Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories Part 8

"How terrible!"

"Hush! Now I see a man--he is tall and beautiful--has dark hair and rather a dark face."

"Pray don't say anything more. I don't want to know. Is he to break the seals?"

"Then there is water--water--a long, long journey."

Maurice had listened to this conversation with feelings of mingled amus.e.m.e.nt and pity, very much as he would have listened to a duet, representing the usual mixture of gypsy and misguided innocence, in an old-fashioned opera. That he was playing the eavesdropper had never entered his mind. The scene seemed too utterly remote and unreal to come within the pale of moral canons. But suddenly the aspect of affairs underwent a revolution, as if the misguided young lady in the opera had turned out to be his sister, and he himself under obligation to interfere in her behalf. For at that moment there came an intense, hurried whisper, to which he would fain have closed his ears:

"And does he care for me as I do for him?"

He sprang up, his ears tingling with shame, and hurried down the beach. Presently it occurred to him, however, that it was not quite chivalrous in him to leave little Elsie there alone with the dark-minded sibyl. Who knew but that she might need his help? He paused, and was about to retrace his steps, when he heard some one approaching, whom he instinctively knew to be Elsie. As she came nearer, the moon, which hung transfixed upon the flaming spear of a glacier peak, revealed a distressed little face, through whose transparent surface you might watch the play of emotions within, as one watches the doings of tiny insects and fishes in an aquarium.

"What have they been doing to my little girl?" asked Fern, with a voice full of paternal tenderness. "She has been crying, poor little thing."

He may have been imprudent in addressing a girl of seventeen in this tender fashion; but the truth was, her short skirts and the two long braids of yellow hair were in his mind a.s.sociated with that age toward which you may, without offence, a.s.sume the role of a well-meaning protector, and where even a kiss need not necessarily be resented. So far from feeling flattered by the unwished-for recollection of Elsie's feeling for him, he was rather disposed to view it as a pathological phenomenon,--as a sort of malady, of which he would like to cure her.

It is not to be denied, however, that if this was his intention, the course he was about to pursue was open to criticism. But it must be borne in mind that Fern was no expert on questions of the heart,--that he had had no blighting experiences yielding him an unwholesome harvest of premature wisdom.

For a long while they walked on in silence, holding each other's hands like two children, and the sound of their footsteps upon the crisp, crunching sand was singularly exaggerated by the great stillness around them.

"And whom is it you have been visiting so late in the night, Elsie?"

he asked, at last, glancing furtively into her face.

"Hush, you mustn't talk about her," answered she, in a timid whisper.

"It was Gurid Sibyl, and she knows a great many things which n.o.body else knows except G.o.d."

"I am sorry you have resort to such impostors. You know the Bible says it is wrong to consult sibyls and fortune-tellers."

"No, I didn't know it. But you mustn't speak ill of her, or she will sow disease in your blood and you will never see another healthy day.

She did that to Nils Saetren because he mocked her, and he has been a cripple ever since."

"Pshaw, I am not afraid of her. She may frighten children--"

"Hush! Oh, don't!" cried the girl, in tones of distress, laying her hand gently over his mouth. "I wouldn't for the world have anything evil happen to you."

"Well well, you foolish child," he answered, laughing. "If it grieves you, I will say nothing more about it. But I must disapprove of your superst.i.tion all the same."

"Oh, no; don't think ill of me," she begged piteously, her eyes filling with tears.

"No no, I will not. Only don't cry. It always makes me feel awkward to see a woman cry."

She brushed her tears away and put on a resolute little pout, which was meant to be resigned if not cheerful.

Fifteen minutes later they were standing at the foot of the stairs leading up to his room. The large house was dark and silent. Everybody was asleep. Thinking the opportunity favorable for giving her a bit of parting advice, Maurice seized hold of both her arms and looked her gravely in the eyes. She, however, misinterpreting the gesture, very innocently put up her lips, thinking that he intended to kiss her. The sweet, child-like trustfulness of the act touched him; hardly knowing what he did, he stooped over her and kissed her. As their eyes again met, a deep, radiant contentment shone from her countenance. It was not a mere momentary brightening of the features, such as he had often noticed in her before, but something inexpressibly tender, soul-felt, and absolute. It was as if that kiss had suddenly transformed the child into a woman.

V.

Summer hurried on at a rapid pace, the days grew perceptibly shorter, and the birds of pa.s.sage gathered in large companies on the beach and on the hill-tops, holding noisy consultations to prepare for their long southward journey. Maurice still stayed on at the Ormgra.s.s Farm, but a strange, feverish mood had come over him. He daily measured the downward progress of the glacier in agitated expectancy, although as a scientific experiment it had long ceased to yield him any satisfaction. That huge congealed residue of ten thousand winters had, however, acquired a human interest to him which it had lacked before; what he had lost as a scientist he had gained as a man. For, with all respect for Science, that monumental virgin at whose feet so many cherished human illusions have already been sacrificed, it is not to be denied that from an unprofessional point of view a warm-blooded, fair-faced little creature like Elsie is a worthier object of a bachelor's homage. And, strive as he would, Maurice could never quite rid himself of the impression that the glacier harbored in its snowy bosom some fell design against Elsie's peace and safety. It is even possible that he never would have discovered the real nature of his feelings for her if it had not been for this constant fear that she might any moment be s.n.a.t.c.hed away from him.

It was a novel experience in a life like his, so lonely amid its cold, abstract aspirations, to have this warm, maidenly spring-breath invading those chambers of his soul, hitherto occupied by shivering calculations regarding the duration and remoteness of the ice age. The warmer strata of feeling which had long lain slumbering beneath this vast superstructure of glacial learning began to break their way to the light, and startled him very much as the earth must have been startled when the first patch of green sod broke into view, steaming under the hot rays of the noonday sun. Abstractly considered, the thing seemed preposterous enough for the plot of a dime novel, while in the light of her sweet presence the development of his love seemed as logical as an algebraic problem. At all events, the result was in both cases equally inexorable. It was useless to argue that she was his inferior in culture and social accomplishments; she was still young and flexible, and displayed an aptness for seizing upon his ideas and a.s.similating them which was fairly bewildering. And if purity of soul and loving singleness of purpose be a proof of n.o.ble blood, she was surely one of nature's n.o.blewomen.

In the course of the summer, Fern had made several attempts to convince old Tharald that the glacier was actually advancing. He willingly admitted that there was a possibility that it might change its mind and begin to recede before any mischief was done, but he held it to be very hazardous to stake one's life on so slim a chance. The old man, however, remained impervious to argument, although he no longer lost his temper when the subject was broached. His ancestors had lived there on the farm century after century, he said, and the glacier had done them no harm. He didn't see why he should be treated any worse by the Almighty than they had been; he had always acted with tolerable fairness toward everybody, and had nothing to blame himself for.

It was perhaps the third time when Tharald had thus protested his blamelessness, that his guest, feeling that reasoning was unavailing, let drop some rather commonplace remark about the culpability of all men before G.o.d.

Tharald suddenly flared up, and brought down his fist with a blow on the table.

"Somebody has been bearing tales to you, young man," he cried. "Have you been listening to parish talk?"

"That matters little," answered Fern, coolly. "No one is so blameless that he can claim exemption from misfortune as his just desert."

"Aha, so they have told you that the farm is not mine," continued his host, while his gray eyes glimmered uneasily under his bushy brows.

"They have told you that silly nursery tale of the planting of the fern and the sweet-brier, and of Ulf, who sought his death in the glacier. They have told you that I stole the bride of my brother Arne, and that he fled from me over the sea,--and you have believed it all."

At the sound of the name Arne, a flash darted through Maurice's mind; he sprang up, stood for a moment tottering, and then fell back into the chair. Dim memories of his childhood rose up within him; he remembered how his father, who was otherwise so brave and frank and strong, had recoiled from speaking of that part of his life which preceded his coming to the New World. And now, he grasped with intuitive eagerness at this straw, but felt still a vague fear of penetrating into the secret which his father had wished to hide from him. He raised his head slowly, and saw Tharald's face contracted into an angry scowl and his eyes staring grimly at him.

"Well, does the devil ride you?" he burst forth, with his explosive grunt.

Maurice brushed his hand over his face as if to clear his vision, and returned Tharald's stare with frank fearlessness. There was no denying that in this wrinkled, roughly hewn mask there were lines and suggestions which recalled the free and n.o.ble mold of his father's features. It was a coincidence of physiognomic intentions rather than actual resemblance--or a resemblance, such as might exist between a Vandyck portrait and the same face portrayed by some bungling village artist.

The old man, too, was evidently seeing visions; for he presently began to wince under Maurice's steady gaze, and some troubled memory dwelt in his eye as he rose, and took to sauntering distractedly about on the floor.

"How long is it since your brother Arne fled over the sea?" asked Maurice, firmly.

"How does that concern you?"

"It does concern me, and I wish to know."

Tharald paused in his walk, and stood long, measuring his antagonist with a look of slow, pondering defiance. Then he tossed his head back with a grim laugh, walked toward a carved oaken press in a corner, took out a ponderous Bible, and flung it down on the table.

"I am beginning to see through your game," he said gruffly. "Here is the family record. Look into it at your leisure. And if you are right, let me know. But don't you tell me that that scare about the glacier wasn't all humbug. If it is your right of entail you want to look up, I sha'n't stand in your way."

Thereupon he stalked out, slamming the door behind him; the walls shook, and the windows shivered in their frames.

A vast sheet of gauzy cloud was slowly spreading over the western expanse of the sky. Through its silvery meshes the full moon looked down upon the glacier with a grave unconcern. Drifts of cold white mist hovered here and there over the surface of the ice, rising out of the deep blue hollows, catching for an instant the moonbeams, and again gliding away into the shadow of some far-looming peak.

On the little winding path at the end of the glacier stood Maurice, looking anxiously down toward the valley. Presently a pale speck of color was seen moving in the fog, and on closer inspection proved to be that scarlet bodice which in Norway const.i.tutes the middle portion of a girl's figure. A minute more, and the bodice was surmounted by a fair, girlish face, which looked ravishingly fresh and tangible in its misty setting. The lower portions, partly owing to their neutral coloring and in part to the density of the fog, were but vaguely suggested.

"I have been waiting for you nearly half an hour, down at the river-brink," called out a voice from below, and its clear, mellow ring seemed suddenly to lighten the heavy atmosphere. "I really thought you had forgotten me."

"Forgotten you?" cried Maurice, making a very unscientific leap down in the direction of the voice "When did I ever forget you, you ungrateful thing?"

"Aha!" responded Elsie, laughing, for of course the voice as well as the bodice was hers. "Now didn't you say the edge of the glacier?"

"Yes, but I didn't say the lower edge. If you had at all been gifted with the intuition proverbially attributed to young ladies in your situation, you would have known that I meant the western edge--in fact here, and nowhere else."

"Even though you didn't say it?"