Tales from Two Hemispheres Part 16

Truls still followed them with his eyes; suddenly he leaped up, and a wild thought burned in his breast. But with an effort he checked himself, grasped his violin, and struck a wailing chord of lament. Then he laid his ear close to the instrument, as if he were listening to some living voice hidden there within, ran warily with the bow over the strings, and warbled, and caroled, and sang with maddening glee, and still with a s.h.i.+vering undercurrent of woe. And the dusk which slept upon the black rafters was quickened and shook with the weird sound; every pulse in the wide hall beat more rapidly, and every eye kindled with a bolder fire. Pressently{sic} a Strong male voice sang out to the measure of the violin:

"Come, fairest maid, tread the dance with me; O heigh ho!"

And a clear, tremulous treble answered:

"So gladly tread I the dance with thee; O heigh ho!"

Truls knew the voices only too well; it was Syvert Stein and Borghild who were singing a stave. [8]

Syvert--Like brier-roses thy red cheeks blush, Borghild--And thine are rough like the th.o.r.n.y bush; Both--An' a heigho!

Syvert--So fresh and green is the sunny lea; O heigh ho!

Borghild--The fiddle tw.a.n.geth so merrily; O heigh ho!

Syvert--So lightly goeth the l.u.s.ty reel, Borghild--And round we whirl like a spinning-wheel; Both--An' a heigho!

Syvert--Thine eyes are bright like the sunny fjord; O heigh ho!

Borghild--And thine do flash like a Viking's sword; O heigh ho!

Syvert--So lightly trippeth thy foot along, Borghild--The air is teeming with joyful song; Both--An' a heigh ho!

Syvert--Then fairest maid, while the woods are green, O heigh ho!

Borghild--And thrushes sing the fresh leaves between; O heigh ho!

Syvert--Come, let us dance in the gladsome day, Borghild--Dance hate, and sorrow, and care away; Both--An' a heigh ho!

The stave was at an end. The hot and flushed dancers straggled over the floor by twos and threes, and the big beer-horns were pa.s.sed from hand to hand. Truls sat in his corner hugging his violin tightly to his bosom, only to do something, for he was vaguely afraid of himself--afraid of the thoughts that might rise--afraid of the deed they might prompt. He ran his fingers over his forehead, but he hardly felt the touch of his own hand. It was as if something was dead within him--as if a string had snapped in his breast, and left it benumbed and voiceless.

Presently he looked up and saw Borghild standing before him; she held her arms akimbo, her eyes shone with a strange light, and her features wore an air of recklessness mingled with pity.

"Ah, Borghild, is it you?" said he, in a hoa.r.s.e voice. "What do you want with me? I thought you had done with me now."

"You are a very unwitty fellow," answered she, with a forced laugh. "The branch that does not bend must break."

She turned quickly on her heel and was lost in the crowd. He sat long pondering on her words, but their meaning remained hidden to him. The branch that does not bend must break. Was he the branch, and must he bend or break? By-and-by he put his hands on his knees, rose with a slow, uncertain motion, and stalked heavily toward the door. The fresh night air would do him good. The thought breathes more briskly in G.o.d's free nature, under the broad canopy of heaven. The white mist rose from the fields, and made the valley below appear like a white sea whose nearness you feel, even though you do not see it. And out of the mist the dark pines stretched their warning hands against the sky, and the moon was swimming, large and placid, between silvery islands of cloud.

Truls began to beat his arms against his sides, and felt the warm blood spreading from his heart and thawing the numbness of his limbs. Not caring whither he went, he struck the path leading upward to the mountains. He took to humming an old air which happened to come into his head, only to try if there was life enough left in him to sing. It was the ballad of Young Kirsten and the Merman:

"The billows fall and the billows swell, In the night so lone, In the billows blue doth the merman dwell, And strangely that harp was sounding."

He walked on briskly for a while, and, looking back upon the pain he had endured but a moment ago, he found it quite foolish and irrational. An absurd merriment took possession of him; but all the while he did not know where his foot stepped; his head swam, and his pulse beat feverishly. About midway between the forest and the mansion, where the field sloped more steeply, grew a clump of birch-trees, whose slender stems glimmered ghostly white in the moonlight. Something drove Truls to leave the beaten road, and, obeying the impulse, he steered toward the birches. A strange sound fell upon his ear, like the moan of one in distress. It did not startle him; indeed, he was in a mood when nothing could have caused him wonder. If the sky had suddenly tumbled down upon him, with moon and all, he would have taken it as a matter of course.

Peering for a moment through the mist, he discerned the outline of a human figure. With three great strides he reached the birch-tree; at his feet sat Borghild rocking herself to and fro and weeping piteously.

Without a word he seated himself at her side and tried to catch a glimpse of her face; but she hid it from him and went on sobbing. Still there could be no doubt that it was Borghild--one hour ago so merry, reckless, and defiant, now cowering at his feet and weeping like a broken-hearted child.

"Borghild," he said, at last, putting his arm gently about her waist, "you and I, I think, played together when we were children."

"So we did, Truls," answered she, struggling with her tears.

"And as we grew up, we spent many a pleasant hour with each other."

"Many a pleasant hour."

She raised her head, and he drew her more closely to him.

"But since then I have done you a great wrong," began she, after a while.

"Nothing done that cannot yet be undone," he took heart to answer.

It was long before her thoughts took shape, and, when at length they did, she dared not give them utterance. Nevertheless, she was all the time conscious of one strong desire, from which her conscience shrank as from a crime; and she wrestled ineffectually with her weakness until her weakness prevailed.

"I am glad you came," she faltered. "I knew you would come. There was something I wished to say to you."

"And what was it, Borghild?"

"I wanted to ask you to forgive me--"

"Forgive you--"

He sprang up as if something had stung him.

"And why not?" she pleaded, piteously.

"Ah, girl, you know not what you ask," cried he, with a sternness which startled her. "If I had more than one life to waste--but you caress with one hand and stab with the other. Fare thee well, Borghild, for here our paths separate."

He turned his back upon her and began to descend the slope.

"For G.o.d's sake, stay, Truls," implored she, and stretched her arms appealingly toward him; "tell me, oh, tell me all."

With a leap he was again at her side, stooped down over her, and, in a hoa.r.s.e, pa.s.sionate whisper, spoke the secret of his life in her ear. She gazed for a moment steadily into his face, then, in a few hurried words, she pledged him her love, her faith, her all. And in the stillness of that summer night they planned together their flight to a greater and freer land, where no world-old prejudice frowned upon the union of two kindred souls. They would wait in patience and silence until spring; then come the fresh winds from the ocean, and, with them, the birds of pa.s.sage which awake the longings in the Nors.e.m.e.n's b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and the American vessels which give courage to many a sinking spirit, strength to the wearied arm, hope to the hopeless heart.

During that winter Truls and Borghild seldom saw each other. The parish was filled with rumors, and after the Christmas holiday it was told for certain that the proud maiden of Skogli had been promised in marriage to Syvert Stein. It was the general belief that the families had made the match, and that Borghild, at least, had hardly had any voice in the matter. Another report was that she had flatly refused to listen to any proposal from that quarter, and that, when she found that resistance was vain, she had cried three days and three nights, and refused to take any food. When this rumor reached the pastor's ear, he p.r.o.nounced it an idle tale; "for," said he, "Borghild has always been a proper and well-behaved maiden, and she knows that she must honor father and mother, that it may be well with her, and she live long upon the land."

But Borghild sat alone in her gable window and looked longingly toward the ocean. The glaciers glittered, the rivers swelled, the buds of the forest burst, and great white sails began to glimmer on the far western horizon.

If Truls, the Nameless, as scoffers were wont to call him, had been a greater personage in the valley, it would, no doubt, have shocked the gossips to know that one fine morning he sold his cow, his gun and his dog, and wrapped sixty silver dollars in a leathern bag, which he sewed fast to the girdle he wore about his waist. That same night some one was heard playing wildly up in the birch copse above the Skogli mansion; now it sounded like a wail of distress, then like a fierce, defiant laugh, and now again the music seemed to hush itself into a heart-broken, sorrowful moan, and the people crossed themselves, and whispered: "Our Father;" but Borghild sat at her gable window and listened long to the weird strain. The midnight came, but she stirred not. With the hour of midnight the music ceased. From the windows of hall and kitchen the light streamed out into the damp air, and the darkness stood like a wall on either side; within, maids and lads were busy brewing, baking, and was.h.i.+ng, for in a week there was to be a wedding on the farm.

The week went and the wedding came. Truls had not closed his eyes all that night, and before daybreak he sauntered down along the beach and gazed out upon the calm fjord, where the white-winged sea-birds whirled in great airy surges around the bare crags. Far up above the noisy throng an ospray sailed on the blue expanse of the sky, and quick as thought swooped down upon a halibut which had ventured to take a peep at the rising sun. The huge fish struggled for a moment at the water's edge, then, with a powerful stroke of its tail, which sent the spray hissing through the air, dived below the surface. The bird of prey gave a loud scream, flapped fiercely with its broad wings, and for several minutes a thickening cloud of applauding ducks and seagulls and showers of spray hid the combat from the observer's eye. When the birds scattered, the ospray had vanished, and the waters again glittered calmly in the morning sun. Truls stood long, vacantly staring out upon the scene of the conflict, and many strange thoughts whirled through his head.

"Halloo, fiddler!" cried a couple of lads who had come to clear the wedding boats, "you are early on foot to-day. Here is a scoop. Come on and help us bail the boats."

Truls took the scoop, and looked at it as if he had never seen such a thing before; he moved about heavily, hardly knowing what he did, but conscious all the while of his own great misery. His limbs seemed half frozen, and a dull pain gathered about his head and in his breast--in fact, everywhere and nowhere.

About ten o'clock the bridal procession descended the slope to the fjord. Syvert Stein, the bridegroom, trod the earth with a firm, springy step, and spoke many a cheery word to the bride, who walked, silent and with downcast eyes, at his side. She wore the ancestral bridal crown on her head, and the little silver disks around its edge tinkled and shook as she walked. They hailed her with firing of guns and loud hurrahs as she stepped into the boat; still she did not raise her eyes, but remained silent. A small cannon, also an heir-loom in the family, was placed amids.h.i.+ps, and Truls, with his violin, took his seat in the prow.

A large solitary cloud, gold-rimmed but with thunder in its breast, sailed across the sky and threw its shadow over the bridal boat as it was pushed out from the sh.o.r.e, and the shadow fell upon the bride's countenance too; and when she lifted it, the mother of the bridegroom, who sat opposite her, shrank back, for the countenance looked hard, as if carved in stone--in the eyes a mute, hopeless appeal; on the lips a frozen prayer. The shadow of thunder upon a life that was opening--it was an ill omen, and its gloom sank into the hearts of the wedding guests. They spoke in undertones and threw pitying glances at the bride.

Then at length Syvert Stein lost his patience.

"In sooth," cried he, springing up from his seat, "where is to-day the cheer that is wont to abide in the Norseman's breast? Methinks I see but sullen airs and ill-boding glances. Ha, fiddler, now move your strings l.u.s.tily! None of your funeral airs, my lad, but a merry tune that shall sing through marrow and bone, and make the heart leap in the bosom."