes, which changed the character of her countenance, and in her voice, which was husky with rage and hatred, there was something of the fierce animal which has been robbed of its young. Oscar shuddered at sight of the convulsed and livid face, but he answered quietly:
"Thora, if you give way to feelings like those you will make yourself ill again, and then baby will never come back to you. If you will only listen, I will tell you everything. You were very bad before baby came, and doctor feared you might even do some harm to her. Therefore to save you from pain and shame I took her away from you for a little while--only for a little while--until you were better and more sure of yourself, Thora."
Then a great silence fell on Thora's bewailing and she said in a husky whisper:
"So it was you, Oscar?"
"Well--yes, dear, it was I--but what I did was for your own good--yours and our little Elin's. And if you will only wait, only be patient, your baby shall be brought back to you and we shall be happy."
Thora's wet eyes dried of themselves, but it was a glassy and smileless light that came into them.
"Where is my baby now?" she asked.
"Not far away. In fact, only at your father's. Aunt Margret wrapped her in a shawl and I took her across myself."
"Then you gave my child to Helga?" said Thora.
"Well--yes, I gave her to Helga. But Aunt Margret is there now. And besides, I intend to go over myself off and on all day long, so you are not to worry or be anxious about anything--not about any single thing. You understand everything now, dear, do you not?"
"Yes, I understand everything now," said Thora.
The glassy, smileless eyes continued to look up at him, but he mistook the light that shone in them.
"That's a dear, good girl," he said. "Everybody will be delighted to hear you are so reasonable and resigned, because everybody thought you would be inconsolable--everybody except Helga."
"Helga?"
"Helga said you would be yourself within an hour, and she was right. Helga knew you better than any of us."
"Yes, Helga knew me better than any of you," said Thora.
Then he sat on the end of the bed and chatted gaily on many subjects, while Anna, crying for joy of the change in Thora's spirits, called for her breakfast and coaxed her to swallow some of it. He talked of his work--of the work he was going to do when he began, which would be soon, very soon now. Then of his ambitions in Parliament, and finally of the Proclamation. It was fixed for the day after to-morrow, everybody was going to it and the town would be empty. As for himself, he had made up his mind to stay at home with Thora, but seeing that the celebration at Thingvellir had been his idea and that he had taken such a prominent part in it, people were saying that it would be a thousand pities if he could not be present.
"Then there's the hymn, you know," said Oscar. "I've been rehearsing the choir and they are very shaky, but if I thought the organist could hold them together I shouldn't go in any case."
"What does Helga say?" asked Thora.
"Helga? Oh, Helga? Helga says I must go," replied Oscar.
"So do I," said Thora.
"You do? Really? What a sweet, unselfish soul it is, to be sure," said Oscar, and kissing Thora on the forehead he ran back to see Elin.
The glassy, smileless eyes on the pillow followed him out of the room, but their light was the light of despair.
XII
Going out of Government House Oscar came upon Magnus, who was standing at the foot of the staircase, riding-whip in hand, and with Golden Mane at the door of the porch. By the dark cloud on Magnus's face Oscar could see that his brother was in a sullen and rebellious mood, and to avoid further hostilities he saluted him and tried to run on.
"Wait," said Magnus.
"Another time," said Oscar.
"Now," said Magnus, and laying his big hand on Oscar's arm, he drew him back into the hall.
Oscar flushed up at the indignity and said sharply, "Well, what is it?"
"Oscar," said Magnus, "I heard what passed in the bedroom."
"Then you were listening?"
"I was."
"You are not ashamed to say you were listening on the stairs--on your hands and knees perhaps--to my conversation with my wife?"
"I would have listened on my belly if need be," said Magnus, and his face darkened more and more.
"May I ask why you listened?" said Oscar.
"Because I could not do otherwise."
"How so?"
"I had given my word to be here when wanted."
"To my wife?"
"Yes."
"You will excuse my saying, Magnus, that it would be much better if you attended to your own business."
"This is my own business. Oscar, you must give the child back to Thora."
"Really, Magnus, you are taking a most unwarrantable liberty. If you were not my brother----"
"Shah! Give the mother her child."
"Good Lord, man," said Oscar, breathing hard as if he had been running, "do you really think that I am going to allow an outsider, even if he is my brother, to dictate to me what I shall do with my family difficulties and to travel all the way from Thingvellir to conduct my domestic affairs? What right have you to mix yourself in my business--the business of my wife and me?"
The cloud that contracted Magnus's face grew darker every moment, and he said:
"You ask me what right?"
"I do."
"I loved Thora Neilsen."
"You think it necessary to tell me that?" said Oscar. "To remind me that she threw you up for me?"
"That's a lie, Oscar Stephenson."
"Strong!" said Oscar, with a laugh, but he was trembling visibly.
"I gave her up when I could have kept her to her word. I decided in favor of the girl's happiness against my own. I gave her up to you that you might make her happy. Those were the terms on which I gave her up to you, and what is the result? What is the result, I ask you? You have allowed another woman to take her place."
"Another woman?" said Oscar. "Is that the way you talk of her own sister--of Helga?"
"Sister or not, she has tortured Thora by every art her selfish soul could think of," said Magnus. "That's what she has done, and you have helped her, and the treasure I valued more than my life you have flung away."
Oscar made a cry of protest, but Magnus bore him down with a torrent of words such as never came from his silent lips before.
"Do you think I don't know what kind of life you led that poor unhappy child while you were away--you and the girl together? And now that her baby comes and her husband returns to her, as he must if he is a man, you let her sister's scheming heart rob her of her only happiness."
Again Oscar with his whitening lips did his best to laugh. "Magnus," he said, "it is impossible to be angry with you. Apparently you do not know that it was with the consent of the family and by the advice of the doctor that the child was taken from its mother!"
"Bah! Do you think I don't know who suggested it? ... Do you think that I don't see her object? Do you think I don't hear her pitiful pleas--the same as if I had listened to them! The little innocent is in danger of its life! It must come to her--she must take charge of it. Why? To bring you back to her feet--to attach you to her at any cost. And you like a fool fall into her plans--because you want to--because you don't know yourself or your wife or the woman that isn't worthy to tie her shoes."
Oscar winced under Magnus's words, for they cut him to the bone.
"Oscar," said Magnus again, "you will give the child back to the mother--it will be best, I promise you."
"I have my own opinion of what is best," said Oscar, bridling, "and if I think that for the time being mother and child are best apart----"
"Oscar Stephenson," interrupted Magnus, "you will give the child back to the mother."
"And if I refuse, by what right will you command me?" said Oscar.
"By the right I acquired when I gave Thora up to you," replied Magnus.
"And by the right I acquired when she became my wife I will do with her child as I think proper," said Oscar.
At that Magnus lost all control of himself.
"Is she a dog that you can take her whelps?" he cried.
"The law gives me the right to dispose of her offspring as I think proper," said Oscar.
"Then damn the law," cried Magnus. "And if you are deaf to my entreaties I--I will----"
"Go on," said Oscar. "It will not be the first time that you have threatened to break the law."
"You are breaking that poor girl's heart, yet you talk to me about breaking the law. But I'll do more than that. If you will not give the child to its mother I will take it by force and give it back to her myself. And if any man tries to prevent me, no matter who he is or what he is, by God I'll break his teeth down his throat."
Flinging down his riding-whip Magnus had taken a step forward and lifted his clinched fist into Oscar's quivering face when a cry came from the head of the staircase: "Magnus! Oscar! Magnus! Magnus!"
It was Anna. She ran down and put herself between the two men--the slight, lithe, figure and fair head of Oscar, and the burly form and swarthy face of Magnus, both panting hard and livid with rage and hate.
"My sons! My sons! For shame! For shame!" she cried. "Every word could be heard in the bedroom and Thora is crying her eyes out."
Magnus dropped his arm and fell aside a pace or two, rebuked and ashamed, but Oscar stood with an unflinching front where his mother had found him.
"Magnus--Oscar," continued Anna, "if you both love the poor girl who is lying helpless up-stairs, isn't that a reason why you should be friends and not enemies? And then think of me, my sons. I am your mother. Surely the sons of one mother can live at peace. I nursed you both when you were little ones and if there should be strife between you now, and blows and perhaps bloodshed, it would kill me--I could never survive it."
Then she turned toward Magnus and said, as well as she could for the tears that choked her:
"Magnus, you mustn't be angry with Oscar. He is your younger brother, remember. You and he slept in the same bed when you were children. And when he was a boy you used to carry him on your back and fight all his battles."
Magnus groaned and turned again until he stood sideways to his mother, and thinking he was not to be moved, she faced about to Oscar.
"Oscar," she said, "you must make peace with Magnus. You must, if only for Thora's sake. Remember, you have got her, Oscar, and if it is true that Magnus gave her up to you, although he loved her himself, think of the sacrifice he must have made for both of you! Perhaps he loves her still, and has condemned himself to life-long loneliness because he has lost her. And perhaps he weeps his heart out for her the long nights through. Love that suffers like that has a great excuse, Oscar. Doesn't it give him a right to look to Thora's happiness? And if he thinks she is suffering for want of her little Elin----"
Oscar's throat was hurting him, and in a husky voice he said, "She shall have the child back, mother. If the doctor says it is safe she shall have the child back immediately."
"There!" said Anna. "That's fair--nothing could be fairer than that, Magnus. Come, now, you must shake hands with Oscar."
She put her hand on Magnus's arm, but he did not move.
"Magnus," she said, "your mother's love may be all that is left to you now, but it will last long, my son. You need not give it up to any one, and no one can take it away. After all a mother's love is best. It will cling to you and comfort you whatever you do and whatever the world may do to you. Magnus, you must make friends with your brother--for your mother's sake, Magnus----"
Magnus turned about and saw Oscar before him with broken face and outstretched hand. Then his own hand swung out, drew back, swung out again, and at the next moment the big, burly fellow had flung his arms about Oscar's neck and was sobbing over him like a child.
Two minutes later Magnus was on his way home, cracking his long whip over Golden Mane's flying head and whooping and galloping like a madman.
PART IV
"For some we loved, the loveliest and the bestThat from his vintage rolling time hath prest,Have drunk their cup a round or two before,And one by one crept silently to rest."
"For some we loved, the loveliest and the bestThat from his vintage rolling time hath prest,Have drunk their cup a round or two before,And one by one crept silently to rest."
"For some we loved, the loveliest and the best
That from his vintage rolling time hath prest,
Have drunk their cup a round or two before,
And one by one crept silently to rest."
I
The day of the Proclamation of the Laws was to be kept as a general holiday. A hundred pack horses, carrying tents and provisions, had left the little capital for Thingvellir the day before. The Danish man-of-war anchored in the fiord had lent half its flags and the Order of Good Templars had sent all their insignia. It was to be a great and gorgeous spectacle.
Before daybreak the town was astir, and elderly people on slow ponies were setting out on their journey. Everybody was on horseback, for the way was long and Iceland had few roads and no coaches. Soon after dawn the Governor started off in his cocked hat, and with his Inverness belted over the bright gold of his official uniform. Factor Neilsen rode beside him, and the Bishop, the Chief Justice and most of the Thingmen followed in his train. The idea of reviving a great ceremony of ancient days, and clasping hands with the mighty dead over a gulf of a thousand years, had taken hold of everybody's imagination.
Oscar Stephenson, who had been the first to think of it, was among the last to go. He had been round to the Factor's house to see the child and to fetch Helga. The sun was reddening the sky over the eastern hills when they mounted their fleet young ponies. It was a quiet morning, with the promise of a radiant day.
Helga wore her woolen helmet and a fur cape over a white jersey. Oscar was in riding dress, with his new Italian cloak hung loose from his shoulders. Their way out of the town lay past the end of Government House, under the windows of Thora's bedroom, and Oscar stopped and called up to it.
"Helloa! Helloa!" cried Oscar.
"Is it worth while to waken her?" said Helga.
But the window opened and Anna's face appeared at it.
"It's Oscar," she said, facing back into the room.
"Good-by, Thora! We'll be back this evening."
There was an indistinct murmur from within, and then Anna said, "Thora says 'Good-by' and you are not to hurry home on her account."
Oscar laughed and answered, "We'll see, we'll see." And then the riders put their heels to their ponies and bounded away. Helga was in high spirits, but the clouds hung on Oscar and he tried in vain to banish them.
"All goes well, doesn't it?" asked Helga.
"God knows," said Oscar. "She's quiet certainly, and apparently resigned. Yet her eyes are so dry, her lips so pale, and her cheeks so white and thin----"
"But what else can you expect four days after her confinement?" said Helga.
"True! But I've never seen her quite like this before. It is almost as if a wall of ice had frozen about her soul."
"You took my advice, didn't you?"
"I did."
"And what did the Governor say?"
"He said Magnus's interference was an impertinence, and he wouldn't hear of it for a moment."
"So things are to remain as they are?"
"As they are," said Oscar.
"And what about Magnus himself?" asked Helga.
"Magnus is at the farm."
"But if he should come back while everybody is away?"
"He can not come back to-day--his guests will keep him busy."
"But if he should in spite of everything?"
"In that case," said Oscar, dropping his voice and turning his head, "the Sheriff has orders to deal with him."
By this time they had come to the tail of the train which had started before them, and the dust and the noise of the clattering caravan were too much for Helga.
"Let us go round by the hot springs and come out ahead of them," she said, and they went cantering down a lane to the left where vapor floated over a flowing stream. Half an hour later they returned to the main road, forded a river and toited up a hill beyond it. The cavalcade was now far behind them, and the little wooden capital was a long way off, with its feet in the grey fiord and the white encircling arms of the snow-covered hills stretching out to the brightening line of the sea and sky.
"There!" said Helga, drawing rein and looking at Oscar with a sparkle in her eyes.
"Poor little Thora! I was sorry to leave her. But I dare say everything will be well," said Oscar.
"Sure to be," said Helga.
"Is that a steamer out there--out by the head?" asked Oscar.
"Undoubtedly it is a steamer," replied Helga.
"The 'Laura' is a day late--she was due to arrive yesterday."
"Then it's the 'Laura' to a certainty."
The sun had now risen, but Oscar shivered as with cold. "I must be a miserable coward, Helga, for the sight of a mail-ship frightens me," he said.
But Helga only laughed and held up a warning hand. "We'll not talk of that to-day, Oscar--not to-day at all events. Look!" she cried, pointing to the line of moving forms on the brown streak of road that ran through the plain of black lava. "Look at your tribe down yonder. Don't you feel like Mahomet going back to Mecca? Or like Jacob going up to the Mount of Gilead with his flocks and his herds and----"
"And his wives?" said Oscar.
"Yes, and his wives," laughed Helga, and then both laughed together.
They put heels to their ponies again and Helga sang to herself as they swung along.
"What a fool I am," thought Oscar. "Why should I meet misfortune before it comes? And why should I trouble so much about Thora? Isn't Helga as greatly to be pitied? In the wretched tangle of our fate hers is the knot that can never be untied. Yet how happy she looks! Why shouldn't I be happy?"
"Helga!" said Oscar, when they slowed down again, "you wouldn't like to have lived in those old days I suppose?"
"Certainly I should," said Helga.
"What? And share your husband with another woman?"
"That's nothing. Women do the same in these days, you know."
And then they laughed again, though with a dubious gaiety, and broke into a canter once more.
"I'm a brute," thought Oscar. "And badly as I have injured Thora the wrong I have done to Helga is still more terrible. For her there is no outlook, no prospect, no future. She must go back to Denmark and I must go on with my duty. But why shouldn't we have one day of happiness first? One day of delight before the dream is over?"
They drew up at a river that ran by the road to water their ponies and to take off their cloaks and pack them behind their saddles, for the sun was now bright and the air was warm.
"There's one curious point about the patriarchs," said Oscar.
"And what's that?" asked Helga.
"Clearly they thought it possible for a man to love more than one woman."
"And can't he?" said Helga.
"I ask you," said Oscar--"can't a man love more than one woman?"
"Why not? Aren't we all told to love one another?" laughed Helga, and then Oscar lifted her in his arms and swung her back to her saddle and they started on their journey afresh.
Their road lay through a bleak and barren country, past red hills of volcanic sand and jagged mouths of extinct volcanoes, over a deep dale of lava rocks, rutted with paths and scored with fissures, but brightened by a farmstead here and there with its little green-roofed elt house smoking for breakfast and its hummocked home-field gleaming like a gem in a wilderness of waste. At the last of these farms they stopped to rest their ponies and to refresh themselves, being now half-way to Thingvellir, with the caravan far behind them.
An untidy man in his shirt-sleeves took possession of their ponies and a slatternly housewife in a soiled apron brought them milk and skyr. She was still young, but already she had three children. One of them was whimpering at her breast, another was dragging at her skirts and the third was bellowing for her from the floor above. She belonged to the capital and had once been considered a beauty, but she was seven years married and it was six since she had seen the town.
"There!" said Oscar, when they returned to the road. "That's the patriarchal life, if you please."
"Then I'm done with it," said Helga. "Ugh! To think of being buried in a place like that, year in year out, with three children and only one man! It might do for Thora, but give me life, life, life!"
"And the man who gives you that may have you body and soul, perhaps?" said Oscar.
"Body and soul," laughed Helga.
For the next hour their course lay across an almost trackless heath, bare as a desert and flat as an inland sea. The mountains that bounded it were stark and cold and far away--on the one side steep with running screes and on the other side clouded with steaming vapor, which rose out of the glistening snow. Not a house was to be seen on any side, not a tree or a bush or a flower or a plant, and hardly a blade of grass, but only a broad stretch of silver moss, leaden and dull, like the mold on a dead man's face. No birds sang in that solitude, but sometimes the wimbrel sent its long love cry across the waste; sometimes the wild swan sped far overhead and uttered its eerie ululation, and sometimes the raven perched on a stone and croaked out its melancholy note. A line of beacons, broken and old, each with a projecting stone like an amputated arm, showed the course of the road, going on and on like soldiers in single file tramping back after a lost battle. Midway on the Heath there was a House of Rest for travelers overtaken by the storms of winter--a little hut, half cubicle and half stable, with nothing but a plank bed and a truss of hay.
"Gracious heavens, what a place to be lost in in a snowstorm," said Helga.
"But what a country for Saga and song," said Oscar, "and if some one could set it to music, grim as its glaciers and fierce as its fires, it would take the world by storm."
"Do it, Oscar, do it, and I'll love you," cried Helga.
"As we are commanded to love one another?" asked Oscar.
"Perhaps," laughed Helga, and when he swung her to the saddle again her hand slipped from his shoulder and his lips touched her cheek.
After that they both sang as they cantered along, for the clouds that had hung over Oscar had gone by this time, and if the ground was grey the sky was blue and their blood was red and warm.
But suddenly a new scene opened at their feet--a deep plain with a shining blue lake in the midst of it, splashed with islands like spots on an eagle's egg and fenced by soft green fells. It was a dream in a desolate land, a cistern of sunshine encircled by countless peaks which stood round it clothed in white, like a surpliced choir that were singing their hymns to God. The black lava was there as elsewhere, and the valley was blistered with mounds and wrinkled with ruts and scored with fissures; but the blood-root grew in the clefts of the jagged rocks and the blueberry hung over the face of the gaping chasms, and it was almost as if an angel had passed over the surface torn by earthquakes and brushed it with the bloom of his wings.
This was Thingvellir, the place of the Proclamation, the Thing-place of the Northlands, the scene of a hundred Sagas, the subject of a thousand songs.
Oscar and Helga were now near the end of their journey and they watched for the townspeople to overtake them. Half an hour later the caravan came up in a cloud of dust, all noisy, but good-natured and ravenous for breakfast. There were some shouts at the pioneers, and certain dubious compliments, but Oscar did not hear and Helga did not heed. They took their places behind the Governor, and went down to the law-plain in his train.
The way to it was through a wide chasm whose parallel walls stood up on either side of the steep causeway like the ruined street of some prehistoric city, but thrice grander and more awesome than any work of the hand of man, because straight from the loins of nature and rent from the womb of the earth. There were great openings as of arches, empty spaces as of windows, broken peaks as of pediments and curious stones as of carvings, all shaken from their foundations and toppling as if to fall; while over them, from beetling side to side, hung the gay flags of the Danish man-of-war, and through them came the bright shafts of the morning sun.
Half-way down the gorge there was a mound like a platform (the "Law-mount" explained Oscar to Helga) and at the foot of it there was a pool whose clear green depths looked cold and chill in the palm of the cliffs that darkened it.
"That's the drowning pool," said Oscar. "When a woman was unfaithful to her husband they hurled her from the rocks into the water."
"And what did they do with the unfaithful men?" laughed Helga.
From the edge of the pool a frothy river fell with a thunderous clamor over a precipice to the valley below, where it forked into many fingers and ran off to the margin of the lake. Beyond these rivulets there was the rutted plain, now dotted over with tents, but having only two houses within sight--the little wooden parsonage with its tiny church built of stone and shingles and the Inn-farm of Magnus Stephenson.
Magnus himself stood waiting there, washed and dressed, after working the whole night through with his man John Vidalin, to prepare for his expected guests. And when Oscar rode up, a little excited and confused, he received him with the cheerful face of one who had made his peace with his brother and meant to keep it.
"How's Thora to-day?" asked Magnus, as he loosened the girths of Oscar's saddle; and Oscar answered nervously:
"Better--that is to say--well, perhaps not so very well to-day, Magnus."
"Her child has been given back to her?" said Magnus.
"Not yet," said Oscar. "To tell you the truth, the Governor--," and then he faltered out the sequel to his broken promise. Magnus's face darkened, and he said:
"So the doctor has not been consulted at all?"
"No. In the teeth of the Governor's orders it was plainly impossible----"
"And Thora is still at Government House and her child is still at the Factor's?"
"That is so."
Magnus looked from Oscar to Helga, who now stood beside him, and his face darkened more and more.
"John Vidalin," he cried in a thick voice over his shoulder to a man behind him, "saddle my horse--I am going to Reykjavik."
"But Magnus," said the servant-man, "with all this work to do to-day and all this money coming----"
"Saddle it quick," cried Magnus, like a man who was choking.
"Magnus," said Oscar, "for your own sake I think it only right to tell you----"
But Magnus cut him short by turning on his heel.
"Let him go," said Helga, and before the people in the tents and the Inn-farm had settled down to breakfast Magnus was riding back to town.