Just Sixteen Part 23

"And this must be the stranger maiden of whom Voorst has so often told me," said Olla after the first greetings had been exchanged. She smiled at Ebba, and tried to take her hand, but the elfish creature frowned, retreated, and, when Olla persisted, s.n.a.t.c.hed her hand away with an angry gesture and put it behind her back.

"Why does she dislike me so?" asked Olla, discomfited and grieved, for she had meant to be kind.

"Oh, she doesn't dislike thee, she couldn't!" cried peace-loving Jacqueline.

But Ebba did dislike Olla, though no one understood why. She would neither go near nor look at her if she could help it, and when, in the evening, she and Voorst sat on the doorstep talking together in low tones, Ebba hastened out, placed herself between them, and tried to push Olla away, uttering pitiful little wailing cries.

"What does ail her?" asked Jacqueline. Metje made no answer, but she looked troubled. She felt that there was sorrow ahead for Ebba or for Voorst, and she loved them both.

The wedding-day dawned clear and cloudless, as a marriage-day should.

Jacqueline in her bravery of stiff gilded head-dress with its long scarf-like veil, her snowy bodice, and necklace of many-colored beads, was a dazzling figure. Olla was scarcely less so, and she blushed and dimpled as Voorst led her along in the bridal procession. Ebba walked behind them. She, too, had been made fine in a scarlet bodice and a grand cap with wings like that which Metje wore, but she did not seem to care that she was so well dressed. Her sad eyes followed the forms of Olla and Voorst, and as she limped painfully along after them, she moaned continually to herself, a low, inarticulate, wordless murmur like the sound of the sea.

Following the marriage-ma.s.s came the marriage-feast. Goodman Huyt sat at the head of the table, the mother at the foot, and, side by side, the newly-wedded pair. Opposite them sat Voorst and Olla. His expression of triumphant satisfaction, and her blushes and demurely-contented glances, had not been un.o.bserved by the guests; so no one was very much surprised when, in the midst of the festivity, the father rose, and knocked with his tankard on the table to insure silence.

"Neighbors and kinsfolk, one marriage maketh another, saith the old proverb, and we are like to prove it a true one. I hereby announce that, with consent of parents on both sides, my son Voorst is troth-plight with Olla the daughter of my old friend Tronk who sits here,"--slapping Tronk on the shoulder,--"and I would now ask you to drink with me a high-health to the young couple." Suiting the action to the word, he filled the gla.s.s with Hollands, raised it, p.r.o.nounced the toast, "A High-Health to Voorst Huyt and to his bride Olla Tronk," and swallowed the spirits at a draught.

Ebba, who against her will had been made to sit at the board among the other guests, had listened to this speech with no understanding of its meaning. But as she listened to the laughter and applause which followed it, and saw people slapping Voorst on the back with loud congratulations and shaking hands with Olla, she raised her head with a flash of interest. She watched Voorst rise in his place with Olla by his side, while the rest reseated themselves; she heard him utter a few sentences.

What they meant she knew not; but he looked at Olla, and when, after draining his gla.s.s, he turned, put his arm round Olla's neck, drew her head close to his own, and their lips met in a kiss, some meaning of the ceremony seemed to burst upon her. She started from her seat, for one moment she stood motionless with dilated eyes and parted lips, then she gave a long wild cry and fled from the house.

"What is the matter? Who screamed?" asked old Huyt, who had observed nothing.

"It is nothing. The poor dumb child over there," answered his wife.

Metje looked anxiously at the door. The duties of hospitality held her to her place. "She will come in presently and I will comfort her," she thought to herself.

But Ebba never "came in" again. When Metje was set free to search, all trace of her had vanished. As suddenly and mysteriously as she had come into their lives she had pa.s.sed out of them again. No one had seen her go forth from the door, no trace could be found of her on land or sea.

Only an old fisherman, who was drawing his nets that day at a little distance from the sh.o.r.e, averred that just after high noon he had noticed a shape wearing a fluttering garment like that of a woman pa.s.s slowly over the ridge of the dike just where it made a sudden curve to the left. He had had the curiosity to row that way after his net was safely pulled in, for he wanted to see if there was a boat lying there, or what could take any one to so unlikely a spot; but neither boat nor woman could be found, and he half fancied that he must have fallen asleep in broad daylight and dreamed for a moment.

However that might be, Ebba was gone; nor was anything ever known of her again. Metje mourned her loss, all the more that Jacqueline's departure left her with no mate of her own age in the household. Little Karen cried for "Ebbe" for a night or two, the Vrow missed her aid in the spinning, but Voorst, absorbed in his happiness, scarcely noted her absence, and Olla was glad.

Gradually she grew to be a tradition of the neighborhood, handed down from one generation to another even to this day, and n.o.body ever knew whence she came or where she went, or whether it was a mortal maiden or one of the children of the strange, solemn sea folk who was cast so curiously upon the hands of the kindly Friesland family and dwelt in their midst for two speechless years.

NOTE.--The tradition on which this story is founded, and which is still held as true in some parts of Friesland, is referred to by Parival in his book, "Les Delices de Hollande."