Feats on the Fiord Part 9

"I was only quoting Stiorna----"

"What are you saying about me?" inquired Stiorna, appearing at the door. "Only talking about the cream and the cheese? Are you sure of that? Bless me! what a smell of the yellow flowers! It will be a prime cheese."

"How can you leave the cattle, Stiorna?" cried Erica. "If they are all gone when you get back----"

"Well, come then, and see the sight. I get scolded either way always.

You would have scolded me finely to-night if I had not called you to see the sight."

"What sight?"

"Why, there is such a procession of boats on the fiord that you would suppose there were three weddings happening at once."

"What can we do?" exclaimed Frolich, dolefully looking at the cream, which had reached such a point that the stirring could not cease for a minute without risk of spoiling the cheese.

Erica took the long wooden spoon from Frolich's hand, and bade her run and see where the bishop (for no doubt it was the bishop) was going to land. The cream should not spoil while she was absent.

Frolich bounded away over the gra.s.s, declaring that if it was the bishop going to her father's, she could not possibly stay on the mountain for all the cheeses in Nordland. Erica remained alone, patiently stirring the cream, and hardly heeding the heat of the fire, while planning how the bishop would be told her story, and how he would examine Hund, and perhaps be able to give some news of the pirates, and certainly be ready with his advice. Some degree of hope arose within her as she thought of the esteem in which all Norway held the wisdom and kindness of the Bishop of Tronyem, and then again she felt it hard to be absent during the visit of the only person to whom she looked for comfort.

Frolich returned after a long while to defer her hopes a little. The boats had all drawn to sh.o.r.e on the northern side of the fiord, where, no doubt, the bishop had a visit to pay before proceeding to Erlingsen's. The cheese-making might yet be done in time, even if Frolich should be sent for from home to see and be seen by the good bishop.

The day after Erica's departure to the dairy, Peder was sitting alone in his house weaving a frail basket. He sighed to think how empty and silent the house appeared. Erica's light, active step was gone.

Rolf's hearty laugh was silent, perhaps for ever. Oddo was an inmate still, but Oddo was much altered of late; and who could wonder?

From the hour of Hund's return, the boy had hardly been heard to speak.

All these thoughts were too melancholy for old Peder; and, to break the silence, he began to sing as he wove his basket.

He had nearly got through a ballad of a hundred and five stanzas when he heard a footstep on the floor.

"Oddo, my boy," said he, "surely you are in early. Can it be dinner-time yet?"

"No, not this hour," replied Oddo in a low voice, which sank to a whisper as he said, "I have left Hund laying the troughs to water the meadow;[4] and if he misses me I don't care. I could not stay; I could not help coming; and if he kills me for telling you, he may, for tell you I must."

[4] The strips of meadow which lie between high rocks in Norway would be parched by the reflection of the long summer suns.h.i.+ne, and unproductive, if the inhabitants did not use great industry in the irrigation of their lands. They conduct water from the spring-heads by means of hollow trunks of trees laid end to end, through which water flows in the directions in which It is wanted, sometimes for an extent of fifty miles from one spring.

And Oddo went to close and fasten the door; and then he sat down on the ground, rested his arms on his grandfather's knees, and told his story in such a low tone that no "little bird" under the eaves could "carry the matter."

"O grandfather, what a mind that fellow has! He will go crazy with horror soon. I am not sure that he is not crazy now."

"He has murdered Rolf, has he?"

"I can't be sure. He is like one bewitched, that cannot hold his tongue. While I was bringing the troughs, one by one, for him to lay, where the meadow was driest, he still kept muttering and muttering to himself. As often as I came within six yards of him, I heard him mutter, mutter. Then when I helped him to lay the troughs, he began to talk to me. I was not in the mind to make him many answers; but on he went, just the same as if I had asked him a hundred questions."

"It was such an opportunity for a curious boy, that I wonder you did not."

"Perhaps I might, if he had stopped long enough. But if he stopped for a moment to wipe his brow (for he was all trembling with the heat), he began again before I could well speak. He asked me whether I had ever heard that drowned men could show their heads above water, and stare with their eyes, and throw their arms about, a whole day--two days after they were drowned."

"Ay! Indeed! Did he ask that?"

"Yes, and several other things. He asked whether I had ever heard that the islets in the fiord were so many prison-houses."

"And what did you say?"

"I wanted him to explain; so I said they were prison-houses to the eider-ducks when they were sitting, for they never stir a yard from their nests. But he did not heed a word I spoke. He went on about drowned men being kept prisoners in the islets, moaning because they can't get out. And he says they will knock, knock, as if they could cleave the thick hard rock."

"What do you think of all this, my boy?"

"Why, when I said I had not heard a word of any such thing, even from my grandmother or Erica, he declared he had heard the moans himself--moaning and crying; but then he mixed up something about the barking of wolves that made confusion in the story. Though he had been hot just before, there he stood s.h.i.+vering, as if it was winter, as he stood in the broiling sun. Then I asked him if he had seen dead men swim and stare, as he said he had heard them moan and cry."

"And what did he say then?"

"He started bolt upright, as if I had been picking his pocket. He was in a pa.s.sion for a minute, I know, if ever he was in his life. Then he tried to laugh as he said what a lot of new stories--stories of spirits, such stories as people love--he should have to carry home to the north, whenever he went back to his own place."

"In the north, his own place in the north! He wanted to mislead you there, boy. Hund was born some way to the south."

"No, was he really? How is one to believe a word he says, except when he speaks as if he was in his sleep, straight out from his conscience, I suppose? He began to talk about the bishop next, wanting to know when I thought he would come, and whether he was apt to hold private talk with every sort of person at the houses he stayed at."

"How did you answer him? You know nothing about the bishop's visits."

[Ill.u.s.tration: At the end of a ledge he found the remains of a ladder made of birch-poles.]

"So I told him; but, to try him, I said I knew one thing, that a quant.i.ty of fresh fish would be wanted when the bishop comes with his train, and I asked him whether he would go fis.h.i.+ng with me as soon as we could hear that the bishop was drawing near."

"He would not agree to that, I fancy."

"He asked how far out I thought of going. Of course I said to Vogel islet--at least as far as Vogel islet. Do you know, grandfather, I thought he would have knocked me down at the word. He muttered something, I could not hear what, to get off. By that time we were laying the last trough. I asked him to go for some more; and the minute he was out of sight I scampered here. Now, what sort of a mind do you think this fellow has?"

"Not an easy one, it is plain. It is too clear also that he thinks Rolf is drowned."

"But do you think so, grandfather?"

"Do you think so, grandson?"

"Not a bit of it. Depend upon it, Rolf is all alive, if he is swimming and staring, and throwing his arms about in the water. I think I see him now. And I will see him, if he is to be seen alive or dead."

"And pray how?"

"I ought to have said, if you will help me. You say sometimes, grandfather, that you can pull a good stroke with the oar still, and I can steer as well as our master himself; and the fiord never was stiller than it is to-day. Think what it would be to bring home Rolf, or some good news of him! We would have a race up to the seater afterwards to see who could be the first to tell Erica."

"Gently, gently, boy! What is Rolf about not to come home, if he is alive?"

"That we shall learn from him. Did you hear that he told Erica he should go as far as Vogel islet, dropping something about being safe there from pirates and everything?"

Peder really thought there was something in this. He sent off Oddo to his work in the little meadow, and himself sought out Madame Erlingsen, who, having less belief in spirits and enchantments than Peder, was in proportion more struck with the necessity of seeing whether there was any meaning in Hund's revelations, lest Rolf should be peris.h.i.+ng for want of help. The story of his disappearance had spread through the whole region; and there was not a fisherman on the fiord who had not, by this time, given an opinion as to how he was drowned. But madame was well aware that, if he were only wrecked, there was no sign that he could make that would not terrify the superst.i.tious minds of the neighbours, and make them keep aloof, instead of helping him. In addition to all this, it was doubtful whether his signals would be seen by anybody, at a season when every one who could be spared was gone up to the dairies.