Fairy Circles Part 13

"Ah! I must be disobedient, my husband; forgive me, forgive me! But anxiety will kill me, if I do not go out to look if I can see you in the distance."

She sprang up and went to the door in the rock. The birds fluttered anxiously around her, but she frightened them away with her hand, and touched the wall through which she had entered a year ago. The rock, not daring to refuse obedience to its mistress, opened, and fair Helga stepped out on the barren soil of Iceland. But after being so long accustomed to the warm summer air, she shuddered as she felt the icy breath of her old home, and with hurried steps she went to the point of the rock. Here she stopped, turned her beautiful face, and looked over her left shoulder towards the south-east.

Before the power of this magic glance the veil of the distance vanished. Her look pierced through Iceland's fogs, flew over the eastern mountains, and swam on the Atlantic waves to the steep rock-bound coast of Norway. She saw the mysterious inhabitants of the mountains, and the mighty fairy king seated on his diamond throne, over which thousands of years had pa.s.sed, leaving it still unshaken.

Around him stood his people in their unfading youth and beauty, bowing in lowly reverence. But her husband's n.o.ble form was not among them; she could not meet the glance of his deep blue eye, though she anxiously examined every countenance. At last she looked sadly away, and turned to go back to her lonely kingdom.

But when she went round the corner of the rock she saw a tall, manly form standing in the very place whence she had once watched her father and Olaffson as they rode away over the lava-fields. With a cry of joy she ran to the spot. Could it be that her husband had been so near, while she believed him far away? But the man, hearing her light footstep, turned his head, and she looked not on her husband's youthful beauty, but on the careworn face of her long-forgotten father.

"Helga, Helga!" The words fell on her ear with a strange thrill. "My child, you are still alive, you are still on earth?" and he stretched out his arms towards her, and pressed her to his breast, while the hot tears fell on her brow.

The long-silenced chords now sounded loudly in Helga's heart, memory awoke, and the fairy king's harp was not near to lull it to sleep again.

"My dear, good father," she said, thinking now of none but him, "weep not. Your Helga lives and is happy; but how old you have grown, and how white your hair is!"

"Yes, Helga, I had lost you, my only child; but now that I have found you my youthful vigour will return. Come home quickly, my daughter.

How glad Olaffson will be."

At these words Helga's heart trembled. "My dear, dear father," she said, gently stroking the furrowed cheeks, "I cannot go with you; I belong now to another world." Then she told her astonished father all that had happened to her since the hour when she said good-bye to him at the edge of the lava-field.

"I have given my word," she concluded, "and, hard as it seems not to go with you, I dare not, I dare not."

"Alas, my child, my poor unhappy child!" said the father sorrowfully; "into what hands have you fallen?"

"Into the best and tenderest, my father," said Helga, soothingly.

"Would that my husband were at home, that you might see him; but I will show you my kingdom, that your mind may be set at rest."

She took her father's hand and led him towards the side of the rock which concealed the entrance into the fairy land. She touched it, but the door remained closed; again and again she pa.s.sed her hand over the hard stone, but there was no movement.

Helga's heart throbbed as though it would break, and she sank down on the hard ground, begging with bitter tears for admission to her kingdom; but all was still, dead, and motionless.

Poor Helga! Without knowing it, she had transgressed the laws of the fairies by speaking to a mortal of the mysteries of the spirit-world, and now its gates were barred against her. With bitter regret she now remembered her husband's parting command--not to return to the outer world, to which she had no longer any right. Soon, she thought, will the other awful threat be fulfilled, and she sank unconscious into her father's arms.

He was rejoiced to see the fairy kingdom closed against his daughter, and with a lightened heart he bore the precious burden back to her childhood's home.

After long hours and days of darkness, Helga's youthful strength triumphed, and she opened her eyes in full consciousness. Her first glance fell on her father, who sat at her bedside.

"You here, my dear father? Then my meeting with you was not a dream?

But now let me get up and go to my husband; he must have come home long before this, and he will believe me when I tell him that I did not intend to leave him."

"My child, look round you," said the father, soothingly. "Let those feverish fancies die. See, you are where you have always been, at home with your old father. All through your long illness you have raved about a fairy king and his paradise, of your marriage and your promises. But these were only fancies, my Helga, such as fever often causes."

Helga looked at him in trembling astonishment.

"That is impossible," she said at last in a faltering voice. "Bring out my clothes, and see whether Iceland has such splendid garments as those."

"Splendid garments?" repeated her father as if in surprise. Then he rose and brought Helga's dress, a garment such as she had always been accustomed to wear.

Helga examined it doubtfully, then she pa.s.sed her hand over her brow, looked up at her father, and said in a low voice, "I cannot understand it. Can one then dream such things as those?"

"Certainly, my child; it is always so in fever. When I went to the coast a few weeks ago, taking you with me as far as the lava-field, you must have climbed the rock to watch us and fallen asleep there.

Then the cold mountain mist crept round you, and almost prevented you from ever awaking. When your cousin thought you were staying too long, she set out with the servants to look for you; there they found you lying on the rock in a state of unconsciousness, and brought you home.

A messenger was sent after us, and we returned as quickly as possible.

I left my fis.h.i.+ng, and Olaffson gave up thoughts of his voyage, that we might be near at hand to watch and care for you."

Helga sighed. Her father had never told her an untruth, so she felt compelled to believe him, though her heart rebelled against his words with bitter grief.

Ah! she little suspected that her father, in the hope of keeping his dear child beside him and hindering her return to fairyland, had invented this story, and carefully taught it to every one about the house.

Helga's bodily strength increased day by day, but over her spirit rested a cloud of melancholy, and she pined in secret for the paradise of her "feverish dreams."

She was at last almost convinced that such they had indeed been, for when she spoke to any of the servants about her lost fairy kingdom, they always smiled and said, "Those were mere fancies; we were about you all the time and heard you rave about them."

As for the voyage round the world which Olaffson had completed since she went away, of that she heard nothing, nor was she aware that the world's history had advanced a year while she tarried in fairyland.

The farm-houses in Iceland are separated from each other by long distances, so that it was but seldom that Helga came in contact with any of the neighbours; and if a chance stranger came to claim the rights of hospitality, the father or Olaffson took care to warn him beforehand not to disturb Helga's delusion.

But the precaution was almost unnecessary; for the Flower of Iceland, once so cheerful and talkative, who used to greet the arrival of a stranger as a joyous event, and was never tired of asking questions about the wonders of foreign lands, the same Helga sat silent and listless, and left the room as soon as the conversation turned on beautiful scenery. For the visions of her lost paradise came back to her mind, and it needed a conflict of hours to still her restless heart. "Ah! it was only a dream."

Olaffson had given up his seafaring life, and now busied himself about the farm. Helga's father loved him as a son, and intended making him the heir of his valuable property. But he had hopes of giving him something better still. He was only waiting till Helga should be once more the joyous Helga, till the Flower of Iceland should raise its drooping head. But this time seemed far distant.

"Perhaps she will be better when she is married," said the father to himself, as he looked anxiously at Helga. She was leaning against the gra.s.sy ditch that enclosed the farm, and gazing into the glow of the evening sky. He stepped softly up to her.

"What is my Helga thinking of?" he asked tenderly.

"Of the evening rays that are now falling through the crystal dome, of the little waves crowned with the roses of the sunset sky, and of the sweet music of the harp," she answered dreamily.

"Helga," said the old man reproachfully, "will you never shake off these delusions. You have heard from every tongue that they were fever fancies; but you want to vex my heart."

"Oh, no, no, dear father. Do not think so ill of your Helga," she said quickly, as she turned and stroked his cheeks caressingly. "I know very well that they were only dreams, but you cannot believe how deeply they are burnt into my heart. It seems like faithlessness to tear them away."

"That is a remnant of the fever," said the old man. "Ah, Helga, how happy should I be if you were yourself again!"

"And I too, dear father," said Helga, with a gentle sigh.

"I know one way of curing you, and if you love me you will try it."

"That I will, father."

"Do you promise it, my Helga?"

"Yes, dear father," she answered unhesitatingly.

"Then listen: Olaffson is good and brave, is he not?" Helga nodded.

"He loves you dearly, and my most cherished wish is that you should become his wife, and that you should live under my roof, brightening my old age with the sight of your happiness."

Helga grew deadly pale.