The Modern Vikings - Stories of Life and Sport in the Norseland

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Title: The Modern Vikings - Stories of Life and Sport in the Norseland
Author: Boyesen, Hjalmar Hjorth
Language: English
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.

Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been
corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within
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More detail can be found at the end of the book.

THE MODERN VIKINGS

THE SCRIBNER SERIES

FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

EACH WITH ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOR

BOOKS FOR BOYS

THE MODERN VIKINGS By H. H. Boyesen
WILL SHAKESPEARE’S LITTLE LAD By Imogen Clark
THE BOY SCOUT and Other Stories for Boys
STORIES FOR BOYS By Richard Harding Davis
HANS BRINKER, or, The Silver Skates By Mary Mapes Dodge
THE HOOSIER SCHOOL-BOY By Edward Eggleston
THE COURT OF KING ARTHUR By William Henry Frost
WITH LEE IN VIRGINIA
WITH WOLFE IN CANADA
REDSKIN AND COWBOY By G. A. Henty
AT WAR WITH PONTIAC By Kirk Munroe
TOMMY TROT’S VISIT TO SANTA CLAUS and
A CAPTURED SANTA CLAUS By Thomas Nelson Page
BOYS OF ST. TIMOTHY’S By Arthur Stanwood Pier
KIDNAPPED
TREASURE ISLAND
BLACK ARROW By Robert Louis Stevenson
AROUND THE WORLD IN EIGHTY DAYS
A JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH
FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON
TWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA By Jules Verne
ON THE OLD KEARSAGE
IN THE WASP’S NEST By Cyrus Townsend Brady
THE BOY SETTLERS
THE BOYS OF FAIRPORT By Noah Brooks
THE CONSCRIPT OF 1813 By Erckmann-Chatrian
THE STEAM-SHOVEL MAN By Ralph D. Paine
THE MOUNTAIN DIVIDE By Frank H. Spearman
THE STRANGE GRAY CANOE By Paul G. Tomlinson
THE ADVENTURES OF A FRESHMAN By J. L. Williams
JACK HALL, or, The School Days of an American Boy
By Robert Grant

BOOKS FOR GIRLS

SMITH COLLEGE STORIES By Josephine Daskam
THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP By Katharine Holland Brown
MY WONDERFUL VISIT By Elizabeth Hill
SARAH CREWE, or, What Happened at Miss Minchin’s
By Frances Hodgson Burnett

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS

[Illustration: BETWEEN SEA AND SKY.]

THE MODERN VIKINGS

STORIES OF LIFE AND SPORT IN THE NORSELAND

HJALMAR HJORTH BOYESEN

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS

1921

[Illustration]

TO THE THREE VIKINGS:

_HJALMAR, ALGERNON, AND BAYARD_.

_Three little lovely Vikings
Came sailing over the sea,
From a fair and distant country,
And put into port with me._

_The first--how well I remember--
Sir Hjalmar was he hight.
With a lusty Norseland war-whoop,
He came in the dead of night._

_He met my respectful greeting
With a kick and a threatening frown;
He pressed all the house in his service,
And turned it upside-down._

_He thrust, when I meekly objected,
A clinched little fist in my face;
I had no choice but surrender,
And give him charge of the place._

_He heeded no creature’s pleasure;
But oft, with a conqueror’s right,
He sang in the small hours of morning,
And dined in the middle of night._

_And oft, to amuse his Highness--
For naught we feared as his frowns--
We bleated and barked and bellowed,
And danced like circus-clowns._

_Then crowed with delight our despot;
So well he liked his home,
He summoned his brother, Algie,
From the realm beyond the foam._

_And he is a laughing tyrant,
With dimples and golden curls;
He stole a march on our heart-gates,
And made us his subjects and churls._

_He rules us gayly and lightly,
With smiles and cajoling arts;
He went into winter-quarters
In the innermost nooks of our hearts._

_And Bayard, the last of my Vikings,
As chivalrous as your name!
With your sturdy and quaint little figure,
What havoc you wrought when you came!_

_There’s a chieftain in you--a leader
Of men in some glorious path--
For dauntless you are, and imperious,
And dignified in your wrath._

_You vain and stubborn and tender
Fair son of the valiant North,
With a voice like the storm and the north-wind,
When it sweeps from the glaciers forth._

_With the tawny sheen in your ringlets,
And the Norseland light in your eyes,
Where oft, when my tale is mournful,
The tears unbidden arise._

_For my Vikings love song and saga,
Like their conquering fathers of old;
And these are some of the stories
To the three little tyrants I told._

CONTENTS.

PAGE
THARALD’S OTTER, 1

BETWEEN SEA AND SKY, 17

MIKKEL, 41

THE FAMINE AMONG THE GNOMES, 71

HOW BERNT WENT WHALING, 79

THE COOPER AND THE WOLVES, 91

MAGNIE’S DANGEROUS RIDE, 102

THORWALD AND THE STAR-CHILDREN, 128

BIG HANS AND LITTLE HANS, 147

A NEW WINTER SPORT, 165

THE SKERRY OF SHRIEKS, 182

FIDDLE-JOHN’S FAMILY, 211

ILLUSTRATIONS

BETWEEN SEA AND SKY _Frontispiece_

PAGE
THE BARON SPRANG UP WITH AN EXCLAMATION OF FRIGHT 76

NORWEGIAN SKEE-RUNNERS 178

IN BATTERY PARK 260

THARALD’S OTTER.

Tharald and his brother Anders were bathing one day in the lake.
The water was deliciously warm, and the two boys lay quietly
floating on their backs, paddling gently with their hands. All of
a sudden Tharald gave a scream. A big trout leaped into the air,
and almost in the same instant a black, shiny head rose out of the
water right between his knees. The trout, in its descent, gave him
a slap of its slimy tail across his face. The black head stared
out at him, for a moment, with an air of surprise, then dived
noiselessly into the deep.

Anders hurried to shore as rapidly as arms and legs would propel
him.

“It was the sea-serpent,” said he.

He was so frightened that he grew almost numb; his breath stuck in
his throat, and the blood throbbed in his ears.

“Oh, you sillibub!” shouted his brother after him, “it was an otter
chasing a salmon-trout. The trout will always leap, when chased.”

He had scarcely spoken when, but a few rods from Anders, appeared
the black, shiny head again, this time with the trout in its mouth.

“He has his lair somewhere around here,” said Tharald; “let us
watch him, and see where he is going.”

The otter was nearing the shore. He swam rapidly, with a slightly
undulating motion of the body, so that, at a distance, he might
well have been mistaken for a large water-snake. When he had
reached the shore, he dragged the fish up on the sand, spied
cautiously about him, to see if he was watched, and again seizing
the trout, slid into the underbrush. There was something so
delightfully wild and wary about it that the boys felt the hunter’s
passion aroused in them, and they could scarcely take the time to
fling on their clothes before starting in pursuit. Like Indians,
they crept on hands and feet over the mossy ground, bent aside the
bushes, and peered cautiously between the leaves.

“Sh--sh--sh! we are on the track,” whispered Tharald, stooping to
smell the moss. “He has been here within a minute.”

“Here is a drop of fish-blood,” answered Anders, pointing to a
twig, over which the fish had evidently been dragged.

“Serves him right, the rascal,” murmured his elder brother.

“If we haven’t got him now, my name is not Anders,” whispered the
younger.

They had advanced about fifty rods from the water, when their
attention was arrested by two faint tracks among the stones--so
faint, indeed, that no eyes but those of a hunter would have
discovered them. A strange pungent odor, as of something wild,
pervaded the air; the whirring of the crickets in the tree-tops
seemed hushed and timid, and little silent birds hopped about in
the elder-bushes as if afraid to make a noise.

The boys lay down flat on the ground, and following the two tracks,
discovered that they converged toward a frowsy-looking juniper-bush
which grew among the roots of a big old pine. Very cautiously they
bent the bush aside.

What was that? There stood the old otter, tearing away at his
trout, and three of the prettiest little black things your eyes
ever fell upon were gambolling about him, picking up bits of the
fish, and slinging them about in their efforts to swallow.

The boys gave a cry of delight. But the otter--what do you think
he did? He showed a set of very ugly teeth, and spat like an angry
cat. It was evidently not advisable to molest him with bare hands.

In hot haste Tharald and Anders by their united weight broke off
a young elder-tree and stripped off the leaves. Now they could
venture a battle. Eagerly they pulled aside the juniper. But alas,
Mr. Otter was gone, and had taken his family with him.

To track him through the tangled underbrush, where he probably knew
a hundred hiding-places, would be a hopeless task. The boys were
about to return, baffled and disappointed, to the lake, when it
occurred to Tharald to explore the den.

There was a hole under the tree-root, just big enough to put a fist
through, and, without thought of harm, the boy flung himself down
and thrust his arm in to the very elbow. He fumbled about for a
moment--ah, what was that?--something soft and hairy, that slipped
through his fingers. Tharald made a bold grab for it--then with a
yell of pain pulled out his hand. The soft thing followed, but its
teeth were not soft. As Tharald rose to his feet, there hung a tiny
otter with its teeth locked through the fleshy part of his hand, at
the base of the thumb.

“Look here, now,” cried his brother; “sit down quietly, and I will
soon rid you of the little beast.”

Tharald, clinching his teeth, sat down on a bowlder. Anders drew
his knife.

“No, I thank you,” shouted Tharald, as he saw the knife, “I can do
that myself. I don’t want you to harm him.”

“I don’t intend to harm him,” said Anders. “I only want to force
his mouth open.”

To this Tharald submitted. The knife was carefully inserted at the
corner of the little monster’s mouth, when lo! he let the hand go,
and snapped after the knife-blade. Anders quickly threw his hat
over him, and held it down with his knees, while he tore a piece
off the lining of his coat to bandage his brother’s wound. Then
they trudged home together with the otter imprisoned in the hat.

* * * * *

You would scarcely have thought that “Mons”--for that became the
otter’s name--would have made a pleasant companion; but strange as
it may seem, he improved much, as soon as he got into civilized
society. He soon learned that it was not good-manners to snarl and
show his teeth when politely addressed, and if occasionally he
forgot himself, he got a little tap on the nose which quickened his
memory. He was scarcely six inches long when he was caught, not
reckoning the tail; and so sleek and nimble and glossy, that it
was a delight to handle him His fur was of a very dark brown, and
when it was wet looked black. It was so dense that you could not,
by pulling the hair apart, get the slightest glimpse of the skin.
But the most remarkable things about Mons were the webs he had
between his toes, and his long glossy whiskers. Of the latter he
was particularly proud; he would allow no one to touch them.

Tharald taught him a number of tricks, which Mons learned
with astonishing ease. He was so intelligent that Sultan, the
bull-terrier, grew quite jealous of him.

Inquisitiveness seemed to be the strongest trait in Mons’s
character. His curiosity amounted to an overmastering passion.
There was no crevice that he did not feel called upon to
investigate, no hole which he did not suspect of hiding some
interesting secret. Again and again he made explorations in the
flour-barrel, and came out as white as a miller. Once, for the sake
of variety, he put his nose into the inkstand, and in attempting to
withdraw it, poured the contents over his head.

In the part of Norway where Tharald’s father lived, the people
added largely to their income by salmon-fishing. Nay, those who had
no land made their living entirely by fishing and shooting. Every
spring the salmon migrated from the sea into the rivers, to deposit
their spawn; you could see their young darting in large schools
over the pebbles in the shallows of the streams, pursued by the big
fishes that preyed upon them. Then the perch and the trout grew
fat, and the pike and the pickerel made royal meals out of the
perch and trout. All along the coast lay English schooners, ready
to buy up the salmon and carry it on ice to London. Everywhere
there was life and traffic; everybody felt prosperous and in
good-humor.

It was during this season that Tharald one day walked down to
the lake to try his luck with a fly. It had been raining during
the night; and the trees along the shore shivered and shook down
showers of raindrops. The only trouble was that the water was so
clear that you could see the bottom, which sloped gently outward
for fifty or a hundred feet. Mons, who was now a year old, was
sitting in his usual place on Tharald’s shoulder, and was gazing
contentedly upon the smiling world which surrounded him. He was so
fond of his master, now, that he followed him like a dog, and could
not bear to be long away from him.

“Mons,” said Tharald, after having vainly thrown the alluring fly a
dozen times into the river, “I think this is a bad day for fishing;
or what do you think?”

At that very instant a big salmon-trout--a six-pounder at the very
least--leaped for the fly, and with a splash of its tail sent a
shower of spray shoreward. The line flew with a hum from the reel,
and Tharald braced himself to “play” the fish, until he should tire
him sufficiently to land him.

But the trout was evidently of a different mind. He sprang out of
the water, and his beautiful spotted sides gleamed in the sun.

That was a sight for Mons! Before his master could prevent him,
he plunged from his shoulder into the lake, and shot through the
clear tide like a black arrow. The trout saw him coming, and made a
desperate leap!

The line snapped; the trout was free!

Free! It was delightful to see Mons’s supple body as it glided
through the water, bending upward, downward, sideward, with amazing
swiftness and ease. His two big eyes (which were conveniently
situated so near the tip of his nose that he could see in every
direction with scarcely a turn of the head) peered watchfully
through the transparent tide, keeping ever in the wake of the
fleeing fish. If the latter had had the sense to keep straight
ahead, he might have made good his escape. But he relied upon
strategy, and in this he was no match for Mons. He leaped out
of the water, darted to the right and to the left, and made all
sorts of foolish and flurried manœuvres. But with the calmness of
a Von Moltke, Mons outgeneralled him. He headed him off whenever
he turned, and finally by a brisk turn plunged his teeth into the
trout’s neck, and brought him to land.

I need not tell you that Tharald made a hero of him. He hugged him
and patted him and called him pet names, until Mons grew quite
bashful. But this exploit of Mons’s gave Tharald an idea. He
determined to train him as a salmon-fisher.

It was in the spring of 1880, when Mons was two years old and fully
grown, that he landed his first salmon. And when he had landed the
first, it cost him little trouble to secure the second and the
third. Tharald felt like a rich man that day, as he carried home
in his basket three silvery beauties, worth, at the very least, a
dollar and a half apiece. He made haste to dispose of them to an
English yachtsman at that figure, and went home in a radiant humor,
dreaming of “gold and forests green,” as the Norwegians say.

“Now, Mons,” he said to his friend, whom he was leading after him
by a chain, “if we do as well every day as we have done to-day, we
shall soon be rich enough to go to school. What do you think of
that, Mons?”

One day a big fish-tail splashed out of an eddy, and a black furry
head and back rose for an instant and were whirled out of sight.

“Oh, dear, dear,” cried Tharald, “he will die! He will drown! How
often have I told you, Mons,” he shouted, “that you shouldn’t
attack fishes that are bigger than yourself.”

“Whom are you talking to?” asked a fisherman named John Bamle, who
had come to look after his traps.

“To Mons,” answered the boy, anxiously.

“You don’t mean to say your brother is out there in the water!”
shouted John Bamle, in amazement.

“Yes, Mons, my otter,” cried Tharald, piteously.

“Mons, your brother!” yelled the man, and seizing a boat-hook,
he ran out on the beams from which the traps were suspended. The
roar of the waters was so loud that it was next to impossible to
distinguish words, and “Mons, my otter,” and “Mons, my brother,”
sounded so much alike that it was not wonderful that John mistook
the former for the latter. For awhile he balanced himself by means
of the boat-hook on the slippery beams, peering all the while
anxiously into the rapids.

Suddenly he saw something struggling in the water; showers of spray
whirled upward. Could it be possible that a fish had attacked
the drowning child? Full of pity, he stretched himself forward,
extending the boat-hook before him, when lo! he lost his balance,
and tumbled headlong into the cataract.

Half a dozen other fishermen who were sauntering down the
hill-sides saw their comrade fall, and rushed into the water to
rescue him.

One man, bolder than the rest, sat astride a floating log and
rode out into the seething current. Now he was thrown off; now he
scrambled up again; at last, as his drowning comrade appeared for
the third time, with an arm extended out of a whirling eddy, he
caught him deftly with his boat-hook, and pulled him up toward the
log.

As John Bamle lay there, more dead than alive, upon the bank,
emitting streams of water through mouth and nostrils, the question
was asked how he came to endanger his life in such a reckless
manner. At that very instant the head of a black otter was seen
emerging from the water, dragging a huge salmon up among the stones.

“Look, the otter, the otter!” cried the men; and a shower of
stones hailed down upon the bowlder upon which Mons had sought
refuge.

“Let him alone, I tell you!” screamed Tharald; “he is mine.”

And with three leaps he was at Mons’s side, wringing wet from top
to toe, but happy to have his friend once more in safety. He seized
him in his arms, and would have borne him ashore, if the enormous
salmon had not demanded all his strength.

As they again reached the bank, the fishermen gathered about them;
but Mons slunk cautiously at his master’s heels. He understood
the growling comments, as one man after the other lifted the big
salmon and estimated its weight. John Bamle had now so far regained
consciousness that he could speak, and he stared with no friendly
eye at the boy who had come near causing his death.

“Come, now, Mons,” said Tharald, “come, and let us hurry home to
breakfast.”

“Mons!” repeated John Bamle; “is _that_ your Mons?”

“Yes, that is my Mons,” answered Tharald, innocently.

“Then you just wait till I am strong enough to stand on my legs,
and I’ll promise to give you a thrashing that you’ll remember to
your dying day,” said John, and shook his big fist.

Tharald was not anxious to wait under such circumstances, but
betook himself homeward as rapidly as his legs would carry him.

During the next week Tharald did his best to avoid the fishermen.
And yet, try as he might, he could not help meeting them on the
road, or on the river-bank, as he carried home his heavy load of
salmon.

“Hallo! How is your brother Mons?” they jeered, when they saw him.

Occasionally they stopped and glanced into his basket; and Tharald
noticed that they glowered unpleasantly at him, whenever he had
caught a fine fish. The fact was, he had had extraordinary luck
this week; for Mons was getting to be such an expert, that he
scarcely ever dived without bringing something or other ashore.

He had almost money enough now to pay for a year’s schooling, and
he could scarcely sleep for joy when he thought of the bright
future that stretched out before him. He saw himself in all manner
of delightful situations. Mons, in the meanwhile, who was not
troubled with this kind of ambition, snoozed peacefully in his
box, at the foot of his master’s bed. He did not dream what a rude
awakening was in store for him.

* * * * *

It had been a very bad week for John Bamle and his comrades.
Morning after morning their traps were empty, or one solitary fish
lay sprawling at the bottom of the box.

“I tell you, boys,” said John, spitting into his fist, and shaking
it threateningly against the sky, “I am bewitched; that’s what I
am. And so are you, boys--every mother’s son of you. It is that
Gimlehaug boy that has bewitched us. Are you fools enough to
suppose that it is a natural beast--that black thing--that trots
at his heels, and empties the river of its fish for his benefit?
Not by a jugful, lads--not by a big jugful! The devil it is--the
black Satan himself--or my name is not John Bamle. You never saw a
beast act like that before, plunging into the yellow whirlpools,
and coming back unscathed every time, and with a fish as big as
himself dangling after him. Now, shall we stand that any longer,
boys? We have wives and babies at home, crying for food! And here
we come daily, and find empty traps. Now wake up, lads, and be men!
There has come a day of reckoning for him who has sold himself
to the devil. I, for my part, am just mad enough to venture on a
tussle with old Nick himself.”

Every word that John uttered fell like a firebrand into the men’s
hearts. They shouted wildly, shook their fists, and swung their
long boat-hooks.

“We’ll kill him, the thief,” they cried, “the scoundrel! He has
sold himself to the devil.”

Up they rushed from the river-bank, up the green hillsides, up the
rocky slope, until they reached the gate at Gimlehaug. It was but
a small turf-thatched cottage, with tiny lead-framed window-panes
and a rude stone chimney. The father was out working by the day,
and the two boys were at home alone. Tharald, who was sitting at
the window reading, felt suddenly a paw tapping him on the cheek.
It was Mons. In the same instant an angry murmur of many voices
reached his ear, and he saw a crowd of excited fishermen, with
boat-hooks in their hands, thronging through the gate. There were
twenty or thirty of them at the very least. Tharald sprang forward
and bolted the door. He knew why they had come. Then he snatched
Mons up in his arms, and hugged him tightly.

“Let them do their worst, Mons,” he said; “whatever happens, you
and I will stand by each other.”

Anders, Tharald’s brother, came rushing in by the back door. He,
too, had seen the men coming.

“Hide yourself, hide yourself, Tharald!” he cried in alarm; “it is
you they are after.”

Hide yourself! That was more easily said than done. The hut was now
surrounded, and there was no escape.

“Climb up the chimney,” begged Anders; “hurry, hurry! you have no
time to lose.”

Happily there was no fire on the hearth, and Tharald, still hugging
Mons tightly, allowed himself to be pushed by his brother up the
sooty tunnel. Scarcely was Anders again out on the floor, when
there was a tremendous thump at the door, so that the hut trembled.

“Open the door, I say!” shouted John Bamle without.

Anders, knowing how easily he could force the door, if he wished,
drew the bolt and opened.

“I want the salmon-fisher,” said John, fiercely.

“Yes, we want the salmon-fisher,” echoed the crowd, wildly.

“What salmon-fisher?” asked Anders, with feigned surprise.

“Don’t you try your tricks on me, you rascal,” yelled John,
furiously; and seizing the boy by the collar, flung him out through
the door. The crowd stormed in after him. They tore up the beds,
and scattered the straw over the floor; upset the furniture,
ransacked drawers and boxes. But no trace did they find of him whom
they sought. Then finally it occurred to someone to look up the
chimney, and a long boat-hook was thrust up to bring down whatever
there might be hidden there. Tharald felt the sharp point in his
thigh, and he knew that he was discovered. With the strength of
despair he tore himself loose, leaving part of his trousers on the
hook, and, climbing upward, sprang out upon the roof. His thigh was
bleeding, but he scarcely noticed it. His eyes and hair were full
of soot, and his face was as black as a chimney-sweep’s. The men,
when they saw him, jeered and yelled with derisive laughter.

“Hand us down your devilish beast there, and we won’t hurt you!”
cried John Bamle.

“No, I won’t,” answered Tharald.

“By the heavens, lad, if you don’t mind, it will go hard with you.”

“I am not afraid,” said Tharald.

“Then we’ll make you, you beastly brat,” yelled a furious voice in
the crowd; and instantly a stone whistled past the boy’s ear, and
fell with a thump on the turf below.

“Now, will you give up your beast?”

Tharald hesitated a moment. Should he give up Mons, who had been
his friend and playmate for two years, and see him stoned to death
by the cruel men? Mons fixed his black, liquid eyes upon him as if
he would ask him that very question. No, no, he could not forsake
Mons. A second stone, bigger than the first, flew past him, and he
had to dodge quickly behind the chimney, as the third and fourth
followed.

“Tharald, Tharald!” cried Anders, imploringly; “do let the otter
go, or they will kill both you and him.”

Before Tharald could answer, a shower of stones fell about him. One
hit him in the forehead; the sparks danced before his eyes. A warm
current rushed down his face; dizziness seized him; he fell, he
did not know where or how. John Bamle with a yell sprang forward,
climbed up the low wall to the roof, and saw the boy lying, as if
dead, behind the chimney. He turned to call for his boat-hook, when
suddenly something black shot toward him from the chimney-top,
and a set of terrible teeth buried themselves in his throat. The
mere force of the leap made him lose his balance, and he tumbled
backward into the yard.

In the same instant Mons bounded forward, lighted on somebody’s
shoulder, and made for the woods. Before anybody had time to think,
he was out of sight.

Thus ended the famous battle of Gimlehaug, of which the
salmon-fishers yet speak in the valley. Or rather, I should say, it
did not end there, for John Bamle lay ill for several weeks, and
had to have his wound sewed up by the doctor.

As for Tharald, he got well within a few days. But a strange
uneasiness came over him, and he roamed through the woods early
and late, seeking his lost friend. At the end of a week, as he was
sitting, one night, on the rocks at the river, he suddenly felt
something hairy rubbing against his nose. He looked up, and with a
scream of joy clasped Mons in his arms. Then he hurried home, and
had a long talk with his father. And the end of it was, that with
the money which Mons had earned by his salmon-fishing, tickets were
bought for New York for the entire family. About a month later they
landed at Castle Garden.

Tharald and Mons are now doing a large fish-business, without fear
of harm, in one of the great lakes of Wisconsin. Some day, he hopes
yet, it may lead to a parsonage. Since he learned that some of the
apostles were fishermen, he feels that he is on the right road to
the goal of his ambition.

BETWEEN SEA AND SKY.

“Iceland is the most beautiful land the sun doth shine upon,” said
Sigurd Sigurdson to his two sons.

“How can you know that, father,” asked Thoralf, the elder of the
two boys, “when you have never been anywhere else?”

“I know it in my heart,” said Sigurd, devoutly.

“It is, after all, a matter of taste,” observed the son. “I think
if I were hard pressed, I might be induced to put up with some
other country.”

“You ought to blush with shame,” his father rejoined warmly. “You
do not deserve the name of an Icelander, when you fail to see
how you have been blessed in having been born in so beautiful a
country.”

“I wish it were less beautiful and had more things to eat in it,”
muttered Thoralf. “Salted codfish, I have no doubt, is good for the
soul, but it rests very heavily on the stomach, especially when you
eat it three times a day.”

“You ought to thank God that you have codfish, and are not a naked
savage on some South Sea isle, who feeds, like an animal, on the
herbs of the earth.”

“But I like codfish much better than smoked puffin,” remarked Jens,
the younger brother, who was carving a pipe-bowl. “Smoked puffin
always makes me sea-sick. It tastes like cod-liver oil.”

Sigurd smiled, and, patting the younger boy on the head, entered
the cottage.

“You shouldn’t talk so to father, Thoralf,” said Jens, with
superior dignity; for his father’s caress made him proud and
happy. “Father works so hard, and he does not like to see anyone
discontented.”

“That is just it,” replied the elder brother; “he works so hard,
and yet barely manages to keep the wolf from the door. That is what
makes me impatient with the country. If he worked so hard in any
other country he would live in abundance, and in America he would
become a rich man.”

This conversation took place one day, late in the autumn, outside
of a fisherman’s cottage on the north-western coast of Iceland.
The wind was blowing a gale down from the ice-engirdled pole, and
it required a very genial temper to keep one from getting blue.
The ocean, which was but a few hundred feet distant, roared like
an angry beast, and shook its white mane of spray, flinging it
up against the black clouds. With every fresh gust of wind, a
shower of salt water would fly hissing through the air and whirl
about the chimney-top, which was white on the windward side from
dried deposits of brine. On the turf-thatched roof big pieces of
drift-wood, weighted down with stones, were laid lengthwise and
crosswise, and along the walls fishing-nets hung in festoons from
wooden pegs. Even the low door was draped, as with decorative
intent, with the folds of a great drag-net, the clumsy cork-floats
of which often dashed into the faces of those who attempted to
enter. Under a driftwood shed which projected from the northern
wall was seen a pile of peat, cut into square blocks, and a
quantity of the same useful material might be observed down at the
beach, in a boat which the boys had been unloading when the storm
blew up. Trees no longer grow in the island, except the crippled
and twisted dwarf-birch, which creeps along the ground like a
snake, and, if it ever dares lift its head, rarely grows more
than four or six feet high. In the olden time, which is described
in the so-called sagas of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,
Iceland had very considerable forests of birch and probably also of
pine. But they were cut down; and the climate has gradually been
growing colder, until now even the hardiest tree, if it be induced
to strike root in a sheltered place, never reaches maturity. The
Icelanders therefore burn peat, and use for building their houses
driftwood which is carried to them by the Gulf Stream from Cuba and
the other well-wooded isles along the Mexican Gulf.

“If it keeps blowing like this,” said Thoralf, fixing his weather
eye on the black horizon, “we shan’t be able to go a-fishing; and
mother says the larder is very nearly empty.”

“I wish it would blow down an Englishman or something on us,”
remarked the younger brother; “Englishmen always have such lots of
money, and they are willing to pay for everything they look at.”

“While you are a-wishing, why don’t you wish for an American?
Americans have mountains and mountains of money, and they don’t
mind a bit what they do with it. That’s the reason I should like to
be an American.”

“Yes, let us wish for an American or two to make us comfortable for
the winter. But I am afraid it is too late in the season to expect
foreigners.”

The two boys chatted together in this strain, each working at some
piece of wood-carving which he expected to sell to some foreign
traveller. Thoralf was sixteen years old, tall of growth, but
round-shouldered, from being obliged to work when he was too young.
He was rather a handsome lad, though his features were square and
weather-beaten, and he looked prematurely old. Jens, the younger
boy, was fourteen years old, and was his mother’s darling. For
even up under the North Pole mothers love their children tenderly,
and sometimes they love one a little more than another; that is,
of course, the merest wee bit of a fraction of a trifle more.
Icelandic mothers are so constituted that when one child is a
little weaker and sicklier than the rest, and thus seems to be more
in need of petting, they are apt to love their little weakling
above all their other children, and to lavish the tenderest care
upon that one. It was because little Jens had so narrow a chest,
and looked so small and slender by the side of his robust brother,
that his mother always singled him out for favors and caresses.

II.

All night long the storm danced wildly about the cottage, rattling
the windows, shaking the walls, and making fierce assaults upon
the door, as if it meant to burst in. Sometimes it bellowed
hoarsely down the chimney, and whirled the ashes on the hearth,
like a gray snowdrift, through the room. The fire had been put
out, of course; but the dancing ashes kept up a fitful patter,
like that of a pelting rainstorm, against the walls; they even
penetrated into the sleeping alcoves and powdered the heads of
their occupants. For in Iceland it is only well-to-do people who
can afford to have separate sleeping-rooms; ordinary folk sleep
in little closed alcoves, along the walls of the sitting-room;
masters and servants, parents and children, guests and wayfarers,
all retiring at night into square little holes in the walls, where
they undress behind sliding trapdoors which may be opened again,
when the lights have been put out, and the supply of air threatens
to become exhausted. It was in a little closet of this sort that
Thoralf and Jens were lying, listening to the roar of the storm.
Thoralf dozed off occasionally, and tried gently to extricate
himself from his frightened brother’s embrace; but Jens lay with
wide-open eyes, staring into the dark, and now and then sliding
the trapdoor aside and peeping out, until a blinding shower of
ashes would again compel him to slip his head under the sheepskin
coverlet. When at last he summoned courage to peep out, he could
not help shuddering. It was terribly cheerless and desolate. And
all the time his father’s words kept ringing ironically in his
ears: “Iceland is the most beautiful land the sun doth shine upon.”
For the first time in his life he began to question whether his
father might not possibly be mistaken, or, perhaps, blinded by his
love for his country. But the boy immediately repented of this
doubt, and, as if to convince himself in spite of everything, kept
repeating the patriotic motto to himself until he fell asleep.

It was yet pitch dark in the room, when he was awakened by his
father, who stood stooping over him.

“Sleep on, child,” said Sigurd; “it was your brother I wanted to
wake up, not you.”

“What is the matter, father? What has happened?” cried Jens, rising
up in bed, and rubbing the ashes from the corners of his eyes.

“We are snowed up,” said the father, quietly. “It is already nine
o’clock, I should judge, or thereabouts, but not a ray of light
comes through the windows. I want Thoralf to help me open the door.”

Thoralf was by this time awake, and finished his primitive toilet
with much despatch. The darkness, the damp cold, and the unopened
window-shutters impressed him ominously. He felt as if some
calamity had happened or were about to happen. Sigurd lighted a
piece of driftwood and stuck it into a crevice in the wall. The
storm seemed to have ceased; a strange, tomb-like silence prevailed
without and within. On the hearth lay a small snowdrift which
sparkled with a starlike glitter in the light.

“Bring the snow-shovels, Thoralf,” said Sigurd. “Be quick; lose no
time.”

“They are in the shed outside,” answered Thoralf.

“That is very unlucky,” said the father; “now we shall have to use
our fists.”

The door opened outward and it was only with the greatest
difficulty that father and son succeeded in pushing it ajar. The
storm had driven the snow with such force against it that their
efforts seemed scarcely to make any impression upon the dense white
wall which rose up before them.

“This is of no earthly use, father,” said the boy; “it is a day’s
job at the very least. Let me rather try the chimney.”

“But you might stick in the snow and perish,” objected the father,
anxiously.

“Weeds don’t perish so easily,” said Thoralf. “Stand up on the
hearth, father, and I will climb up on your shoulders.”

Sigurd half reluctantly complied with his request. Thoralf crawled
up his back, and soon planted his feet on the parental shoulders.
He pulled his knitted woollen cap over his eyes and ears so
as to protect them from the drizzling soot which descended in
intermittent showers. Then groping with his toes for a little
projection of the wall, he gained a securer foothold, and pushing
boldly on, soon thrust his sooty head through the snow-crust. A
chorus as of a thousand howling wolves burst upon his bewildered
sense; the storm raged, shrieked, roared, and nearly swept him off
his feet. Its biting breath smote his face like a sharp whip-lash.

“Give me my sheepskin coat,” he cried down into the cottage; “the
wind chills me to the bone.”

The sheepskin coat was handed to him on the end of a pole, and
seated upon the edge of the chimney, he pulled it on and buttoned
it securely. Then he rolled up the edges of his cap in front and
cautiously exposed his eyes and the tip of his nose. It was not a
pleasant experiment, but one dictated by necessity. As far as he
could see, the world was white with snow, which the storm whirled
madly around, and swept now earthward, now heavenward. Great
funnel-shaped columns of snow danced up the hillsides and vanished
against the black horizon. The prospect before the boy was by no
means inviting, but he had been accustomed to battle with dangers
since his earliest childhood, and he was not easily dismayed. With
much deliberation, he climbed over the edge of the chimney, and
rolled down the slope of the roof in the direction of the shed. He
might have rolled a great deal farther, if he had not taken the
precaution to roll against the wind. When he had made sure that
he was in the right locality, he checked himself by spreading his
legs and arms; then judging by the outline of the snow where the
door of the shed was, he crept along the edge of the roof on the
leeward side. He looked more like a small polar bear than a boy,
covered, as he was, with snow from head to foot. He was prepared
for a laborious descent, and raising himself up he jumped with all
his might, hoping that his weight would carry him a couple of feet
down. To his utmost astonishment he accomplished considerably more.
The snow yielded under his feet as if it had been eiderdown, and
he tumbled headlong into a white cave right at the entrance to the
shed. The storm, while it had packed the snow on the windward side,
had naturally scattered it very loosely on the leeward, which left
a considerable space unfilled under the projecting eaves.

Thoralf picked himself up and entered the shed without difficulty.
He made up a large bundle of peat, which he put into a basket
which could be carried, by means of straps, upon his back. With
a snow-shovel he then proceeded to dig a tunnel to the nearest
window. This was not a very hard task, as the distance was not
great. The window was opened and the basket of peat, a couple
of shovels, and two pairs of skees[1] (to be used in case of
emergency) were handed in. Thoralf himself, who was hungry as
a wolf, made haste to avail himself of the same entrance. And
it occurred to him as a happy afterthought that he might have
saved himself much trouble, if he had selected the window instead
of the chimney when he sallied forth on his expedition. He had
erroneously taken it for granted that the snow would be packed as
hard everywhere as it was at the front door. The mother, who had
been spending this exciting half-hour in keeping little Jens warm,
now lighted a fire and made coffee; and Thoralf needed no coaxing
to do justice to his breakfast, even though it had, like everything
else in Iceland, a flavor of salted fish.

III.

Five days had passed, and still the storm raged with unabated
fury. The access to the ocean was cut off, and, with that, access
to food. Already the last handful of flour had been made into
bread, and of the dried cod which hung in rows under the ceiling
only one small and skinny specimen remained. The father and the
mother sat with mournful faces at the hearth, the former reading
in his hymn-book, the latter stroking the hair of her youngest
boy. Thoralf, who was carving at his everlasting pipe-bowl (a
corpulent and short-legged Turk with an enormous mustache), looked
up suddenly from his work and glanced questioningly at his father.

“Father,” he said, abruptly, “how would you like to starve to
death?”

“God will preserve us from that, my son,” answered the father,
devoutly.

“Not unless we try to preserve ourselves,” retorted the boy,
earnestly. “We can’t tell how long this storm is going to last, and
it is better for us to start out in search of food now, while we
are yet strong, than to wait until later, when, as likely as not,
we shall be weakened by hunger.”

“But what would you have me do, Thoralf?” asked the father, sadly.
“To venture out on the ocean in this weather would be certain
death.”

“True; but we can reach the Pope’s Nose on our skees, and there we
might snare or shoot some auks and gulls. Though I am not partial
to that kind of diet myself, it is always preferable to starvation.”

“Wait, my son, wait,” said Sigurd, earnestly. “We have food enough
for to-day, and by to-morrow the storm will have ceased, and we may
go fishing without endangering our lives.”

“As you wish, father,” the son replied, a trifle hurt at his
father’s unresponsive manner; “but if you will take a look out of
the chimney, you will find that it looks black enough to storm for
another week.”

The father, instead of accepting this suggestion, went quietly to
his book-case, took out a copy of Livy, in Latin, and sat down
to read. Occasionally he looked up a word in the lexicon (which
he had borrowed from the public library at Reykjavik), but read
nevertheless with apparent fluency and pleasure. Though he was
a fisherman, he was also a scholar, and during the long winter
evenings he had taught himself Latin and even a smattering of
Greek.[2] In Iceland the people have to spend their evenings
at home; and especially since their millennial celebration in
1876, when American scholars[3] presented them with a large
library, books are their unfailing resource. In the case of Sigurd
Sigurdson, however, books had become a kind of dissipation, and he
had to be weaned gradually of his predilection for Homer and Livy.
His oldest son especially looked upon Latin and Greek as a vicious
indulgence, which no man with a family could afford to foster. Many
a day when Sigurd ought to have been out in his boat casting his
nets, he stayed at home reading. And this, in Thoralf’s opinion,
was the chief reason why they would always remain poor, and run the
risk of starvation, whenever a stretch of bad weather prevented
them from going to sea.

The next morning--the sixth since the beginning of the
storm--Thoralf climbed up to his post of observation on the chimney
top, and saw, to his dismay, that his prediction was correct. It
had ceased snowing, but the wind was blowing as fiercely as ever,
and the cold was intense.

“Will you follow me, father, or will you not?” he asked, when he
had accomplished his descent into the room. “Our last fish is now
eaten, and our last loaf of bread will soon follow suit.”

“I will go with you, my son,” answered Sigurd, putting down his
Livy reluctantly. He had just been reading for the hundredth time
about the expulsion of the Tarquins from Rome, and his blood was
aglow with sympathy and enthusiasm.

“Here is your coat, Sigurd,” said his wife, holding up the great
sheepskin garment, and assisting him in putting it on.

“And here are your skees and your mittens and your cap,” cried
Thoralf, eager to seize the moment, when his father was in the mood
for action.

Muffled up like Esquimaux to their very eyes, armed with bows and
arrows and long poles with nooses of horse-hair at the ends, they
sallied forth on their skees. The wind blew straight into their
faces, forcing their breath down their throats and compelling
them to tack in zigzag lines like ships in a gale. The promontory
called “The Pope’s Nose” was about a mile distant; but in spite of
their knowledge of the land, they went twice astray, and had to
lie down in the snow, every now and then, so as to draw breath and
warm the exposed portions of their faces. At the end of nearly two
hours they found themselves at their destination, but, to their
unutterable astonishment, the ocean seemed to have vanished, and as
far as their eyes could reach, a vast field of packed ice loomed
up against the sky in fantastic bastions, turrets, and spires. The
storm had driven down this enormous arctic wilderness from the
frozen precincts of the pole; and now they were blockaded on all
sides, and cut off from all intercourse with humanity.

“We are lost, Thoralf,” muttered his father, after having gazed for
some time in speechless despair at the towering icebergs; “we might
just as well have remained at home.”

“The wind, which has blown the ice down upon us can blow it away
again, too,” replied the son, with forced cheerfulness.

“I see no living thing here,” said Sigurd, spying anxiously seaward.

“Nor do I,” rejoined Thoralf; “but if we hunt, we shall. I have
brought a rope, and I am going to pay a little visit to those auks
and gulls that must be hiding in the sheltered nooks of the rocks.”

“Are you mad, boy?” cried the father in alarm. “I will never permit
it!”

“There is no help for it, father,” said the boy resolutely. “Here,
you take hold of one end of the rope; the other I will secure about
my waist. Now, get a good strong hold, and brace your feet against
the rock there.”

Sigurd, after some remonstrance, yielded, as was his wont, to his
son’s resolution and courage. Stepping off his skees, which he
stuck endwise into the snow, and burrowing his feet down until
they reached the solid rock, he tied the rope around his waist and
twisted it about his hands, and at last, with quaking heart, gave
the signal for the perilous enterprise. The promontory, which rose
abruptly to a height of two or three hundred feet from the sea,
presented a jagged wall full of nooks and crevices glazed with
frozen snow on the windward side, but black and partly bare to
leeward.

“Now let go!” shouted Thoralf; “and stop when I give a slight pull
at the rope.”

“All right,” replied his father.

And slowly, slowly, hovering in mid-air, now yielding to an
irresistible impulse of dread, now brave, cautious, and confident,
Thoralf descended the cliff, which no human foot had ever trod
before. He held in his hand the pole with the horse-hair noose,
and over his shoulder hung a foxskin hunting-bag. With alert,
wide-open eyes he spied about him, exploring every cranny of the
rock, and thrusting his pole into the holes where he suspected
the birds might have taken refuge. Sometimes a gust of wind would
have flung him violently against the jagged wall if he had not,
by means of his pole, warded off the collision. At last he caught
sight of a bare ledge, where he might gain a secure foothold; for
the rope cut him terribly about the waist, and made him anxious
to relieve the strain, if only for a moment. He gave the signal
to his father, and by the aid of the pole swung himself over to
the projecting ledge. It was uncomfortably narrow, and, what was
worse, the remnants of a dozen auks’ nests had made the place
extremely slippery. Nevertheless, he seated himself, allowing his
feet to dangle, and gazed out upon the vast ocean, which looked
in its icy grandeur like a forest of shining towers and minarets.
It struck him for the first time in his life that perhaps his
father was right in his belief that Iceland was the fairest land
the sun doth shine upon; but he could not help reflecting that it
was a very unprofitable kind of beauty. The storm whistled and
howled overhead, but under the lee of the sheltering rock it blew
only in fitful gusts with intermissions of comparative calm. He
knew that in fair weather this was the haunt of innumerable sea
birds, and he concluded that even now they could not be far away.
He pulled up his legs, and crept carefully on hands and feet
along the slippery ledge, peering intently into every nook and
crevice. His eyes, which had been half-blinded by the glare of the
snow, gradually recovered their power of vision. There! What was
that? Something seemed to move on the ledge below. Yes, there sat
a long row of auks, some erect as soldiers, as if determined to
face it out; others huddled together in clusters, and comically
woe-begone. Quite a number lay dead at the base of the rock,
whether from starvation or as the victims of fierce fights for the
possession of the sheltered ledges could scarcely be determined.
Thoralf, delighted at the sight of anything eatable (even though
it was poor eating), gently lowered the end of his pole, slipped
the noose about the neck of a large, military-looking fellow, and,
with a quick pull, swung him out over the ice-field. The auk gave
a few ineffectual flaps with his useless wings,[4] and expired.
His picking off apparently occasioned no comment whatever in his
family, for his comrades never uttered a sound nor stirred an inch,
except to take possession of the place he had vacated. Number two
met his fate with the same listless resignation; and numbers three,
four, and five were likewise removed in the same noiseless manner,
without impressing their neighbors with the fact that their turn
might come next. The birds were half-benumbed with hunger, and
their usually alert senses were drowsy and stupefied. Nevertheless,
number six, when it felt the noose about its neck, raised a hubbub
that suddenly aroused the whole colony, and, with a chorus of wild
screams, the birds flung themselves down the cliffs or, in their
bewilderment, dashed headlong down upon the ice, where they lay
half stunned or helplessly sprawling. So, through all the caves
and hiding-places of the promontory the commotion spread, and
the noise of screams and confused chatter mingled with the storm
and filled the vault of the sky. In an instant a great flock of
gulls was on the wing, and circled with resentful shrieks about
the head of the daring intruder who had disturbed their wintry
peace. The wind whirled them about, but they still held their own,
and almost brushed with their wings against his face, while he
struck out at them with his pole. He had no intention of catching
them; but, by chance, a huge burgomaster gull[5] got its foot into
the noose. It made an ineffectual attempt to disentangle itself,
then, with piercing screams, flapped its great wings, beating
the air desperately. Thoralf, having packed three birds into his
hunting-bag, tied the three others together by the legs, and flung
them across his shoulders. Then, gradually trusting his weight to
the rope, he slid off the rock, and was about to give his father
the signal to hoist him up. But, greatly to his astonishment,
his living captive, by the power of its mighty wings, pulling at
the end of the pole, swung him considerably farther into space
than he had calculated. He would have liked to let go both the
gull and the pole, but he perceived instantly that if he did,
he would, by the mere force of his weight, be flung back against
the rocky wall. He did not dare take that risk, as the blow might
be hard enough to stun him. A strange, tingling sensation shot
through his nerves, and the blood throbbed with a surging sound
in his ears. There he hung suspended in mid-air, over a terrible
precipice--and a hundred feet below was the jagged ice-field with
its sharp, fiercely-shining steeples! With a powerful effort of
will, he collected his senses, clinched his teeth, and strove to
think clearly. The gull whirled wildly eastward and westward, and
he swayed with its every motion like a living pendulum between sea
and sky. He began to grow dizzy, but again his powerful will came
to his rescue, and he gazed resolutely up against the brow of the
precipice and down upon the projecting ledges below, in order to
accustom his eye and his mind to the sight. By a strong effort
he succeeded in giving a pull at the rope, and expected to feel
himself raised upward by his father’s strong arms. But, to his
amazement, there came no response to his signal. He repeated it
once, twice, thrice; there was a slight tugging at the rope, but no
upward movement. Then the brave lad’s heart stood still, and his
courage wellnigh failed him.

“Father!” he cried, with a hoarse voice of despair; “why don’t you
pull me up?”

His cry was lost in the roar of the wind, and there came no answer.
Taking hold once more of the rope with one hand, he considered the
possibility of climbing; but the miserable gull, seeming every
moment to redouble its efforts at escape, deprived him of the use
of his hands unless he chose to dash out his brains by collision
with the rock. Something like a husky, choked scream seemed to
float down from above, and staring again upward, he saw his
father’s head projecting over the brink of the precipice.

“The rope will break,” screamed Sigurd. “I have tied it to the
rock.”

Thoralf instantly took in the situation. By the swinging motion,
occasioned both by the wind and his fight with the gull, the
rope had become frayed against the sharp edge of the cliff, and
his chances of life, he coolly concluded, were now not worth a
sixpence. Curiously enough, his agitation suddenly left him, and
a great calm came over him. He seemed to stand face to face with
eternity; and as nothing else that he could do was of any avail,
he could at least steel his heart to meet death like a man and an
Icelander.

“I am trying to get hold of the rope below the place where it is
frayed,” he heard his father shout during a momentary lull in the
storm.

“Don’t try,” answered the boy; “you can’t do it alone. Rather, let
me down on the lower ledge, and let me sit there until you can go
and get someone to help you.”

His father, accustomed to take his son’s advice, reluctantly
lowered him ten or twenty feet until he was on a level with the
shelving ledge below, which was broader than the one upon which he
had first gained foothold. But--oh, the misery of it!--the ledge
did not project far enough! He could not reach it with his feet!
The rope, of which only a few strands remained, might break at
any moment and--he dared not think what would be the result! He
had scarcely had time to consider, when a brilliant device shot
through his brain. With a sudden thrust he flung away the pole, and
the impetus of his weight sent him inward with such force that he
landed securely upon the broad shelf of rock.

The gull, surprised by the sudden weight of the pole, made a
somersault, strove to rise again, and tumbled, with the pole still
depending from its leg, down upon the ice-field.

It was well that Thoralf was warmly clad, or he could never have
endured the terrible hours while he sat through the long afternoon,
hearing the moaning and shrieking of the wind and seeing the
darkness close about him. The storm was chilling him with its
fierce breath. One of the birds he tied about his throat as a sort
of scarf, using the feet and neck for making the knot, and the
dense, downy feathers sent a glow of comfort through him, in spite
of his consciousness that every hour might be his last. If he could
only keep awake through the night, the chances were that he would
survive to greet the morning. He hit upon an ingenious plan for
accomplishing this purpose. He opened the bill of the auk which
warmed his neck, cut off the lower mandible, and placed the upper
one (which was as sharp as a knife) so that it would inevitably
cut his chin in case he should nod. He leaned against the rock and
thought of his mother and the warm, comfortable chimney-corner
at home. The wind probably resented this thought, for it suddenly
sent a biting gust right into his face, and he buried his nose
in the downy breast of the auk until the pain had subsided. The
darkness had now settled upon sea and land; only here and there
white steeples loomed out of the gloom. Thoralf, simply to occupy
his thought, began to count them. But all of a sudden one of the
steeples seemed to move, then another--and another.

The boy feared that the long strain of excitement was depriving
him of his reason. The wind, too, after a few wild arctic howls,
acquired a warmer breath and a gentler sound. It could not be
possible that he was dreaming, for in that case he would soon be
dead. Perhaps he was dead already, and was drifting through this
strange icy vista to a better world. All these imaginings flitted
through his mind, and were again dismissed as improbable. He
scratched his face with the foot of an auk in order to convince
himself that he was really awake. Yes, there could be no doubt of
it; he was wide awake. Accordingly he once more fixed his eyes upon
the ghostly steeples and towers, and--it sent cold shudders down
his back--they were still moving. Then there came a fusillade as
of heavy artillery, followed by a salvo of lighter musketry; then
came a fierce grinding, and cracking, and creaking sound, as if
the whole ocean were of glass and were breaking to pieces. “What,”
thought Thoralf, “is the ice breaking up!” In an instant the
explanation of the whole spectral panorama was clear as the day.
The wind had veered round to the southeast, and the whole enormous
ice-floe was being driven out to sea. For several hours--he could
not tell how many--he sat watching this superb spectacle by the
pale light of the aurora borealis, which toward midnight began to
flicker across the sky and illuminated the northern horizon. He
found the sight so interesting that for a while he forgot to be
sleepy. But toward morning, when the aurora began to fade and the
clouds to cover the east, a terrible weariness was irresistibly
stealing over him. He could see glimpses of the black water beneath
him; and the shining spires of ice were vanishing in the dusk,
drifting rapidly away upon the arctic currents with death and
disaster to ships and crews that might happen to cross their paths.

It was terrible at what a snail’s pace the hours crept along!
It seemed to Thoralf as if a week had passed since his father
left him. He pinched himself in order to keep awake, but it was
of no use; his eyelids would slowly droop and his head would
incline--horrors! what was that? Oh, he had forgotten; it was the
sharp mandible of the auk that cut his chin. He put his hand up
to it, and felt something warm and clammy on his fingers. He was
bleeding. It took Thoralf several minutes to stay the blood--the
wound was deeper than he had bargained for; but it occupied him and
kept him awake, which was of vital importance.

At last, after a long and desperate struggle with drowsiness,
he saw the dawn break faintly in the east. It was a mere feeble
promise of light, a remote suggestion that there was such a thing
as day. But to the boy, worn out by the terrible strain of death
and danger staring him in the face, it was a glorious assurance
that rescue was at hand. The tears came into his eyes--not tears
of weakness, but tears of gratitude that the terrible trial had
been endured. Gradually the light spread like a pale, grayish veil
over the eastern sky, and the ocean caught faint reflections of
the presence of the unseen sun. The wind was mild, and thousands
of birds that had been imprisoned by the ice in the crevices of
the rocks whirled triumphantly into the air and plunged with wild
screams into the tide below. It was hard to imagine where they all
had been, for the air seemed alive with them, the cliffs teemed
with them; and they fought, and shrieked, and chattered, like a
howling mob in times of famine. It was owing to this unearthly
tumult that Thoralf did not hear the voice which called to him
from the top of the cliff. His senses were half-dazed by the noise
and by the sudden relief from the excitement of the night. Then
there came two voices floating down to him--then quite a chorus.
He tried to look up, but the beetling brow of the rock prevented
him from seeing anything but a stout rope, which was dangling in
mid-air and slowly approaching him. With all the power of his
lungs he responded to the call; and there came a wild cheer from
above--a cheer full of triumph and joy. He recognized the voices of
Hunding’s sons, who lived on the other side of the promontory; and
he knew that even without their father they were strong enough to
pull up a man three times his weight. The difficulty now was only
to get hold of the rope, which hung too far out for his hands to
reach it.

“Shake the rope hard,” he called up; and immediately the rope was
shaken into serpentine undulations; and after a few vain efforts,
he succeeded in catching hold of the knot. To secure the rope
about his waist and to give the signal for the ascent was but a
moment’s work. They hauled vigorously, those sons of Hunding--for
he rose, up, along the black walls--up--up--up--with no uncertain
motion. At last, when he was at the very brink of the precipice,
he saw his father’s pale and anxious face leaning out over the
abyss. But there was another face too! Whose could it be? It was
a woman’s face. It was his mother’s. Somebody swung him out into
space; a strange, delicious dizziness came over him; his eyes were
blinded with tears; he did not know where he was. He only knew that
he was inexpressibly happy. There came a tremendous cheer from
somewhere--for Icelanders know how to cheer--but it penetrated but
faintly through his bewildered senses. Something cold touched his
forehead; it seemed to be snow; then warm drops fell, which were
tears. He opened his eyes; he was in his mother’s arms. Little Jens
was crying over him and kissing him. His father and Hunding’s sons
were standing, with folded arms, gazing joyously at him.

MIKKEL.

HOW MIKKEL WAS FOUND.

You may find it hard to believe what I am going to tell you, but
it is, nevertheless, strictly true. I knew the boy who is the hero
of this story. His name was Thor Larsson, and a very clever boy
he was. Still I don’t think he would have amounted to much in the
world, if it had not been for his friend Michael, or, as they write
it in Norwegian, Mikkel. Mikkel, strange to say, was not a boy,
but a fox. Thor caught him, when he was a very small lad, in a den
under the roots of a huge tree. It happened in this way. Thor and
his elder brother, Lars, and still another boy, named Ole Thomlemo,
were up in the woods gathering faggots, which they tied together
in large bundles to carry home on their backs; for their parents
were poor people, and had no money to buy wood with. The boys
rather liked to be sent on errands of this kind, because delicious
raspberries and blueberries grew in great abundance in the woods,
and gathering faggots was, after all, a much manlier occupation
than staying at home minding the baby.

Thor’s brother Lars and Ole Thomlemo were great friends, and
they had a disagreeable way of always plotting and having secrets
together and leaving Thor out of their councils. One of their
favorite tricks, when they wished to get rid of him, was to pretend
to play hide-and-seek; and when he had hidden himself, they would
run away from him and make no effort to find him. It was this trick
of theirs which led to the capture of Mikkel, and to many things
besides.

It was on a glorious day in the early autumn that the three boys
started out together, as frisky and gay as a company of squirrels.
They had no luncheon-baskets with them, although they expected to
be gone for the whole day; but they had hooks and lines in their
pockets, and meant to have a famous dinner of brook-trout up in
some mountain glen, where they could sit like pirates around a
fire, conversing in mysterious language, while the fish was being
fried upon a flat stone. Their _tolle_ knives[6] were hanging,
sheathed, from their girdles, and the two older ones carried,
besides, little hatchets wherewith to cut off the dry twigs and
branches. Lars and Ole Thomlemo, as usual, kept ahead and left Thor
to pick his way over the steep and stony road as best he might; and
when he caught up with them, they started to run, while he sat down
panting on a stone. Thus several hours passed, until they came to
a glen in which the blueberries grew so thickly that you couldn’t
step without crushing a handful. The boys gave a shout of delight
and flung themselves down, heedless of their clothes, and began to
eat with boyish greed. As far as their eyes could reach between the
mossy pine trunks, the ground was blue with berries, except where
bunches of ferns or clusters of wild flowers intercepted the view.
When they had dulled the edge of their hunger, they began to cut
the branches from the trees which the lumbermen had felled, and
Ole Thomlemo, who was clever with his hands, twisted withes, which
they used instead of ropes for tying their bundles together. They
had one bundle well secured and another under way, when Ole, with a
mischievous expression, ran over to Lars and whispered something in
his ear.

“Let us play hide-and-seek,” said Lars aloud, glancing over toward
his little brother, who was working like a Trojan, breaking the
faggots so as to make them all the same length.

Thor, who in spite of many exasperating experiences had not yet
learned to be suspicious, threw down an armful of dry boughs and
answered: “Yes, let us, boys. I am in for anything.”

“I’ll blind first,” cried Ole Thomlemo; “now, be quick and get
yourselves hidden.”

And off the two brothers ran, while Ole turned his face against a
big tree and covered his eyes with his hands. But the very moment
Thor was out of sight, Lars stole back again to his friend, and
together they slipped away under cover of the bushes, until they
reached the lower end of the glen. There, they pulled out their
fish-lines, cut rods with their hatchets, and went down to the
tarn, or brook, which was only a short distance off; the fishing
was excellent, and when the large speckled trout began to leap
out of the water to catch their flies, the two boys soon ceased
to trouble themselves about little Thor, who, they supposed, was
hiding under some bush and waiting to be discovered.

In this supposition they were partly right and partly wrong.

No sooner had Ole Thomlemo given the signal for hiding, than Thor
ran up the hill-side, stumbling over the moss-grown stones, pushing
the underbrush aside with his hands, and looking eagerly for a
place where he would be least likely to be found. He was full of
the spirit of the game, and anticipated with joyous excitement the
wonder of the boys when they should have to give up the search
and call to him to reveal himself. While these thoughts were
filling his brain, he caught sight of a huge old fir-tree, which
was leaning down the mountain-side as if ready to fall. The wind
had evidently given it a pull in the top, strong enough to loosen
its hold on the ground, and yet not strong enough to overthrow
it. On the upper side, for a dozen yards or more, the thick,
twisted roots, with the soil and turf still clinging to them, had
been lifted, so as to form a little den about two feet wide at
the entrance. Here, thought Thor, was a wonderful hiding-place.
Chuckling to himself at the discomfiture of his comrades, he threw
himself down on his knees and thrust his head into the opening.
To his surprise the bottom felt soft to his hands, as if it had
been purposely covered with moss and a layer of feathers and
eider-down. He did not take heed of the peculiar wild smell which
greeted his nostrils, but fearlessly pressed on, until nearly
his whole figure, with the exception of the heels of his boots,
was hidden. Then a sharp little bark startled him, and raising
his head he saw eight luminous eyes staring at him from a dark
recess, a few feet beyond his nose. It is not to be denied that
he was a little frightened; for it instantly occurred to him that
he had unwittingly entered the den of some wild beast, and that,
in case the old ones were at home, there was small chance of his
escaping with a whole skin. It could hardly be a bear’s den, for
the entrance was not half big enough for a gentleman of Bruin’s
size. It might possibly be a wolf’s premises he was trespassing
upon, and the idea made his blood run cold. For Mr. Gray-legs,
as the Norwegians call the wolf, is not to be trifled with; and
a small boy armed only with a knife was hardly a match for such
an antagonist. Thor concluded, without much reflection, that his
safest plan would be to beat a hasty retreat. Digging his hands
into the mossy ground, he tried to push himself backward, but, to
his unutterable dismay, he could not budge an inch. The feathers,
interspersed with the smooth pine-needles, slipped away under his
fingers, and the roots caught in his clothes and held him as in
a vice. He tried to force his way, but the more he wriggled the
more he realized how small was his chance of escape. To turn was
impossible, and to pull off his coat and trousers was a scarcely
less difficult task. It was fortunate that the four inhabitants
of the den, to whom the glaring eyes belonged, seemed no less
frightened than himself; for they remained huddled together in
their corner, and showed no disposition to fight. They only
stared wildly at the intruder, and seemed anxious to know what he
intended to do next. And Thor stared at them in return, although
the darkness was so dense that he could discern nothing except the
eight luminous eyes, which were fixed upon him with an uncanny and
highly uncomfortable expression. Unpleasant as the situation was,
he began to grow accustomed to it, and he collected his scattered
thoughts sufficiently to draw certain conclusions. The size of the
den, as well as the feathers which everywhere met his fumbling
hands, convinced him that his hosts were young foxes, and that
probably their respected parents, for the moment, were on a raid in
search of rabbits or stray poultry. That reflection comforted him,
for he had never known a fox to use any other weapon of defence
than its legs, unless it was caught in a trap and had to fight for
bare life. He was just dismissing from his mind all thought of
danger from that source, when a sudden sharp pain in his heel put
an end to his reasoning. He gave a scream, at which the eight eyes
leaped apart in pairs and distributed themselves in a row along the
curving wall of the den. Another bite in his ankle convinced him
that he was being attacked from behind, and he knew no other way
of defence than to kick with all his might, screaming at the same
time so as to attract the attention of the boys, who, he supposed,
could hardly be far off. But his voice sounded choked and feeble
in the close den, and he feared that no one would be able to hear
it ten yards away. The strong odor, too, began to stifle him, and
a strange dizziness wrapped his senses, as it were, in a gray,
translucent veil. He made three or four spasmodic efforts to rouse
himself, screamed feebly, and kicked; but probably he struck his
wounded ankle against a root or a stone, for the pain shot up his
leg and made him clinch his teeth to keep the tears from starting.
He thought of his poor mother, whom he feared he should never see
again, and how she would watch for his return through the long
night and cry for him, as it said in the Bible that Jacob cried
over Joseph when he supposed that a wild beast had torn him to
pieces and killed him. Curious lights, like shooting stars, began
to move before his eyes; his tongue felt dry and parched, and his
throat seemed burning hot. It occurred to him that certainly God
saw his peril and might yet help him, if he only prayed for help;
but the only prayer which he could remember was the one which the
minister repeated every Sunday for “our most gracious sovereign,
Oscar II., and the army and navy of the United Kingdoms.” Next he
stumbled upon “the clergy, and the congregations committed to their
charge;” and he was about to finish with “sailors in distress at
sea,” when his words, like his thoughts, grew more and more hazy,
and he drifted away into unconsciousness.

Lars and Ole Thomlemo in the meanwhile had enjoyed themselves to
the top of their bent, and when they had caught a dozen trout,
among which was one three-pounder, they reeled up their lines,
threaded the fish on withes, and began to trudge leisurely up the
glen. When they came to the place where they had left their bundles
of faggots, they stopped to shout for Thor, and when they received
no reply, they imagined that, being tired of waiting, he had gone
home alone, or fallen in with some one who was on his way down
to the valley. The only thing that troubled them was that Thor’s
bundle had not been touched since they left him, and they knew that
the boy was not lazy, and that, moreover, he would be afraid to go
home without the faggots. They therefore concluded to search the
copse and the surrounding underbrush, as it was just possible that
he might have fallen asleep in his hiding-place while waiting to be
discovered.

“I think Thor is napping somewhere under the bushes,” cried Ole
Thomlemo, swinging his hatchet over his head like an Indian
tomahawk. “We shall have to halloo pretty loud, for you know he
sleeps like a top.”

And they began scouring the underbrush, traversing it in all
directions, and hallooing lustily, both singly and in chorus.
They were just about giving up the quest, when Lars’s attention
was attracted by two foxes which, undismayed by the noise, were
running about a large fir-tree, barking in a way which betrayed
anxiety, and stopping every minute to dig up the ground with their
fore-paws. When the boys approached the tree, the foxes ran only a
short distance, then stopped, ran back, and again fled, once more
to return.

“Those fellows act very queerly,” remarked Lars, eying the foxes
curiously; “I’ll wager there are young un’s under the tree here,
but”--Lars gasped for breath--“Ole--Ole--Oh, look! What is this?”

Lars had caught sight of a pair of heels, from which a little
stream of blood had been trickling, coloring the stones and
pine-needles. Ole Thomlemo, hearing his comrade’s exclamation of
fright, was on the spot in an instant, and he comprehended at once
how everything had happened.

“Look here, Lars,” he said, resolutely, “this is no time for
crying. If Thor is dead, it is we who have killed him; but if he
isn’t dead, we’ve got to save him.”

“Oh, what shall we do, Ole?” sobbed Lars, while the tears rolled
down over his cheeks, “what shall we do? I shall never dare go home
again if he is dead. We have been so very bad to him!”

“We have got to save him, I tell you,” repeated Ole, tearless and
stern: “we must pull him out; and if we can’t do that, we must cut
through the roots of this fir-tree; then it’ll plunge down the
mountain-side, without hurting him. A few roots that have burrowed
into the rocks are all that keep the tree standing. Now, act like a
man. Take hold of him by one heel and I’ll take the other.”

Lars, who looked up to his friend as a kind of superior being,
dried his tears and grasped his brother’s foot, while Ole carefully
handled the wounded ankle. But their combined efforts had no
perceptible effect, except to show how inextricably the poor lad’s
clothes were intertangled with the tree-roots, which, growing all
in one direction, made entrance easy, but exit impossible.

“That won’t do,” said Ole, after three vain trials. “We might
injure him without knowing it, driving the sharp roots into his
eyes and ears, as likely as not. We’ve got to use the hatchets. You
cut that root and I’ll manage this one.”

Ole Thomlemo was a lumberman’s son, and since he was old enough
to walk had spent his life in the forest. He could calculate
with great nicety how a tree would fall, if cut in a certain
way, and his skill in this instance proved valuable. With six
well-directed cuts he severed one big root, while Lars labored at
a smaller one. Soon with a great crash the mighty tree fell down
the mountain-side, crushing a dozen birches and smaller pines
under its weight. The moss-grown sod around about was torn up with
the remaining roots, and three pretty little foxes, blinded and
stunned by the rush of daylight, sprang out from their hole and
stared in bewilderment at the sudden change of scene. Through the
cloud of flying dust and feathers the boys discerned, too, Thor’s
insensible form, lying outstretched, torn and bleeding, his face
resting upon his hands, as if he were asleep. With great gentleness
they lifted him up, brushed the moss and earth from his face and
clothes, and placed him upon the grass by the side of the brook
which flowed through the bottom of the glen. Although his body was
warm, they could hardly determine whether he was dead or alive,
for he seemed scarcely to be breathing, and it was not until Ole
put a feather before his mouth and perceived its faint inward and
outward movement, that they felt reassured and began to take heart.
They bathed his temples with the cool mountain water and rubbed and
chafed his hands, until at last he opened his eyes wonderingly and
moved his lips, as if endeavoring to speak.

“Where am I?” he whispered at last, after several vain efforts to
make himself heard.

“Why, cheer up, old fellow,” answered Ole, encouragingly; “you have
had a little accident, that’s all, but you’ll be all right in a
minute.”

“Unbutton my vest,” whispered Thor again; “there is something
scratching me here.”

He put his hand over his heart, and the boys quickly tore his
waistcoat open, but to their unutterable astonishment a little
fox, the image of the three that had escaped, put his head out and
looked about him with his alert eyes, as if to say: “Here am I; how
do you like me?” He evidently felt so comfortable where he was,
that he had no desire to get away. No doubt the little creature,
prompted either by his curiosity or a desire to escape from the
den, had crept into Thor’s bosom while he was insensible, and,
finding his quarters quite to his taste, had concluded to remain.
Lars picked him up, tied a string about his neck, and put him in
the side pocket of his jacket. Then, as it was growing late, Ole
lifted Thor upon his back, and he and Lars took turns in carrying
him down to the valley.

Thor’s ankle gave him some trouble, as the wound was slow in
healing. With that exception, he was soon himself again; and he
and Mikkel (for that was the name he gave to the little fox) grew
to be great friends and had many a frolic together.

But the little fox was not a model of deportment, as you will see
when I tell you, in the next chapter, how Mikkel disgraced himself.

II.

HOW MIKKEL DISGRACED HIMSELF.

When Thor was twelve years old, he had to go out into the world
to make his own living; for his parents were poor, and they had
half a dozen younger children, who also had to be fed and clothed.
As it happened, Judge Nannestad, who lived on a large estate down
at the fiord, wanted an office-boy, and as Thor was a bright and
active lad, he had no difficulty in obtaining the situation. The
only question was, how to dispose of Mikkel; for, to be frank,
Mikkel (in spite of his many admirable traits) was not a general
favorite, and Thor suspected that when his protector was away
Mikkel would have a hard time of it. He well knew that Mikkel was
of a peculiar temperament, which required to be studied in order
to be appreciated, and as there was no one but himself who took
this trouble, he did not wonder that his friend was generally
misunderstood. Mikkel’s was not a nature to invite confidences; he
scrupulously kept his own counsel, and was always alert and on his
guard. There was a bland expression on his face, a kind of lurking
smile, which never varied, and which gave absolutely no clew to
his thoughts. When he had skimmed the cream off the milk-pans on
the top shelf in the kitchen, he returned, licking his chops, with
the same inscrutable smile, as if his conscience were as clean
as a new-born babe’s; and when he had slipped his collar over
his head and dispatched the kitten, burying its remains in the
backyard, he betrayed no more remorse than if he had been cracking
a nut. Sultan, the dog, strange to say, had private reasons for
being afraid of him, and always slank away in a shamefaced manner,
whenever Mikkel gave him one of his quiet sidelong glances. And
yet the same Mikkel would roll on his back, and jump and play with
the baby by the hour, seize her pudgy little hands gently with
his teeth, never inflicting a bite or a scratch. He would nestle
on Thor’s bosom inside of his coat, while Thor was learning his
lesson, or he would sit on his shoulder and look down on the book
with his superior smile. It was not to be denied that Mikkel had a
curious character--an odd mixture of good and bad qualities; but
as, in Thor’s judgment, the good were by far the more prominent, he
would not listen to his father’s advice and leave his friend behind
him, when he went down to the judge’s at the grand estate.

It was the day after New-year’s that Thor left the cottage up
under the mountain, and, putting on his skees, slid down the steep
hill-side to the fiord. Mikkel was nestling, according to his wont,
in the bosom of his master’s coat, while his pretty head, with the
clean dark snout and dark mustache, was sticking out above the
boy’s collar, just under his chin. Mikkel had never been so far
away from home before, and he concluded that the world was a bigger
affair than he had been aware of.

It was with a loudly thumping heart that Thor paused outside
the door of the judge’s office, for he greatly feared that the
judge might share the general prejudice against Mikkel, and make
difficulties about his board and lodgings. Instead of entering, he
went to the pump in the yard and washed his friend’s face carefully
and combed his hair with the fragment of a comb with which his
mother had presented him at parting. It was important that Mikkel
should appear to advantage, so as to make a good impression upon
the judge. And really he did look irresistible, Thor thought, with
his bright, black eyes, his dainty paws, and his beautiful red
skin. He felt satisfied that if the judge had not a heart of stone
he could not help being captivated at the sight of so lovely a
creature. Thor took courage and knocked at the door.

“Ah, you are our new office-boy,” said the judge, as he entered;
“but what is that you have under your coat?”

“It is Mikkel, sir, please your Honor,” stammered Thor, putting the
fox on the floor, so as to display his charms. But hardly had he
taken his hands off him, when a sudden scrambling noise was heard
in the adjoining office, and a large hound came bounding with wild
eyes and drooping tongue through the open door. With lightning
speed Mikkel leaped up on the judge’s writing-desk, scattering his
writing materials, upsetting an inkstand by an accidental whisk
of his tail, and bespattering the honorable gentleman’s face and
shirt-front with the black fluid. To perform a similar service on
the next desk, where a clerk was writing, to jump from there to
the shoulder of a marble bust, which fell from its pedestal down
on the hound’s head and broke into a dozen pieces, and to reach a
place of safety on the top of a tall bookcase were all a moment’s
work. The hound lay howling, with a wounded nose, on the floor. The
judge stood scowling at his desk, rubbing the ink all over his face
with his handkerchief, and Mikkel sat smiling on the top of the
bookcase, surveying calmly the ruin which he had wrought. But the
most miserable creature in the room was neither the judge, with his
black face, nor the hound, with the bleeding nose; it was Thor, who
stood trembling at the door, expecting that something still more
terrible would happen. And knowing that, after having caused such a
commotion, his place was forfeited, he held out his arms to Mikkel,
who accepted the invitation, and with all speed at their disposal
they rushed out through the door and away over the snowy fields,
scarcely knowing whither their feet bore them.

After half an hour’s run, when he had no more breath left, Thor
seated himself on a tree-stump and tried to collect his thoughts.
What should he now do? Where should he turn? Go home he could not;
and if he did, it would be the end of Mikkel. The only thing he
could think of was to go around in the parish, from farm to farm,
until he found somebody who would give him something to do.

“I hope you will appreciate, my dear Mikkel,” he said to his fox,
“that it is on your account I have all this trouble. It was very
naughty of you to behave so badly, and if you do it again I shall
have to whip you! Do you understand that, Mikkel?”

Mikkel looked sheepish, which plainly showed that he understood.

“Now, Mikkel,” Thor continued, “we will go to the parson; perhaps
he may have some use for us. What do you think of trying the
parson?”

Mikkel apparently thought well of the parson, for he licked his
master behind his ear and rubbed his snout against his cheek.
Accordingly, by noon they reached the parsonage, and after a
long parley with the pastor’s wife, he was engaged as a sort of
errand-boy, whose duty it should be to do odd jobs about the house.
Mikkel was to have a kennel provided for him in the stable, but
was under no circumstances to enter the house. Thor had to vouch
for his good behavior, and the moment he made himself in any way
obnoxious it was decided that he should be killed. Poor Thor had
nominally to accept these hard conditions, but in his own mind he
determined to run away with Mikkel the moment he was caught in any
kind of mischief. It seemed very hard for Mikkel, too, who had been
accustomed to sleep in Thor’s arms in his warm bed, to be chained,
and to spend the long, dark nights in the stable in a miserable
kennel. Nevertheless, there was no help for it; so Thor went to
work that same afternoon and made Mikkel as comfortable a kennel as
he could, taking care to make the hole which served for entrance no
bigger than it had to be, so that no dog or other enemy should be
able to enter.

For about four months all went well at the parsonage. So long as
Mikkel was confined in the stable he behaved himself with perfect
propriety, and, occasionally, when he was (by special permission)
taken into the house to play with the children, he won golden
opinions for himself by his cunning tricks, and became, in fact,
a great favorite in the nursery. When the spring came and the sun
grew warm, his kennel was, at Thor’s request, moved out into the
yard, where he could have the benefit of the fine spring weather.
There he could be seen daily, lying in the sun, with half-closed
eyes, resting his head on his paws, seeming too drowsy and
comfortable to take notice of anything. The geese and hens, which
were at first a trifle suspicious, gradually grew accustomed to
his presence, and often strayed within range of Mikkel’s chain,
and even within reach of his paws; but it always happened that on
such occasions either the pastor or his wife was near, and Mikkel
knew enough to be aware that goose was forbidden fruit. But one day
(it was just after dinner, when the pastor was taking his nap),
it happened that a great fat gander, prompted by a pardonable
curiosity, stretched his neck a little too far toward the sleeping
Mikkel; when, quick as a wink and wide-awake, Mr. Mikkel jumped
up, and before he knew it, the gander found himself minus his
head. Very cautiously the culprit peered about, and seeing no one
near, he rapidly dug a hole under his kennel and concealed his
victim there, covering it well with earth, until a more favorable
opportunity should present itself for making a meal of it. Then he
lay down, and stretched himself in the sun as before, and seemed
too sleepy even to open his eyes; and when, on the following
day, the gander was missed, the innocent demeanor of Mikkel so
completely imposed upon everyone, that he was not even suspected.
Not even when the second and the third goose disappeared could any
reasonable charge be brought against Mikkel.

When the summer vacation came, however, the even tenor of Mikkel’s
existence was rudely interrupted by the arrival of the parson’s
oldest son, Finn, who was a student in Christiania, and his dog
Achilles. Achilles was a handsome brown pointer, that, having been
brought up in the city, had never been accustomed to look upon the
fox as a domestic animal. He, therefore, spent much of his time in
harassing Mikkel, making sudden rushes for him when he thought him
asleep; but always returning from these exploits shamefaced and
discomfited, for Mikkel was always a great deal too clever to be
taken by surprise. He would lie perfectly still until Achilles was
within a foot of him, and then, with remarkable alertness, he would
slip into the kennel, through his door, where the dog’s size would
not permit him to follow; and the moment his enemy turned his tail
to him, Mikkel’s face would appear bland and smiling, at the door,
as if to say:

“Good-by! Call again whenever you feel like it. Now, don’t you wish
you were as clever as I am?”

And yet in spite of his daily defeats, Achilles could never
convince himself that his assaults upon Mikkel brought him no
glory. Perhaps his master, who did not like Mikkel any too well,
encouraged him in his enmity, for it is certain that the assaults
grew fiercer daily. And at last, one day when the young student
was standing in the yard, holding his dog by the collar, while
exciting him against the half-sleeping fox, Achilles ran with such
force against the kennel that he upset it. Alas! For then the
evidence of Mikkel’s misdemeanors came to light. From the door-hole
of the rolling kennel a heap of goose-feathers flew out, and were
scattered in the air; and, what was worse, a little “dug-out”
became visible, filled with bones and bills and other indigestible
articles, unmistakably belonging to the goose’s anatomy. Mikkel,
who was too wise to leave the kennel so long as it was in motion,
now peeped cautiously out, and he took in the situation at a
glance. Mr. Finn, the student, who thought that Mikkel’s skin would
look charming as a rug before his fire-place in the city, was
overjoyed to find out what a rascal this innocent-looking creature
had been; for he knew well enough that his father would now no
longer oppose his desire for the crafty little creature’s skin. So
he went into the house, loaded his rifle, and prepared himself as
executioner.

But at that very moment, Thor chanced to be coming home from an
errand; and he had hardly entered the yard, when he sniffed danger
in the air. He knew, without asking, that Mikkel’s doom was
sealed. For the parson was a great poultry-fancier and was said
to be more interested in his ganders than he was in his children.
Therefore, without waiting for further developments, Thor unhooked
Mikkel’s chain, lifted the culprit in his arms, and slipped him
into the bosom of his waistcoat. Then he stole up to his garret,
gathered his clothes in a bundle, and watched his chance to escape
from the house unnoticed. And while Master Finn and his dog were
hunting high and low for Mikkel in the barns and stables, Thor
was hurrying away over the fields, every now and then glancing
anxiously behind him, and nearly smothering Mikkel in his efforts
to keep him concealed, lest Achilles should catch his scent.
But Mikkel had his own views on that subject, and was not to be
suppressed; and just as his master was congratulating himself on
their happy escape, they heard the deep baying of a dog, and saw
Achilles, followed by the student with his gun, tracking them in
fierce pursuit. Thor, whose only hope was to reach the fiord,
redoubled his speed, skipped across fences, hedges, and stiles,
and ran so fast that earth and stones seemed to be flying in the
other direction. Yet Achilles’ baying was coming nearer and nearer,
and was hardly twenty feet distant by the time the boy had flung
himself into a boat, and with four vigorous oar-strokes had shot
out into the water. The dog leaped after him, but was soon beyond
his depth, and the high breakers flung him back upon the beach.

“Come back at once,” cried Finn, imperiously. “It is not your
boat. If you don’t obey, I’ll have you arrested.”

Thor did not answer, but rowed with all his might.

“If you take another stroke,” shouted the student furiously,
levelling his gun, “I’ll shoot both you and your thievish fox.”

It was meant only for intimidation; but where Mikkel’s life was at
stake, Thor was not easily frightened.

“Shoot away!” he cried, thinking that he was now at a safe
distance, and that the student’s marksmanship was none of the
best. But before he realized what he had said, whiz! went a bullet
over his head. A stiff gale was blowing, and the little boat was
tossed like a foot-ball on the incoming and the outgoing waves;
but the plucky lad struggled on bravely, until he hove alongside a
fishing schooner, which was to sail the next morning for Drontheim.
Fortunately the skipper needed a deck hand, and Thor was promptly
engaged. The boat which had helped him to escape was found later
and towed back to shore by a fisherman.

III.

HOW MIKKEL MAKES HIS FORTUNE.

In Drontheim, which is a large commercial city on the western
coast of Norway, Thor soon found occupation as office-boy in a
bank, which did business under the name of C. P. Lyng & Co. He
was a boy of an open, fearless countenance, and with a frank and
winning manner. Mr. Lyng, at the time when Thor entered his employ,
had just separated from his partner, Mr. Tulstrup, because the
latter had defrauded the firm and several of its customers. Mr.
Lyng had papers in his safe which proved Mr. Tulstrup’s guilt,
but he had contented himself with dismissing him from the firm,
and had allowed him to take the share of the firm’s property
to which he was legally entitled. The settlement, however, had
not satisfied Mr. Tulstrup, and he had, in order to revenge
himself, gone about to the various customers, whom he had himself
defrauded, and persuaded them to commence suit against Mr. Lyng,
whom he represented as being the guilty party. He did not, at
that time, know that Mr. Lyng had gained possession of the papers
which revealed the real author of the fraud. On the contrary, he
flattered himself that he had destroyed every trace of his own
dishonest transactions.

The fact that Mr. Lyng belonged to a family which had always been
distinguished, in business and social circles, for its integrity
and honor only whetted Tulstrup’s desire to destroy his good name,
and having laid his plans carefully, he anticipated an easy triumph
over honest Mr. Lyng. His dismay, therefore, was very great when,
after the suit had been commenced in the courts, he learned that it
was his own name and liberty which were in danger, and not those
of his former partner. Mr. Tulstrup, in spite of the position he
had occupied, was a desperate man, and was capable, under such
circumstances, of resorting to desperate remedies. But, like
most Norwegians, he had a streak of superstition in his nature,
and cherished an absurd belief in signs and omens, in lucky and
unlucky days, and in spectres and apparitions, foreboding death or
disaster. Mr. Tulstrup’s father had believed in such things, and it
had been currently reported among the peasantry that he had been
followed by a spectral fox, which some asserted to be his wraith,
or double. This fox, it was said, had frequently been seen during
the old man’s lifetime, and when he once saw it himself, he was
frightened nearly out of his wits. Superstitious stories of this
kind are so common in Norway that one can hardly spend a month in
any country district without hearing dozens of them. The belief
in a _fylgia_, or wraith in the shape of an animal, dates far
back into antiquity, and figures largely in the sagas, or ancient
legends of the Northland.

It has already been told that Thor had obtained a position as
office-boy in Mr. Lyng’s bank; and it was more owing to the boy’s
winning appearance than to any fondness for foxes, on Mr. Lyng’s
part, that Mikkel also was engaged. It was arranged that a cushion
whereupon Mikkel might sleep should be put behind the stove in
the back office. At first Mikkel endured his captivity here with
great fortitude; but he did not like it, and it was plain that he
was pining for the parsonage and his kennel in the free air, and
the pleasant companionship of the geese and the stupid Achilles.
Thor then obtained permission to have him walk about unchained,
and the clerks, who admired his graceful form and dainty ways,
soon grew very fond of him, and stroked him caressingly, as he
promenaded along the counter or seated himself on their shoulders,
inspecting their accounts with critical eyes. Thor was very happy
to see his friend petted, though he had an occasional twinge of
jealousy when Mikkel made himself too agreeable to old Mr. Barth,
the cashier, or kissed young Mr. Dreyer, the assistant book-keeper.
Such faithlessness on Mikkel’s part was an ill return for all the
sacrifices Thor had made for him; and yet, hard as it was, it had
to be borne. For an office-boy cannot afford to have emotions, or,
if he has them, cannot afford the luxury of giving way to them.

C. P. Lyng & Co.’s bank was a solid, old-fashioned business-house
which the clerks entered as boys and where they remained all their
lives. Mr. Barth, the cashier, had occupied his present desk
for twenty-one years, and had spent nine years more in inferior
positions. He was now a stout little man of fifty, with close
cropped, highly-respectable side-whiskers and thin gray hair, which
was made to cover his crown by the aid of a small comb. This comb,
which was fixed above his right ear and held the straggling locks
together, was a source of great amusement to the clerks, who made
no end of witticisms about it. But Mr. Barth troubled himself very
little about their poor puns, and sat serenely poring over his
books and packages of bank-bills from morning till night. He prided
himself above all on his regularity, and it was said that he had
never been one minute too late or too early during the thirty years
he had been in Mr. Lyng’s bank; accordingly, he had little patience
with the shortcomings of his subordinates, and fined and punished
them in various ways, if they were but a moment tardy; for the most
atrocious of all crimes, in Mr. Barth’s opinion, was tardiness.
The man who suffered most from his severity was Mr. Dreyer, the
assistant book-keeper. Mr. Dreyer was a good-looking young man,
and very fond of society; and it happened sometimes that, on the
morning after a ball, he would sleep rather late. He had long
rebelled in silence against Mr. Barth’s tyranny, and when he found
that his dissatisfaction was shared by many of the other clerks,
he conceived a plan to revenge himself on his persecutor. To this
end a conspiracy was formed among the younger clerks, and it was
determined to make Mikkel the agent of their vengeance.

It was well known by the clerks that Mr. Barth was superstitious
and afraid in the dark; and it was generally agreed that it
would be capital fun to give him a little fright. Accordingly the
following plan was adopted: A bottle of the oil of phosphorus was
procured and Mikkel’s fur was thoroughly rubbed with it, so that in
the dark the whole animal would be luminous. At five minutes before
five, someone should go down in the cellar and turn off the gas,
just as the cashier was about to enter the back office to lock up
the safe. Then, when the illuminated Mikkel glared out on him from
a dark corner, he would probably shout or faint or cry out, and
then all the clerks should rush sympathetically to him and render
him every assistance.

Thus the plan was laid, and there was a breathless, excited
stillness in the bank when the hour of five approached. It had
been dark for two hours, and the clerks sat on their high stools,
bending silently over their desks, scribbling away for dear life.
Promptly at seven minutes before five, up rose Mr. Barth and gave
the signal to have the books closed; then, to the unutterable
astonishment of the conspirators, he handed the key of the safe to
Mr. Dreyer (who knew the combination), and told him to lock the
safe and return the key. At that very instant, out went the gas;
and Mr. Dreyer, although he was well prepared, could himself hardly
master his fright at Mikkel’s terrible appearance. He struck a
match, lighted a wax taper (which was used for sealing letters),
and tremblingly locked the safe; then, abashed and discomfited, he
advanced to the cashier’s desk and handed him the key.

“Perhaps you would have the kindness, Mr. Dreyer,” said Mr. Barth,
calmly, “to write a letter of complaint to the gas-company before
you go home. It will never do in the world to have such things
happen. I suppose there must be water in the pipes.”

The old man buttoned his overcoat up to his chin and marched out;
whereupon a shout of laughter burst forth, in which Mr. Dreyer did
not join. He could not see what they found to laugh at, he said.
It took him a long while to compose his letter of complaint to the
gas-company.

Mikkel in the meanwhile was feeling very uncomfortable. He could
not help marvelling at his extraordinary appearance. He rubbed
himself against chairs and tables, and found to his astonishment
that he made everything luminous that he touched. He had never
known any respectable fox which possessed this accomplishment,
and he felt sure that in some way something was wrong with him.
He could not sleep, but walked restlessly about on the desks and
counters, bristled with anger at the slightest sound, and was
miserable and excited. He could not tell how far the night had
advanced, when he heard a noise in the back office (which fronted
upon the court-yard) as if a window was being opened. His curiosity
was aroused and he walked sedately across the floor; then he
stopped for a moment to compose himself, for he was well aware that
what he saw was something extraordinary. A man with a dark-lantern
in his hand was kneeling before the safe with a key in his hand.
Mikkel advanced a little farther and paused in a threatening
attitude on the threshold of the door. With his luminous face and
body, and a halo of phosphorescent light round about him, he was
terrible to behold. He gave a little snort, at which the man turned
quickly about. But no sooner had he caught sight of the illuminated
Mikkel than he flung himself on his knees before the little animal,
and with clasped hands and a countenance wild with fear exclaimed:
“Oh, I know who thou art! Pardon me, pardon me! Thou art my
father’s spectral fox! I know thee, I know thee!”

Mikkel had never suspected that he was anything so terrible; but,
as he saw that the man was bent on mischief, he did not think
it worth while to contradict him. He only curved his back and
bristled, until the man, beside himself with fear, made a rush
for the window and leaped out into the court-yard. Then Mikkel,
thinking that he had had excitement enough for one night, curled
himself up on his cushion behind the stove and went to sleep.

The next morning, when Mr. Barth arrived, he found a window in the
back office broken, and the door of the safe wide open. On the
floor lay a bundle of papers, all relating to the transactions of
Tulstrup while a member of the firm, and, moreover, a hat, marked
on the inside with Tulstrup’s name, was found on a chair.

On the same day Mr. Lyng was summoned to the bedside of his former
partner, who made a full confession, and offered to return through
him the money which he had fraudulently acquired. His leg was
broken, and he seemed otherwise shattered in body and mind. It
had been his purpose, he said, to drive Mr. Lyng from the firm
in disgrace, and he was sure he could have accomplished it, if
Providence itself had not interfered. But, incredible as it seemed,
he had seen a luminous animal in the bank, and he felt convinced
that it was his father’s spectral fox. It was well enough to smile
at such things and call them childish, but he had certainly seen,
he said, a wonderful, shining fox.

Mr. Lyng did not attempt to convince Mr. Tulstrup that he was
wrong. He took the money and distributed it among those who
had suffered by Mr. Tulstrup’s frauds, and thus many needy
people--widows and industrious laborers--regained their hard-earned
property, and all because Mikkel’s skin was luminous. When Mr. Lyng
heard the whole story from Mr. Dreyer, he laughed heartily and
long. But from that day he took a warm interest in Thor and his
fox, and sent the former to school and, later, to the university,
where he made an honorable name for himself by his talents and
industry.

Poor Mikkel is now almost gray, and his teeth are so blunt that
he has to have his food minced before he can eat it. But he still
occupies a soft rug behind the stove in the student’s room, and
Thor hopes he will live long enough to be introduced to his
master’s wife. For it would be a pity if she were not to know him
to whom her husband owes his position, and she, accordingly, hers.

THE FAMINE AMONG THE GNOMES.

I believe it was in the winter of 18-- (but it does not matter
so much about the time) that the servants on the large estate of
Halthorp raised a great ado about something or other. Whereupon
the Baron of Halthorp, who was too stout to walk down the stairs
on slight provocation, called his steward, in a voice like that of
an angry lion, and asked him, “Why in the name of Moses he did not
keep the rascals quiet.”

“But, your lordship,” stammered the steward, who was as thin as
the baron was stout, “I have kept them quiet for more than a month
past, though it has been hard enough. Now they refuse to obey me
unless I admit them to your lordship’s presence, that they may
state their complaint.”

“Impudent beggars!” growled the old gentleman. “Tell them that I
am about to take my after-dinner nap, and that I do not wish to be
disturbed.”

“I have told them that a dozen times,” whined the steward,
piteously. “But they are determined to leave in a body, unless your
lordship consents to hear them.”

“Leave! They can’t leave,” cried his honor. “The law binds them.
Well, well, to save talking, fling the doors open and let them come
in.”

The steward hobbled away to the great oak-panelled doors (I forgot
to tell you that he limped in his left foot), and, cautiously
turning the knob and the key, peeped out into the hall. There stood
the servants--twenty-eight in all--but, oh! what a sight! They
were hollow-cheeked, with hungry eyes and bloodless lips, and deep
lines about their mouths, as if they had not seen food for weeks.
Their bony hands twitched nervously at the coarse clothes that
flapped in loose folds about their lean and awkward limbs. They
were indeed a pitiful spectacle. Only a single one of them--and
that was of course the cook--looked like an ordinary mortal, or
an extraordinary mortal, if you like, for he was nearly as broad
as he was long. It was owing to the fact that he walked at the
head of the procession, as they filed into the parlor, that the
baron did not immediately discover the miserable condition of the
rest. But when they had faced about, and stood in a long row from
wall to wall--well, you would hardly believe it, but the baron,
hard-hearted as he was, came near fainting. There is a limit to
all things, and even a heart of steel would have been moved at the
sight of such melancholy objects.

“Steward,” he roared, when he had sufficiently recovered himself,
“who is the demon who has dared to trifle with my fair name and
honor? Name him, sir--name him, and I will strangle him on the
spot!”

The steward, even if he had been acquainted with the demon, would
have thought twice before naming him under such circumstances.
Accordingly he was silent.

“Have I not,” continued the baron, still in a voice that made his
subjects quake--“have I not caused ample provisions to be daily
distributed among you? Have not you, Mr. Steward, the keys to my
store-houses, and have you not my authority to see that each member
of my household is properly provided for?”

The steward dared not answer; he only nodded his head in silence.

“If it please your lordship,” finally began a squeaky little voice
at the end of the row (it was that of the under-groom), “it isn’t
the steward as is to blame, but it’s the victuals. Somehow there
isn’t any taste nor fillin’ to them. Whether I eat pork and cabbage
or porridge with molasses, it don’t make no difference. It all
tastes alike. As I say, your lordship, the old Nick has got into
the victuals.”

The under-groom had hardly ceased speaking before the baron, who
was a very irascible old gentleman, seized his large gold-headed
cane and as quickly as his bulk would allow, rushed forward to give
vent to his anger.

“I’ll teach you manners, you impudent clown!” he bawled out, as,
with his cane lifted above his head, he rushed into the ranks of
the frightened servants, shouting to the under-groom, “Criticise my
victuals, will you, you miserable knave!”

The under-groom having on former occasions made the acquaintance of
the baron’s cane, and still remembering the unpleasant sensation,
immediately made for the door, and slipped nimbly out before a
blow had reached him. All the others, who had to suffer for their
spokesman’s boldness, tumbled pell-mell through the same opening,
jumped, rolled, or vaulted down the steps, and landed in a confused
heap at the bottom of the stairs.

The baron, in the meanwhile, marched with long strides up and down
the floor, and expressed himself, not in the politest language,
concerning the impudence of his domestics.

“However,” he grumbled to himself, “I must look into this affair
and find out what fraud there is at the bottom of it. The poor
creatures couldn’t get as lean as that unless there was some real
trouble.”

About three hours later the baron heard the large bell over the
gable of his store-house ring out for dinner. The wood-cutters and
the men who drove the snow-plough, and all other laborers on the
large estate, as soon as they heard it, flung away their axes and
snow-shovels and hurried up to the mansion, their beards and hair
and eyebrows all white with hoar-frost, so that they looked like
walking snow-men. But as it happened, the under-groom, Nils Tagfat,
chanced at that moment to be cutting down a large snow-laden
fir-tree which grew on a projecting knoll of the mountain. He
pulled off his mittens and blew on his hands (for it was bitter
cold), and was about to shoulder his axe, when suddenly he heard a
chorus of queer little metallic voices, as it seemed, right under
his feet. He stopped and listened.

“There is the bell of Halthorp ringing! Where is my cap? where is
my cap?” he heard distinctly uttered, though he could not exactly
place the sound, nor did he see anybody within a mile around.
And just for the joke of the thing, Nils, who was always a jolly
fellow, made his voice as fine as he could, and, mimicking the
tiny voices, squeaked out:

“Where is my cap? Where is my cap?”

But imagine his astonishment when suddenly he heard a voice answer
him: “You can take grandfather’s cap!” and at the same moment
there was tossed into his hands something soft, resembling a small
red-peaked cap. Just out of curiosity, Nils put it on his head
to try how it would fit him, and small as it looked, it fitted
him perfectly. But now, as the cap touched his head, his eyes
were opened to the strangest spectacle he ever beheld. Out of the
mountain came a crowd of gnomes, all with little red-peaked caps,
which made them invisible to all who were not provided with similar
caps. They hurried down the hill-side toward Halthorp, and Nils,
who was anxious to see what they were about, followed at a proper
distance behind. As he had half expected, they scrambled up on the
railings at the door of the servants’ dining-hall, and as soon as
the door was opened they rushed in, climbed up on the chairs, and
seated themselves on the backs just as the servants took their
places on the seats. And now Nils, who, you must remember, had on
the cap that made him invisible, came near splitting his sides with
laughter. The first course was boiled beef and cabbage. The smell
was delicious to Nils’s hungry nostrils, but he had to conquer his
appetite in order to see the end of the game. The steward stood at
the end of the table and served each with a liberal portion; and
at the steward’s side sat the baron himself, in a large, cushioned
easy-chair. He did not eat, however; he was there merely to see
fair play.

Each servant fell to work greedily with his knife and fork, and
just as he had got a delicious morsel half-way to his mouth, the
gnome on the back of his chair stretched himself forward and
deftly snatched the meat from the end of the fork. Thus, all the
way around the table, each man unconsciously put his piece of beef
into the wide-open mouth of his particular gnome. And the unbidden
guests grinned shrewdly at one another, and seemed to think it
all capital fun. Sometimes, when the wooden trays (which were
used instead of plates) were sent to be replenished, they made
horrrible grimaces, often mimicking their poor victims, who chewed
and swallowed and went through all the motions of eating, without
obtaining the slightest nourishment. They all would have liked to
fling knives and forks and trays out through the windows, but they
had the morning’s chastisement freshly in mind, and they did not
dare open their mouths, except for the futile purpose of eating.

“Well, my lads and lasses,” said the baron, when he had watched the
meal for some minutes; “if you can complain of food like this, you
indeed deserve to be flogged and put on prison fare.”

“Very likely, your lordship,” said one of the milkmaids; “but if
your lordship would demean yourself to take a morsel with us, we
would bless your lordship for your kindness and complain no more.”

[Illustration: THE BARON SPRANG UP WITH AN EXCLAMATION OF FRIGHT.]

The baron, looking around at all the hopeless eyes and haggard
faces, felt that there was something besides vanity that
prompted the request; and he accordingly ordered the cook to bring
his own plate and drew his chair up to the table. Hardly had he
seized his knife when Nils saw a gnome, who had hitherto been
seated on the floor awaiting his turn, crawl up on the arm of his
big chair and, standing on tiptoe, seize between his teeth the
first bit the baron was putting to his mouth. The old gentleman
looked astounded, mystified, bewildered; but, fearing to make
an exhibition of himself, selected another mouthful, and again
conducted it the accustomed way. The gnome came near laughing right
out, as he despatched this second morsel in the same manner as the
first, and all around the table the little monsters held their
hands over their mouths and seemed on the point of exploding. The
baron put down knife and fork with a bang; his eyes seemed to be
starting out of his head, and his whole face assumed an expression
of unspeakable horror.

“It is Satan himself who is mocking us!” he cried. “Send for the
priest! Send for the priest!”

Just then Nils crept around behind the baron, who soon felt
something soft, like a fine skull-cap, pressed on his head, and
before he had time to resent the liberty, he started in terror at
the sight of the little creature that he saw sitting on the arm of
his chair. He sprang up with an exclamation of fright, and pushed
the chair back so violently that it was almost upset upon the
floor. The gnome dexterously leaped down and stood staring back at
the baron for an instant; then, with a spring, he snatched a potato
and half a loaf of bread, and disappeared. In his haste, the
baron ran against Nils, the under-groom, who (now without a cap)
was standing with a smiling countenance calmly surveying all the
confusion about him.

“Now, was I right, your lordship?” he asked, with a respectful bow.
“Did _you_ find the victuals very filling?”

The baron, who was yet too frightened to answer, stood gazing
toward a window-pane, which suddenly and noiselessly broke, and
through which the whole procession of gnomes, huddled together in
flight, tumbled headlong into the snow-bank without.

“And what shall we do, Nils,” said the baron, the next day, when
he had recovered from his shock, “to prevent the return of the
unbidden guests?”

“Stop ringing the great bell,” answered Nils. “It is that which
invites the gnomes.”

And since that day the dinner-bell has never been rung at Halthorp.

But one day, late in the winter, Nils the groom, as he was
splitting wood on the mountain-side, heard a plaintively tinkling
voice within, singing:

“Hunger and sorrow each new day is bringing,
Since Halthorp bell has ceased its ringing.”

HOW BERNT WENT WHALING.

Bernt Holter and his sister Hilda were sitting on the beach,
playing with large spiral cockles which they imagined were cows
and horses. They built stables out of chips, and fenced in their
pastures, and led their cattle in long rows through the deep
grooves they had made in the sand.

“When I grow up to be a man,” said Bernt, who was twelve years
old, “I am going to sea and catch whales, as father did when he
was young. I don’t want to stand behind a counter and sell calico
and tape and coffee and sugar,” he continued, thrusting his chest
forward, putting his hands into his pockets, and marching with a
manly swagger across the beach. “I don’t want to play with cockles,
like a baby, any more,” he added, giving a forcible kick to one of
Hilda’s finest shells and sending it flying across the sand.

“I wish you wouldn’t be so naughty, Bernt,” cried his sister, with
tears in her eyes. “If you don’t want to play with me, I can play
alone. Bernt, oh--look there!”

Just at that moment a dozen or more columns of water flew high into
the air, and the same number of large, black tail-fins emerged from
the surface of the fiord, and again slowly vanished.

“Hurrah!” cried Bernt, in great glee, “it is a school of dolphins.
Good-by, Hilda dear, I think I’ll run down to the boat-house.”

“I think I’ll go with you, Bernt,” said his sister, obligingly,
rising and shaking the sand from her skirts.

“I think you’ll not,” remarked her brother, angrily; “I can run
faster than you.”

So saying, he rushed away over the crisp sand as fast as his
feet would carry him, while his sister Hilda, who was rather a
soft-hearted girl, and ready with her tears, ran after him, all
out of breath and calling to him at the top of her voice. Finally,
when she was more than half way to the boat-house, she stumbled
against a stone and fell full length upon the beach. Bernt, fearing
that she might be hurt, paused in his flight and returned to pick
her up, but could not refrain from giving her a vindictive little
shake, as soon as he discovered that she had sustained no injury.

“I do think girls are the greatest bother that ever was invented,”
he said, in high dudgeon. “I don’t see what they are good for,
anyway.”

“I want to go with you, Bernt,” cried Hilda.

Seeing there was no escape, he thought he might just as well be
kind to her.

“You may go,” he said, “if you will promise never to tell anybody
what I am going to do?”

“No, Bernt, I shall never tell,” said the child, eagerly, and
drying her tears.

“I am going a-whaling,” whispered Bernt, mysteriously. “Come
along!”

“Whaling!” echoed the girl, in delicious excitement. “Dear Bernt,
how good you are! Oh, how lovely! No, I shall never tell it to
anybody as long as I live.”

It was late in the afternoon, and the sun, which at that time of
the year never sets in the northern part of Norway, threw its red,
misty rays like a veil of dull flame over the lofty mountains
which, with their snow-hooded peaks, pierced the fiery clouds;
their huge reflections shone in soft tints of red, green, and blue
in the depth of the fiord, whose glittering surface was calm and
smooth as a mirror. Only in the bay which the school of dolphins
had entered was the water ruffled; but there, high spouts rose
every moment into the air and descended again in showers of fine
spray.

“It is well that father has gone away with the fishermen,” said
Bernt, as he exerted himself with all his might to push his small
boat down over the slippery beams of the boat-house. “Here, Hilda,
hold my harpoon for me.”

Hilda, greatly impressed with her own dignity in being allowed
to hold so dangerous a weapon as a harpoon, grasped it eagerly
and held it up in both her arms. Bernt once more put his shoulder
to the prow of his light skiff (which, in honor of his father’s
whaling voyages, he had named The North Pole) and with a tremendous
effort set it afloat. Then he carefully assisted Hilda into the
boat, in the stern of which she seated herself. Next he seized the
oars and rowed gently out beyond the rocky headland toward which
he had seen the dolphins steer their course. He was an excellent
sailor for his years, and could manage a boat noiselessly and well.

“Hilda, take the helm,” he whispered, “or, if you were only good
for anything, you might paddle and we should be upon them in a
minute. Now, remember, and push the tiller to the side opposite
where I want to go.”

“I’ll remember,” she replied, breathlessly.

The gentle splashing of the oars and the clicking of the rowlocks
were the only sounds which broke the silence of the evening. Now
and then a solitary gull gave a long, shrill scream as she dived
beneath the surface of the fiord, and once a fish-hawk’s loud,
discordant yell was flung by the echoes from mountain to mountain.

“Starboard,” commanded Bernt, sternly; but Hilda in her agitation
pushed the tiller to the wrong side and sent the boat flying to
port.

“Starboard, I said!” cried the boy, indignantly; “if I had known
you would be so stupid, I should never have taken you along.”

“Please, brother dear, do be patient with me,” pleaded the girl,
remorsefully. “I shall not do it again.”

It then pleased his majesty, Bernt Holter, to relent, although his
sister had by her awkwardness alarmed the dolphins, sending the
boat right in their wake, when it had been his purpose to head them
off. He knew well enough that it takes several minutes for a whole
school of so large a fish as the dolphin to change its course, and
the hunter would thus have a good chance of “pricking” a laggard
before he could catch up with his companions. Bernt strained every
muscle, while coolly keeping his eye on the water to note the
course of his game. His only chance was in cutting across the bay
and lying in wait for them at the next headland. For he knew very
well that if they were seriously frightened and suspected that
they were being pursued, they could easily beat him by the speed
and dexterity of their movements. But he saw to his delight that
his calculations were correct. Instead of taking the straight
course seaward, the dolphins, being probably in pursuit of fresh
herring, young cod, and other marine delicacies which they needed
for their late dinner, steered close to land where the young fish
are found in greater abundance, and their following the coastline
of the bay gave Bernt a chance of cutting them off and making their
acquaintance at closer quarters. Having crossed the little bay, he
commanded his sister to lie down flat in the bottom of the boat--a
command which she willingly, though with a quaking heart, obeyed.
He backed cautiously into a little nook among the rocks from which
he had a clear passage out, and having one hand on his harpoon,
which was secured by a rope to the prow of the boat, and the other
on the boat-hook (with which he meant to push himself rapidly out
into the midst of the school), he peered joyously over the gunwale
and heard the loud snorts, followed by the hissing descent of the
spray, approaching nearer and nearer. Now, steady my boy! Don’t
lose your presence of mind! One, two, three--there goes! Jumping
up, fixing the boat-hook against the rock, and with a tremendous
push shooting out into the midst of the school was but a moment’s
work. Whew! The water spouts and whirls about his ears as in a
shower-bath. Off goes his cap. Let it go! But stop! What was that?
A terrific slap against the side of the boat as from the tail of
a huge fish. Hilda jumps up with a piercing shriek and the boat
careens heavily to the port side, the gunwale dipping for a moment
under the water. A loud snort, followed again by a shower of spray,
is heard right ahead, and, at the same moment, the harpoon flies
through the air with a fierce whiz and lodges firmly in a broad,
black back. The huge fish in its first spasm of pain gives a fling
with its tail and for an instant the little boat is lifted out of
the water on the back of the wounded dolphin.

“Keep steady, don’t let go the rope!” shouts Bernt at the top of
his voice, “he won’t hurt--”

But before he had finished, the light skiff, with a tremendous
splash, struck the water again, and the little coil of rope to
which the harpoon was attached flew humming over the gunwale and
disappeared with astonishing speed into the deep.

Bernt seized the cord, and when there was little left to spare,
tied it firmly to the prow of the boat, which then, of course,
leaped forward with every effort of the dolphin to rid itself of
the harpoon. The rest of the school, having taken alarm, had sought
deep water, and were seen, after a few minutes, far out beyond the
headland.

“I want to go home, Bernt,” Hilda exclaimed, vehemently. “I want to
go home; I don’t want to get killed, Bernt.”

“You silly thing! You can’t go home now. You must just do as I
tell you; but, of course--if you only are sensible--you won’t get
killed, or hurt at all.”

While he was yet speaking, the boat began all of a sudden to move
rapidly over the water.

The dolphin had bethought him of flight, not knowing that, however
swiftly he swam, he pulled his enemy after him. As he rose to the
surface, about fifty or sixty yards ahead, a small column of water
shot feebly upward, and spread in a fan-like, irregular shape
before it fell. The poor beast floundered along for a few seconds,
its long, black body in full view, and then again dived down,
dragging the boat onward with a series of quick convulsive pulls.

Bernt held on tightly to the cord, while the water foamed and
bubbled about the prow and surged in swirling eddies in the wake of
the skiff.

“If I can only manage to get that dolphin,” said Bernt, “I know
father will give me at least a dollar for him. There’s lots of
blubber on him, and that is used for oil to burn in lamps.”

The little girl did not answer, but grasped the gunwale hard
on each side, and gazed anxiously at the foaming and bubbling
water. Bernt, too, sat silent in the prow, but with a fisherman’s
excitement in his face. The sun hung, huge and fiery, over the
western mountains, and sent up a great, dusky glare among the
clouds, which burned in intense but lurid hues of red and gold.
Gradually, and before they were fully aware of it, the boat began
to rise and descend again, and Bernt discovered by the heavy, even
roll of the water that they must be near the ocean.

“Now you may stop, my dear dolphin,” he said, coolly. “We don’t
want you to take us across to America. Who would have thought that
you were such a tough customer anyway?”

He let go the rope, and, seating himself again, put the oars into
the rowlocks. He tried to arrest the speed of the boat by vigorous
backing; but, to his surprise, found that his efforts were of no
avail.

“Hilda,” he cried, not betraying, however, the anxiety he was
beginning to feel, “take the other pair of oars and let us see what
you are good for.”

Hilda, not realizing the danger, obeyed, a little tremblingly,
perhaps, and put the other pair of oars into their places.

“Now let us turn the boat around,” sternly commanded the
boy. “It’s getting late, and we must be home before bedtime.
One--two--three--pull!”

The oars struck the water simultaneously and the boat veered half
way around; but the instant the oars were lifted again, it started
back into its former course.

“Why don’t you cut the rope and let the dolphin go?” asked Hilda,
striving hard to master the tears, which again were pressing to her
eyelids.

“Not I,” answered her brother; “why, all the fellows would laugh
at me if they heard how I first caught the dolphin and then the
dolphin caught me. No, indeed. He hasn’t much strength left by this
time, and we shall soon see him float up.”

He had hardly uttered these words, when they shot past a rocky
promontory, and the vast ocean spread out before them. Both sister
and brother gave an involuntary cry of terror. There they were,
in their frail little skiff, far away from home, and with no boat
visible for miles around. “Cut the rope, cut the rope! Dear Bernt,
cut the rope!” screamed Hilda, wringing her hands in despair.

“I am afraid it is too late,” answered her brother, doggedly. “The
tide is going out, and that is what has carried us so swiftly to
sea. I was a fool that I didn’t think of it.”

“But what shall we do--what shall we do!” moaned the girl, hiding
her face in her apron.

“Stop that crying,” demanded her brother, imperiously. “I’ll tell
you what we shall have to do. We couldn’t manage to pull back
against the tide, especially here at the mouth of the fiord, where
the current is so strong. We had better keep on seaward, and then,
if we are in luck, we shall meet the fishing-boats when they
return, which will be before morning. Anyway, there is little or
no wind, and the night is light enough, so that they cannot miss
seeing us.”

“Oh, I shall surely die, I shall surely die!” sobbed Hilda,
flinging herself down in the bottom of the boat.

Bernt deigned her no answer, but sat gazing sullenly out over the
ocean toward the western horizon, over which the low sun shed its
lurid mist of fire. The ocean broke with a mighty roar against the
rocks, hushed itself for a few seconds, and then hurled itself
against the rocks anew. To be frank, he was not quite so fearless
as he looked; but he thought it cowardly to give expression to
his fear, and especially in the presence of his sister, in whose
estimation he had always been a hero. The sun sank lower until it
almost touched the water. The rope hung perfectly slack from the
prow, and only now and then grew tense as if something was feebly
tugging at the other end. He concluded that the dolphin had bled
to death or was exhausted. In the meanwhile, they were drifting
rapidly westward, and the hollow noise of the breakers was growing
more and more distant. From a merely idle impulse of curiosity
Bernt began to haul in his rope, and presently saw a black body,
some ten or twelve feet long, floating up only a few rods from the
boat. He gave four or five pulls at the rope and was soon alongside
of it. Bernt felt very sad as he looked at it, and was sorry he had
killed the harmless animal. The thought came into his mind that his
present desperate situation was God’s punishment on him for his
cruel delight in killing.

“But God would not punish my sister for my wickedness,” he
reflected, gazing tenderly at Hilda, who lay in the boat with her
hands folded under her cheek, having sobbed herself to sleep. He
felt consoled, and, murmuring a prayer he had once heard in church
for “sailors in distress at sea,” lay down at his sister’s side and
stared up into the vast, red dome of the sky above him. The water
plashed gently against the sides of the skiff as it rose and rocked
upon the great smooth “ground swell,” and again sank down, as it
seemed into infinite depths, only to climb again the next billow.
Bernt felt sleepy and hungry, and the more he stared into the sky
the more indistinct became his vision. He sprang up, determined to
make one last, desperate effort, and strove to row in toward land,
but he could make no headway against the strong tide, and with
aching limbs and a heavy heart he again stretched himself out in
the bottom of the boat. Before he knew it he was fast asleep.

He did not know how long he had slept, but the dim, fiery look of
the sun had changed into an airy rose color, when he felt someone
seizing him by the arm and crying out: “In the name of wonders,
boy, how did you come here?”

He rubbed his eyes and saw his father’s shaggy face close to his.

“And my dear little girl too,” cried the father, in a voice of
terror. “Heaven be praised for having preserved her!”

And he lifted Hilda in his arms and pressed her close to his
breast. Bernt thought he saw tears glistening in his eyes. That
made him suddenly very solemn. For he had never seen his father cry
before. Around about him was a fleet of some thirty or forty boats
laden to the gunwale with herring. He now understood his rescue.

“Now tell me, Bernt, truthfully,” said his father, gravely, still
holding the sobbing Hilda tightly in his embrace, “how did this
happen?”

“I went a-whaling,” stammered Bernt, feeling not at all so brave as
he had felt when he started on his voyage. But he still had courage
enough to point feebly to the dead dolphin which lay secured a
short distance from the skiff.

“Wait till we get home,” said his father, “then _I’ll_ go
a-whaling.”

He stood, for a while, gazing in amazement at the huge fish, then
again at his son, as if comparing their bulk. He felt that he
ought to scold the youthful sportsman, but he knew it was in the
blood, and was therefore more inclined to praise his daring spirit.
Accordingly, when he got home, he did not go a-whaling.

“Bernt,” he said, patting the boy’s curly head, “you may be a brave
lad; but next time your bravery gets the better of you--leave the
little lass at home.”

THE COOPER AND THE WOLVES.

Tollef Kolstad was a cooper, and a very skilful cooper he was said
to be. He had a little son named Thor, who was as fond of his
father as his father was of him. Whatever Tollef did or said, Thor
was sure to imitate; if Tollef was angry and flung a piece of wood
at the dog who used to come into the shop and bother him, Thor,
thinking it was a manly thing to do, flung another piece at poor
Hector, who ran out whimpering through the door.

Thor, of course, was not very old before he had a corner in his
father’s shop, where, with a small set of tools which had been
especially bought for him, he used to make little pails and buckets
and barrels, which he sold for five or ten cents apiece to the boys
of the neighborhood. All the money earned in this way he put into
a bank of tin, made like a drum, of which his mother kept the key.
When he grew up, he thought, he would be a rich man.

The last weeks before Christmas are, in Norway, always the
briskest season in all trades; then the farmer wants his horses
shod, so that he may take his wife and children to church in his
fine, swan-shaped sleigh; he wants bread and cakes made to last
through the holidays, so that his servants may be able to amuse
themselves, and his guests may be well entertained when they call;
and, above all, he wants large tubs and barrels, stoutly made of
beech staves, for his beer and mead, with which he pledges every
stranger who, during the festival, happens to pass his door. You
may imagine, then, that at Christmas time coopers are much in
demand, and that it is not to be wondered at if sometimes they are
behind-hand with their orders. This was unfortunately the case with
Tollef Kolstad at the time when the strange thing happened which
I am about to tell you. He had been at work since the early dawn,
upon a huge tub or barrel, which had been ordered by Grim Berglund,
the richest peasant in the parish. Grim was to give a large party
on the following day (which was Christmas-Eve), and he had made
Tollef promise to bring the barrel that same night, so that he
might pour the beer into it, and have all in readiness for the
holidays, when it would be wrong to do any work. It was about ten
o’clock at night when Tollef made the last stroke with his hatchet
on the large hollow thing, upon which every blow resounded as on a
drum. He went to a neighbor and hired from him his horse and flat
sleigh, and was about to start on his errand, when he heard a tiny
voice calling behind him:

“Father, do take me along, too!”

“I can’t, my boy. There may be wolves on the lake, to-night, and
they might like to eat up little boys who stay out of bed so late.”

“But I am not afraid of them, father. I have my whip and my
hatchet, and I’ll whip them and cut them.”

Thor here made some threatening flourishes with his weapons in the
air, indicating how he would give it to the wolves in case they
should venture to molest him.

“Well, come along, you little rascal,” said his father, laughing,
and feeling rather proud of his boy’s dauntless spirit. “You and I
are not to be trifled with when we get mad, are we, Thor?”

“No, indeed, father,” said Thor, and clenched his little mittened
fist.

Tollef then lifted him up, wrapped him warmly in his sheepskin
jacket, and put him between his knees, while he himself seized the
reins and urged the horse on.

It was a glorious winter night. The snow sparkled and shone as if
sprinkled with starry diamonds, the aurora borealis flashed in
pale, shifting colors along the horizon, and the moon sailed calmly
through a vast, dark-blue sea of air. Little Thor shouted with
delight as he saw the broad expanse of glittering ice, which they
were about to cross, stretching out before them like a polished
shield of steel.

“Oh, father, I wish we had taken our skates along, and pulled your
barrel across on a sled,” cried the boy, ecstatically.

“That I might have done, if I had had a sled large enough for the
barrel,” replied the father. “But then we should have been obliged
to pull it up the hills on the other side.”

The sleigh now struck the ice and shot forward, swinging from
side to side, as the horse pulled a little unevenly. Whew! how
the cold air cut in their faces. How it whizzed and howled in
the tree-tops! Hark! What was that? Tollef instinctively pressed
his boy more closely to him. Hush!--his heart stood still, while
that of the boy, who merely felt the reflex shock of his father’s
agitation, hammered away the more rapidly. A terrible, long-drawn
howl, as from a chorus of wild, far-away voices, came floating away
over the crowns of the pine-trees.

“What was that, father,” asked Thor, a little tremulously.

“It was wolves, my child,” said Tollef, calmly.

“Are you afraid, father?” asked the boy again.

“No, child, I am not afraid of one wolf, nor of ten wolves; but if
they are in a flock of twenty or thirty, they are dangerous. And if
they scent our track, as probably they will, they will be on us in
five minutes.”

“How will they scent our track, father?”

“They smell us in the wind; and the wind is from us and to them,
and then they howl to notify their comrades, so that they may
attack us in sufficient force.”

“Why don’t we return home, then?” inquired the boy, still with a
tolerably steady voice, but with sinking courage.

“They are behind us. Our only chance is to reach the shore before
they overtake us.”

The horse, sniffing the presence of wild beasts, snorted wildly
as it ran, but, electrified as it were, with the sense of danger,
strained every nerve in its efforts to reach the farther shore. The
howls now came nearer and nearer, and they rose with a frightful
distinctness in the clear, wintry air, and resounded again from
the border of the forest.

“Why don’t you throw away the barrel, father?” said Thor, who, for
his father’s sake, strove hard to keep brave. “Then the sleigh will
run so much the faster.”

“If we are overtaken, our safety is in the barrel. Fortunately, it
is large enough for two, and it has no ears and will fit close to
the ice.”

Tollef was still calm; but, with his one disengaged arm, hugged his
little son convulsively.

“Now, keep brave, my boy,” he whispered in his ear. “They will soon
be upon us. Give me your whip.”

It just occurred to Tollef that he had heard that wolves were very
suspicious, and that men had often escaped them by dragging some
small object on the ground behind them. He, therefore, broke a
chip from one of the hoops of the barrel, and tied it to the lash
of the whip; just then he heard a short, hungry bark behind him,
and, turning his head, saw a pack of wolves, numbering more than a
dozen, the foremost of which was within a few yards of the sleigh.
He saw the red, frothy tongue hanging out of its mouth, and he
smelt that penetrating, wild smell with which everyone is familiar
who has met a wild beast in its native haunts. While encouraging
the reeking, foam-flecked horse, Tollef, who had only half faith
in the experiment with the whip, watched anxiously the leader of
the wolves, and observed to his astonishment that it seemed to be
getting no nearer. One moment it seemed to be gaining upon them,
but invariably, as soon as it reached the little chip which was
dragging along the ice, this suddenly arrested its attention and
immediately its speed slackened. The cooper’s hope began to revive,
and he thought that perhaps there was yet a possibility that they
might see the morrow’s sun. But his courage again began to ebb when
he discovered in the distance a second pack of wolves, larger than
the first, and which, with terrific speed, came running, leaping,
and whirling toward them from another direction. And while this
terrible discovery was breaking through his almost callous sense,
he forgot, for an instant, the whip, the lash of which swung under
the runners of the sleigh and snapped. The horse, too, was showing
signs of exhaustion, and Tollef, seeing that only one chance was
left, rose up with his boy in his arms, and upsetting the barrel
on the ice, concealed himself and the child under it. Hardly had
he had time to brace himself against its sides, pressing his feet
against one side and his back against the other, when he heard the
horse giving a wild scream, while the short, whining bark of the
wolves told him that the poor beast was selling its life dearly.
Then there was a desperate scratching and scraping of horseshoes,
and all of a sudden the sound of galloping hoof-beats on the ice,
growing fainter and fainter. The horse had evidently succeeded in
breaking away from the sleigh, and was testing his speed in a race
for life. Some of the wolves were apparently pursuing him, while
the greater number remained to investigate the contents of the
barrel. The howling and barking of these furious creatures without
was now incessant. Within the barrel it was dark as pitch.

“Now, keep steady!” said Tollef, feeling a sudden shock, as if
a wolf had leaped against their improvised house with a view to
upsetting it. He felt himself and the boy gliding a foot or two
over the smooth ice, but there was no further result from the
attack. A minute passed: again there came a shock, and a stronger
one than the first. A long, terrible howl followed this second
failure. The little boy, clutching his small cooper’s hatchet in
one hand, sat pale but determined in the dark, while with the other
he clung to his father’s arm.

“Oh, father!” he cried, in terror, “I feel something on my back.”

The father quickly struck a light, for he fortunately had a supply
of matches in his pocket, and saw a wolf’s paw wedged in between
the ice and the rim of the barrel; and in the same instant he tore
the hatchet from his son’s hand and buried its edge in the ice.
Then he handed the amputated paw to Thor, and said:

“Put that into your wallet, and the sheriff will pay you a reward
for it.[7] For a wolf without paws couldn’t do much harm.”

While he was yet speaking, a third assault upon the barrel lifted
one side of it from the ice, and almost overturned it. Instead of
pushing against the part nearest the ice, a wolf, more cunning than
the rest, had leaped against the upturned bottom.

You can imagine what a terrible night father and son spent
together in this constant struggle with the voracious beasts, that
never grew weary of attacking their hiding-place. The father was
less warmly clad than the son, and, moreover, was obliged to sit
on the ice, while Thor could stand erect without knocking against
the bottom of the barrel; and if it had not been for the excitement
of the situation, which made Tollef’s blood course with unwonted
rapidity, it is more than probable that the intense cold would have
made him drowsy, and thus lessened his power of resistance. The
warmth of his body had made a slight cavity where he was sitting,
and whenever he remained a moment still, his trousers froze fast to
the ice. It was only the presence of his boy that inspired him with
fresh courage, whenever hope seemed about to desert him.

About an hour after the flight of the horse, when five or six
wolves’ paws had been cut off in the same manner as the first,
there was a lull in the attack, but a sudden increase of the
howling, whining, yelping, and barking noise without. Tollef
concluded that the wolves, maddened by the smell of blood, were
attacking their wounded fellows; and as their howls seemed to come
from a short distance, he cautiously lifted one side of the barrel
and peered forth; but in the same instant a snarling bark rang
right in his ear, and two paws were thrust into the opening. Then
came a howl of pain, and another paw was put into Thor’s wallet.

But hark! What is that? It sounds like a song, or rather like a
hymn. The strain comes nearer and nearer, resounding from mountain
to mountain, floating peacefully through the pure and still air:

“Who knows how near I am mine ending;
So quickly time doth pass away.”

Tollef, in whose breast hope again was reviving, put his ear to the
ice, and heard distinctly the tread of horses and of many human
feet. He listened for a minute or more, but could not discover
whether the sound was coming any nearer. It occurred to him that
in all probability the people, being unarmed, would have no desire
to cope with a large pack of wolves, especially as to them there
could be no object in it. If they saw the barrel, how could they
know that there was anybody under it? He comprehended instantly
that his only chance of life was in joining those people before
they were too far away. And, quickly resolved, he lifted the boy
on his left arm, and grasped the hatchet in his disengaged hand.
Then, with a violent thrust, he flung the barrel from over him, and
ran in the direction of the sound. The wolves, as he had inferred,
were lacerating their bleeding comrades; but the moment they saw
him, a pack of about a dozen immediately started in pursuit. They
leaped up against him on all sides, while he struck furiously about
him with his small weapon. Fortunately, he had sharp steel pegs on
his boots, and kept his footing well; otherwise the combat would
have been a short one. His voice, too, was powerful, and his shouts
rose high above the howling of the beasts. He soon perceived that
he had been observed, and he saw in the bright moonlight six or
eight men running toward him. Just then, as perhaps in his joy his
vigilance was for a fraction of a second relaxed, he felt a pull in
the fleshy part of his right arm. He was not conscious of any sharp
pain, and was astonished to see the blood flowing from an ugly
wound. But he only held his boy the more tightly, while he fought
and ran with the strength of despair.

Now the men were near. He could hear their voices. But his brain
was dizzy, and he saw but dimly.

“Hello, friend; don’t crack my skull for my pains!” someone was
shouting close to his ear, and he let his hatchet fall, and he fell
himself, too, prostrate on the ice.

The wolves, at the sight of the men, had retired to a safe
distance, from which they watched the proceedings, as if uncertain
whether to return.

As soon as Tollef had recovered somewhat from his exhaustion and
his loss of blood, he and his boy were placed upon a sleigh, and
his wound was carefully bandaged. He now learned that his rescuers
were on their way to a funeral, which was to take place on the next
day, but, on account of the distance to the church, they had been
obliged to start during the night. Hence their solemn mood, and
their singing of funeral hymns.

After an hour’s ride they reached the cooper’s cottage, and were
invited to rest and to share such hospitality as the house could
afford. But when they were gone, Tollef clasped his sleeping boy
in his arms and said to his wife: “If it had not been for him, you
might have had no husband to-day. It was his little whip and toy
hatchet that saved our lives.”

Eleven wolves’ paws were found in Thor’s wallet, and, on Christmas
eve, he went to the sheriff with them and received a reward which
nearly burst his old savings-bank, and compelled his mother to buy
a new one.

MAGNIE’S DANGEROUS RIDE

Magnie was consumed with the hunting fever. He had been away to
school since he was ten years old, and had never had the chance
of doing anything remarkable. While his brother, Olaf, who was a
midshipman in the navy, roamed about the world, and had delightful
adventures with Turks and Arabs, and all sorts of outlandish
people, Magnie had to scan Virgil and Horace and torment his soul
with algebraic problems. It was not at all the kind of life he
had sketched out for himself, and if it had not been his father
who had imposed it upon him, he would have broken away from all
restraints and gone to Turkey or China, or some place where
exciting things happened. In the meanwhile, as he lacked money
for such an enterprise, he would content himself with whatever
excitement there was in hunting, and as his brothers, Olaf and
little Edwin (who was fourteen years old), were also at home for
the vacation, there was a prospect of many delightful expeditions
by sea and by land. Moreover, their old friend Grim Hering-Luck,
who was their father’s right-hand man, had promised to be at their
disposal and put them on the track of exciting experiences. They
had got each a gun, and had practised shooting at a target daily
since their return from the city. Magnie, or Magnus Birk, as his
real name was, had once (though Olaf stoutly maintained that it was
mere chance) hit the bull’s-eye at a hundred yards, and he was now
eager to show his skill on something more valuable than a painted
target. It was, therefore, decided that Grim and the boys should go
reindeer-hunting. They were to be accompanied by the professional
hunter, Bjarne Sheepskin.

It was a glorious morning. The rays of the sun shot from the
glacier peaks in long radiant shafts down into the valley. The
calm mirror of the fiord glittered in the light and fairly dazzled
the eye, and the sea-birds drifted in noisy companies about the
jutting crags, plunged headlong into the sea, and scattered the
spray high into the air. The blue smoke rose perpendicularly from
the chimneys of the fishermen’s cottages along the beach, and the
housewives, still drowsy with sleep, came out, rubbed their eyes
and looked toward the sun to judge of the hour. One boat after
another was pushed out upon the water, and the ripples in their
wakes spread in long diverging lines toward either shore. The fish
leaped in the sun, heedless of the gulls which sailed in wide
circles under the sky, keeping a sharp lookout for the movements
of the finny tribe. The three boys could only stand and gaze in
dumb astonishment upon the splendid sights which the combined
heavens, earth, and sea afforded. Their father, who was much
pleased with their determination and enterprise, had readily given
his consent to the reindeer hunt, on condition that Grim should
take command and be responsible for their safety. They were now
mounted upon three sturdy ponies, while their provisions, guns,
and other commodities were packed upon a fourth beast--a shaggy
little monster named Bruno, who looked more like a hornless goat
than a horse. Bjarne Sheepskin, a long, round-shouldered fellow,
with a pair of small, lively eyes, was leading this heavily laden
Bruno by the bridle, and the little caravan, being once set in
motion, climbed the steep slopes toward the mountains with much
persistence and dexterity. The ponies, which had been especially
trained for mountain climbing, planted their hoofs upon the
slippery rocks with a precision which was wonderful to behold,
jumped from stone to stone, slipped, scrambled up and down, but
never fell. As they entered the pine forest, where the huge trunks
grew in long, dark colonnades, letting in here and there stray
patches of sunshine, partridges and ptarmigan often started under
the very noses of the horses, and Magnie clamored loudly for his
gun, and grew quite angry with Bjarne, who would allow “no fooling
with tomtits and chipmunks, when they were in search of big game.”
Even hares were permitted to go unmolested; and it was not until a
fine capercailzie[8] cock tumbled out of the underbrush close to
the path, that Bjarne flung his gun to his cheek and fired. The
capercailzie made a somersault in the air, and the feathers flew
about it as it fell. Bjarne picked it up quietly, tied its legs
together, and hung it on the pommel of Edwin’s saddle. “That will
make a dinner for gentlefolks,” he said, “if the dairy-maids up on
the _saeters_ should happen to have nothing in the larder.”

Gradually, as they mounted higher, the trees became more stunted in
their growth, and the whole character of the vegetation changed.
The low dwarf-birch stretched its long, twisted branches along
the earth, the silvery-white reindeer-moss clothed in patches the
barren ground, and a few shivering alpine plants lifted their
pale, pink flowers out of the general desolation. As they reached
the ridge of the lower mountain range the boys saw before them a
scene the magnificence of which nearly took their breath away.
Before them lay a wide mountain plain, in the bottom of which two
connected lakes lay coldly glittering. Round about, the plain was
settled with rude little log-houses, the so-called _saeters_,
or mountain dairies, where the Norse peasants spend their brief
summers, pasturing their cattle.

They started at a lively trot down the slope toward this highland
plain, intending to reach the Hasselrud _saeter_, where they
expected to spend the night; for it was already several hours past
noon, and there could be no thought of hunting reindeer so late in
the day. Judging by appearances, the boys concluded that fifteen or
twenty minutes would bring them to the _saeter_; but they rode on
for nearly two hours, and always the cottages seemed to recede, and
the distance showed no signs of diminishing. They did not know how
deceptive all distances are in this wondrously clear mountain air,
whose bright transparency is undimmed by the dust and exhalations
of the lower regions of the earth. They would scarcely have
believed that those huge glacier peaks, which seemed to be looming
up above their very heads, were some eight to twelve miles away,
and that the eagle which soared above them was far beyond the range
of their rifles.

It was about five o’clock when they rode in upon the _saeter_
green, where the dairy-maids were alternately blowing their horns
and yodelling. Their long flaxen braids hung down their backs,
and their tight-fitting scarlet bodices and white sleeves gave
them a picturesque appearance. The cattle were lowing against the
sky, answering the call of the horn. The bells of cows, goats, and
sheep were jangled in harmonious confusion; and the noise of the
bellowing bulls, the bleating sheep, and the neighing horses was
heard from all sides over the wide plain.

The three brothers were received with great cordiality by the
maids, and they spent the evening, after the supper was finished,
in listening to marvellous stories about the ogres who inhabited
the mountains, and the hunting adventures with which Bjarne
Sheepskin’s life had been crowded, and which he related with a
sportsman’s usual exaggerations. The beds in one of the _saeter_
cottages were given up to the boys, and they slept peacefully until
about four o’clock in the morning, when Grim aroused them and told
them that everything was ready for their departure. They swallowed
their breakfast hastily, and started in excited silence across the
plateau. Edwin and the horses they left behind in charge of the
dairy-maids, but took with them an old staghound who had some good
blood in him, and a finer scent than his sedate behavior and the
shape of his nose would have led one to suppose.

Light clouds hovered under the sky; the mist lay like a white
sheet over the mountain, and drifted in patches across the plain.
Bjarne and Grim were carrying the guns, while Olaf led the hound,
and Magnus trotted briskly along, stopping every now and then to
examine every unfamiliar object that came in his way. The wind blew
toward them, so that there was no chance that their scent could
betray them, in case there were herds of deer toward the north at
the base of the glaciers. They had not walked very far, when Bjarne
put his hand to his lips and stooped down to examine the ground.
The dog lifted his nose and began to snuff the air, wag his tail,
and whine impatiently.

“Hush, Yutul,” whispered Bjarne; “down! down, and keep still!”

The dog crouched down obediently and held his peace.

“Here is a fresh track,” the hunter went on, pointing to a hardly
perceptible depression in the moss. “There has been a large herd
here--one buck and at least a dozen cows. Look, here is a stalk
that has just been bitten off, and the juice is not dry yet.”

“How long do you think it will be before we shall meet them?” asked
Magnus, breathlessly. The hunting-fever was throbbing in his
veins, and he crawled cautiously among the bowlders with his rifle
cocked.

“Couldn’t tell; may be an hour, may be three. Hand me your
field-glass, Lieutenant, and I will see if I can catch sight of
’em. A gray beast ain’t easily seen agin the gray stone. It was fer
the same reason I wanted ye to wear gray clothes; we don’t want to
give the game any advantage, fer the sentinels be allers on the
lookout fer the herd, and at the least bit of unfamiliar color,
they give their warnin’ snort, and off starts the flock, scudding
away like a drift of mist before the wind.”

Crouching down among the lichen-clad rocks, all listened in eager
expectation.

“Down!” whispered Bjarne, “and cock rifles! A pair of antlers
agin the snow! Hallo! it is as I thought--a big herd. One, two,
three--five--seven--ten--fourteen! One stunnin’ buck, worth his
forty dollars at least. Now follow me slowly. Look out for your
guns! You, Grim, keep the dog muzzled.”

The boys strained their eyes above the edge of the stones, but
could see nothing. Their hearts hammered against their sides, and
the blood throbbed in their temples. As far as their eyes could
reach they saw only the gray waste of bowlders, interrupted here
and there by patches of snow or a white glacier-stream, which
plunged wildly over a precipice, while a hovering moke indicated
its further progress through the plain. Nevertheless, trusting
the experience of their leader, they made no remark, but crept
after him, choosing like him every available stone for cover.
After half an hour of this laborious exercise, Bjarne suddenly
stretched himself flat upon the ground, and the others, though
seeing no occasion for such a manœuvre, promptly followed his
example. But the next moment enlightened them. Looming up against
the white snow, some sixty or a hundred feet from them, they saw
a magnificent pair of antlers, and presently the whole body of a
proud animal was distinctly visible against the glacier. In the
ravine below a dozen or more cows with their calves were nibbling
the moss between the stones, but with great deliberateness, lifting
their heads every minute and snuffing the air suspiciously; they
presently climbed up on the hard snow and began a frolic, the like
of which the boys had never seen before. The great buck raised
himself on his hind-legs, shook his head, and made a leap, kicking
the snow about him with great vehemence. Several of the cows took
this as an invitation for a general jollification, and they began
to frisk about, kicking their heels against the sky and shaking
their heads, not with the wanton grace of their chief, but with
half-pathetic attempts at imitation. This, Magnus thought, was
evidently a reindeer ball; and very sensible they were to have
it early in the morning, when they felt gay and frisky, rather
than in the night, when they ought to be asleep. What troubled
him, however, was that Bjarne did not shoot; he himself did not
venture to send a bullet into the big buck, although it seemed
to him he had an excellent aim. The slightest turn in the wind
would inevitably betray them, and then they would have had all
their toil for nothing. He would have liked to suggest this to
Bjarne; but in order to do this, he would have to overtake him, and
Bjarne was still wriggling himself cautiously forward among the
stones, pushing himself on with his elbows, as a seal does with
his flippers. In his eagerness to impart his counsel to Bjarne,
Magnus began to move more rapidly; raising himself on his knees
he quite inadvertently showed his curly head above a bowlder. The
buck lifted his superb head with a snort, and with incredible speed
the whole herd galloped away; but in the same moment two bullets
whistled after them, and the buck fell flat upon the snow. The
cow which had stood nearest to him reared on her hind-legs, made
a great leap, and plunged headlong down among the stones. With
a wild war-whoop, the boys jumped up, and Magnus, who had come
near ruining the whole sport, seized, in order to make up for
his mishap, a long hunting-knife and rushed forward to give the
buck the _coup-de-grace_,[9] in accordance with the rules of the
chase. Bounding forward with reckless disregard of all obstacles,
he was the first down on the snow. In one instant he was astride
of the animal, and had just raised his knife, when up leaped the
buck and tore away along the edge of the snow like a gust of wind.
The long-range shot, hitting him in the head, had only stunned
him, but had not penetrated the skull. And, what was worse, in
his bewilderment at the unexpected manœuvre, Magnus dropped his
knife, seizing instinctively the horns of the reindeer to keep
from falling. Away they went with a terrific dizzying speed. The
frightened boy clung convulsively to the great antlers; if he
should fall off, his head would be crushed against the bowlders.
The cold glacier-wind whistled in his ears, and stung his face
like a multitude of tiny needles. He had to turn his head in order
to catch his breath; and he strained his eyes to see if anything
was being done by his companions for his rescue. But he could see
nothing except a great expanse of gray and white lines, which ran
into each other and climbed and undulated toward him and sloped
away, but seemed associated with no tangible object. He thought,
for a moment, that he saw Grim Hering-Luck aiming his gun, but
he seemed to be up in the sky, and to be growing huger and huger
until he looked more like a fantastic cloud than a man. The thought
suddenly struck him that he might be fainting, and it sent a thrill
of horror through him. With a vehement effort he mastered his fear
and resolved that, whatever happened, he would not give way to
weakness. If he was to lose his life, he would, at all events, make
a hard fight for it; it was, on the whole, quite a valuable life,
he concluded, and he did not mean to sell it cheaply.

Troubling himself little about the direction his steed was taking,
he shut his eyes, and began to meditate upon his chances of escape;
and after some minutes, he was forced to admit that they seemed
very slim. When the buck should have exhausted his strength, as
in the course of time he must, he would leave his rider somewhere
in this vast trackless wilderness, where the biting wind swept
down from the eternal peaks of ice, where wolves roamed about
in great hungry companies, and where, beside them, the reindeer
and the ptarmigan were the only living things amid the universal
desolation. When he opened his eyes again, Magnus discovered that
the buck had overtaken the fleeing herd, which, however, were
tearing away madly at his approach, being evidently frightened
at the sight and the scent of the unfamiliar rider. The animal
was still galloping on, though with a less dizzying rapidity, and
Magnus could distinguish the general outline of the objects which
seemed to be rushing against him, as if running a race in the
opposite direction. The herd were evidently betaking themselves
into the upper glacier region, where no foot less light and swift
than theirs could find safety among the terrible ravines and
crevasses.

Fully an hour had passed, possibly two, and it seemed vain to
attempt to measure the distance which he had passed over in this
time. At all events, the region did not present one familiar
object, and of Olaf and his companions Magnie saw no trace. The
only question was, what chance had they of finding him, if they
undertook to search for him, as, of course, they would. If he
could only leave some sign or mark by which they might know the
direction he had taken, their search might perhaps be rewarded with
success. He put one hand in his pocket, but could find nothing
that he could spare except a red silk handkerchief. That had the
advantage of being bright, and would be sure to attract attention.
The dog would be likely to detect it or to catch the scent of it.
But he must have something heavy to tie up in the handkerchief,
or it might blow “all over creation.” The only thing he could find
was a silver matchbox which he had obtained by a trade with Olaf,
and which bore the latter’s initials. He carefully emptied it,
and put the matches (which he foresaw might prove useful) in his
vest-pocket; then tied up the box securely and dropped it, with
the handkerchief, upon a conspicuous rock, where its bright color
might appear striking and unnatural. He was just on the ridge of
what proved to be a second and higher mountain plateau, the wild
grandeur of which far transcended that of the first. Before him lay
a large sheet of water of a cool green tint, and so clear that the
bottom was visible as far as the eye could reach. A river had made
its way from the end of this lake and plunged, in a series of short
cataracts, down the slope to the lower plain.

It made Magnus shiver with dread to look at this coldly glittering
surface, and what was his horror when suddenly his reindeer, in his
pursuit of the herd, which were already in the water, rushed in,
and began, with loud snorts, to swim across to the farther shore!
This was an unforeseen stratagem which extinguished his last hope
of rescue; for how could Bjarne track him through the water, and
what means would he find of crossing, in case he should guess that
the herd had played this dangerous trick on him? He began to dread
also that the endurance of the buck would be exhausted before he
reached dry land again, and that they might both perish miserably
in the lake. In this horrible distress nothing occurred to him
except to whisper the Lord’s Prayer; but as his terror increased,
his voice grew louder and louder, until he fairly shouted the
words, “And deliver us from evil,” and the echoes from the vast
solitudes repeated, first clearly and loudly, then with fainter and
fainter accents: “And deliver us from evil--and deliver us from
evil.” His despairing voice rang strangely under the great empty
sky, and rumbled among the glaciers, which flung it back and forth
until it died away in the blue distance. It was as if the vast
silent wilderness, startled at the sound of a human voice, were
wonderingly repeating the strange and solemn words.

A vague sense of security stole over him when he had finished his
prayer. But the chill of the icy water had nearly benumbed his
limbs, and he feared that the loss of heat would conquer his will,
and make him unconscious before the buck should reach the shore. He
felt distinctly his strength ebbing away, and he knew of nothing
that he could do to save himself. Then suddenly a daring thought
flashed through his brain. With slow and cautious movements he drew
his legs out of the water, and, standing for a moment erect on the
buck’s back, he crawled along his neck and climbed up on the great
antlers, steadying himself carefully and clinging with all his
might. His only fear was that the animal would shake him off and
send him headlong into the icy bath from which he was endeavoring
to escape. But, after two futile efforts, during which the boy had
held on only by desperate exertion, the buck would probably have
resigned himself to his fate, if he had not been in imminent danger
of drowning. Magnus was, therefore, much against his will, forced
to dip his limbs into the chilly water, and resume his former
position. It was a strange spectacle, to see all the horned heads
round about sticking out of the water, and Magnus, though he had
always had a thirst for adventures, had never expected to find
himself in such an incredible situation. Fortunately, they were now
approaching the shore, and whatever comfort there was in having
_terra firma_ under his feet would not be wanting to him. The last
minutes were indeed terribly long, and again and again the buck,
overcome with fatigue, dipped his nose under the water, only to
raise it again with a snort, and shake his head as if impatient to
rid himself of his burden. But the boy, with a spark of reviving
hope, clung only the more tenaciously to the antlers, and remained
unmoved.

At last--and it seemed a small eternity since he had left his
brother and companions--Magnus saw the herd scramble up on the
stony beach. The buck he rode was soon among the foremost, and,
having reached the land, shook his great body and snorted violently.

“Now’s my chance,” thought Magnus; “now I can slide off into the
snow before he takes to his heels again.”

But, odd as it may seem, he had a reluctance to part company with
the only living creature (except the wolves) that inhabited this
awful desert. There was a vague chance of keeping from freezing
to death as long as he clung to the large, warm animal; while,
seated alone upon this bleak shore, with his clothes wringing
wet, and the cold breath of the glacier sweeping down upon him, he
would die slowly and miserably with hunger and cold. He was just
contemplating this prospect, seeing himself in spirit lying dead
upon the shore of the lake, and picturing to himself the grief of
his brother and father, when suddenly his glance was arrested by
what seemed a faint column of smoke rising from among the bowlders.
The herd of reindeer had evidently made the same discovery, for
they paused, in a startled manner, and wheeled about toward the
easterly shore, past which a branch of the glacier was pushing
downward into the lower fiord-valley.

Magnie, who had by this time made up his mind not to give up his
present place except for a better one, strained his eye in the
opposite direction, to make sure that he was not deceived; and
having satisfied himself that what he saw was really smoke, he
determined to leap from his seat at the very first opportunity. But
as yet the speed of the buck made such a venture unsafe. With every
step, however, the territory was becoming more irregular, and made
the progress even of a reindeer difficult.

Magnus drew up his feet, and was about to slide off, having planned
to drop with as slight a shock as possible upon a flat moss-grown
rock, when, to his utter amazement, he saw a human figure standing
at the edge of the glacier, and aiming a rifle, as it appeared,
straight at his head. He tried to scream, but terror choked his
voice. He could not bring forth a sound. And before even the
thought had taken shape in his bewildered brain he saw a flash,
and heard the report of a shot which rumbled away with tremendous
reverberations among the glaciers. There was a surging sound in his
ears, and strange lights danced before his eyes. He thought he must
be dead.

II.

Magnie never knew how long he was unconscious. The first thing he
remembered was a delicious sense of warmth and comfort stealing
through him, and strange, unintelligible sounds buzzing in the air
about him. Somebody was talking kindly to him, and a large, warm
hand was gliding over his forehead and cheeks. The peace and warmth
were grateful to him after the intense strain of his dangerous
ride. He was even loth to open his eyes when his reviving memory
began to make the situation clear to him.

“It was a reckless shot, Harry,” he heard someone say in a foreign
tongue, which he soon recognized as English, “even if it did turn
out well. Suppose you had sent your bullet crashing through the
young fellow instead of the buck. How would you have felt then?”

“I should have felt very badly, I am sure,” answered a younger
voice, which obviously belonged to Magnie’s rescuer; “but I
followed my usual way of doing things. If I didn’t act that way,
I shouldn’t act at all. And you will admit, Uncle, it is a queer
sort of thing to see a fellow come riding on a reindeer buck, in
the midst of a wild herd, and in a trackless wilderness like this,
where nobody but wolves or geologists would be apt to discover any
attractions. Now, I saw by the young man’s respectable appearance
that he couldn’t be a geologist; and if he was a wolf, I didn’t
mind much if I did shoot him.”

At this point Magnie opened his eyes and stared wonderingly about
him. He found himself in a small, cramped room, the walls of
which were draped with canvas, and scarcely high enough under the
ceiling to allow a man to stand erect. Against the walls a number
of shining brass instruments were leaning, and in a corner there
was a hearth, the smoke of which escaped through a hole in the
roof. Two bunks filled with moss, with a sheet and a blanket thrown
over each, completed the outfit of the primitive dwelling. But
Magnie was more interested in the people than in the looks of the
room. A large, blond, middle-aged man, inclined to stoutness, was
holding Magnie’s hand as if counting his pulse-beat, and a very
good-looking young fellow, of about his own age, was standing at
the hearth, turning a spit upon which was a venison steak.

“Hallo! Our young friend is returning from the land of Nod,” said
the youth who had been addressed as Harry. “I am glad you didn’t
start on a longer journey, young chap, when I fired at you; for if
you had you would have interfered seriously with my comfort.”

Magnie, who was a fair English scholar, understood perfectly what
was said to him, but several minutes elapsed before he could
collect himself sufficiently to answer. In order to gain time,
he made an effort to raise, himself and take a closer look at
his surroundings, but was forced by the older man to abandon the
attempt.

“Not so fast, my dear, not so fast;” he said, stooping over him,
and gently pushing him back into a reclining position. “You must
remember that you have a big lump on your head from your fall, and
it won’t do to be frisky just yet. But before conversing further,
it might be well to ascertain whether we understand each other.”

“Yes, I think--I think--I do,” stammered Magnie. “I know some
English.”

“Ah, then we shall get along charmingly,” the man remarked, with
an encouraging smile. “And I think Harry’s venison steak is done
by this time; and dinner, as you know, affords the most delightful
opportunity for getting acquainted. Gunnar, our guide, who is
outside skinning your reindeer buck, will soon present himself
and serve the dinner. Here he is, and he is our cook, butler,
chambermaid, laundress, beast of burden, and interpreter, all in
one.”

The man to whom the professor alluded was at this moment seen
crawling on his hands and knees through the low door-way, which his
bulky figure completely filled. He was a Norwegian peasant of the
ordinary sort, with a square, rudely cut face, dull blue eyes, and
a tuft of towy hair hanging down over his forehead. With one hand
he was dragging the skin of the buck, and between his teeth he held
an ugly-looking knife.

“Ve haf got to bury him,” he said.

“Bury him!” cried Harry. “Why, you blood-thirsty wretch, don’t you
see he is sitting there, looking as bright as a sixpence?”

“I mean de buck,” replied Gunnar, imperturbably.

“And why do you wish to bury the buck? I would much rather eat him.
This steak here has a most tempting flavor, and I am quite tired of
canned abominations by this time.”

“De volves vill be sure to scent de meat, now dat it is flayed, and
before an hour ve might haf a whole congregation of dem here.”

“Well, then, we will shoot them down,” insisted the cheerful Harry.
“Come, now, Uncle, and let us have a civilized dinner. I don’t
pretend to be an expert in the noble art of cookery; but if this
tastes as good as it smells, I wouldn’t exchange it for a Delmonico
banquet. And if the wolves, as Gunnar says, can smell a dead
reindeer miles away, they would be likely to smell a venison steak
from the ends of creation. Perhaps, if we don’t hurry, all the
wolves of the earth may invite themselves to our dinner.”

Gunnar, upon whom this fanciful raillery was lost, was still
standing on all-fours in the door, with his front half in the warm
room and his rearward portion in the arctic regions without. He
was gazing helplessly from one to another, as if asking for an
explanation of all this superfluous talk. “Vill you cawme and help
me, Mester Harry?” he asked at last, stolidly.

“Yes, when I have had my dinner I will, Mester Gunnar,” answered
Harry, gayly.

“Vel, I haf notting more to say, den,” grumbled the guide; “but it
vould vonder me much if, before you are troo, you von’t have some
unbidden guests.”

“All right, Gunnar--the more the merrier,” retorted Harry as, with
exaggerated imitation of a waiter’s manner, he distributed plates,
knives, and napkins to Magnie and his uncle.

They now fell to chatting, and Magnie learned, after having
given a brief account of himself, that his entertainers were
Professor Winchester, an American geologist, and his nephew, Harry
Winchester, who was accompanying his uncle, chiefly for the fun
of the thing, and also for the purpose of seeing the world and
picking up some crumbs of scientific knowledge. The professor was
especially interested in glaciers and their action in ages past
upon the surface of the earth, and, as the Norwegian glaciers had
never been thoroughly studied, he had determined to devote a couple
of months to observations and measurements, with a view to settling
some mooted geological questions upon which he had almost staked
his reputation.

They had just finished the steak, which would perhaps have been
tenderer if it had not been so fresh, and were helping themselves
to the contents of a jar of raspberry preserves, when Harry
suddenly dropped his spoon and turned, with a serious face, to his
uncle.

“Did you hear that?” he said.

“No; what was it?”

Harry waited for a minute; then, as a wild, doleful howl was heard,
he laid his hand on the professor’s arm, and remarked: “The old
fellow was right. We shall have unbidden guests.”

“But they are hardly dangerous in these regions, so far as I can
learn,” said the professor, reassuringly.

“That depends upon their number. We could tackle a dozen; but two
dozen we might find troublesome. At any rate, they have spoiled my
appetite for raspberry jam, and that is something I sha’n’t soon
forgive them.”

Three or four howls sounding nearer, and echoing with terrible
distinctness from the glaciers, seemed to depress Harry’s spirits
still further, and he put the jar away and began to examine the
lock of his rifle.

“They are evidently summoning a mass-meeting,” remarked the
professor, as another chorus of howls re-echoed from the glacier.
“I wish we had more guns.”

“And I wish mine were a Remington or a Springfield breech-loader,
with a dozen cartridges in it!” Harry exclaimed. “These
double-barrelled Norwegian machines, with two shots in them, are
really good for nothing in an emergency. They are antediluvian both
in shape and construction.”

He had scarcely finished this lament, when Gunnar’s huge form
reappeared in the door, quadruped fashion, and made an attempt to
enter. But his great bulk nearly filled the narrow room, and made
it impossible for the others to move. He examined silently first
Harry’s rifle, then his own, cut off a slice of steak with his
pocket-knife, and was about to crawl out again, when the professor,
who could not quite conceal his anxiety, asked him what he had done
with the reindeer.

“Oh!” he answered, triumphantly, “I haf buried him among de stones,
vhere he vill be safe from all de volves in de vorld.”

“But, my dear fellow,” ejaculated the professor, hotly, “why
didn’t you rather let the wolves have it? Then, at least, they
would spare us.”

“You surely vouldn’t gif a goot fresh reindeer, legs and all, to a
pack of skountrelly volves, vould you?”

“I would much rather give them that than give them myself.”

“But it is vort tventy dollars, if you can get it down fresh and
sell it to de English yachts,” protested Gunnar, stolidly.

“Yes, yes; but you great stupid,” cried the professor in despair,
“what do you think my life is worth? and Master Harry’s? and this
young fellow’s?” (pointing to Magnie). “Now go as quick as you can
and dig the deer out again.”

Gunnar, scarcely able to comprehend such criminal wastefulness,
was backing out cautiously with his feet foremost, when suddenly
he gave a scream and a jump which nearly raised the roof from
the hut. It was evident that he had been bitten. In the same
moment a fresh chorus of howls resounded without, mingled with
sharp, whining barks, expressive of hunger and ferocity. There
was something shudderingly wild and mournful in these long-drawn
discords, as they rose toward the sky in this lonely desert; and
brave as he was, Magnie could not restrain the terror which he
felt stealing upon him. Weakened by his icy bath, moreover, and by
the nervous strain of his first adventure, he had no great desire
to encounter a pack of ravenous wolves. Still, he manned himself
for the occasion and, in as steady a voice as he could command,
begged the professor to hand him some weapon. Harry, who had
instinctively taken the lead, had just time to reach him a long
hunting-knife, and arm his uncle with an ax, when, through the door
which Gunnar had left open, two wolves came leaping in and paused
in bewilderment at the sight of the fire on the hearth. They seemed
dazed by the light, and stood panting and blinking, with their
trembling red tongues lolling out of their mouths. Harry, whose
gun was useless at such close range, snatched the ax away from the
professor, and at one blow split the skull of one of the intruders,
while Magnie ran his knife up to the very hilt in the neck of the
other. The beast was, however, by no means dead after that, but
leaped up on his assailant’s chest, and would have given him an
ugly wound in the neck had not the professor torn it away and flung
it down upon the fire, where, with a howling whine, it expired. The
professor had also found time to bolt the door before more visitors
could enter; and two successive shots without seemed to indicate
that Gunnar was holding his own against the pack. But the question
was, how long would he succeed in keeping them at bay? He had fired
both his shots, and he would scarcely have a chance to load again,
with the hungry beasts leaping about him. This they read in one
another’s faces, but no one was anxious to anticipate the other in
uttering his dread.

“Help, help!” cried Gunnar, in dire need.

“Take your hand away, Uncle!” demanded Harry. “I am going out to
help him.”

“For your life’s sake, Harry,” implored the professor, “don’t go!
Let me go! What would your mother say to me if I should return
without you?”

“I’ll come back again, Uncle, don’t you fear,” said the youth, with
feigned cheerfulness; “but I won’t let this poor fellow perish
before my very eyes, even though he is a fool.”

“It was his foolishness which brought this danger upon us,”
remonstrated the professor.

“He knew no better,” cried Harry, tearing the door open, and with
ax uplifted rushing out into the twilight. What he saw seemed
merely a dark mass, huddled together and swaying sideways, from
which now and then a black figure detached itself with a howl,
jumped wildly about, and again joined the dark, struggling mass. He
could distinguish Gunnar’s head, and his arms fighting desperately,
and, from the yelps and howls of the wolves, he concluded that he
had thrown away the rifle and was using his knife with good effect.

“Help!” he yelled, “help!”

“You shall have it, old fellow,” cried Harry, plunging forward and
swinging his ax about him; and the professor, who had followed
close at his heels, shouting at the top of his voice, pressed in
Harry’s wake right into the centre of the furious pack. But, at
that very instant, there came a long “Hallo-o!” from the lake
below, and a rifle-bullet flew whistling above their heads and
struck a rock scarcely a yard above the professor’s hat. Several
wolves lay gasping and yelping on the ground, and the rest slunk
aside. Another shot followed, and a large beast made a leap and
fell dead among the stones. Gunnar, who was lying bleeding upon
the ground, was helped to his feet, and supported by Harry and the
professor to the door of the cottage.

“Hallo, there!” shouted Harry, in response to the call from below.

“Hallo!” someone shouted back.

The figures of three men were now seen looming up in the dusk,
and Magnie, who instinctively knew who they were, sprang to meet
them, and in another moment lay sobbing in his brother’s arms.
The poor lad was so completely unnerved by the prolonged suspense
and excitement, that he had to be carried back into the hut,
and his brother, after having hurriedly introduced himself to
the professor, came very near giving way to his feelings, too.
Gunnar’s wounds, which were numerous, though not serious, were
washed and bandaged by Grim Hering-Luck; and having been wrapped
in a horse-blanket, to keep out the cold, he was stowed away in a
bunk and was soon asleep. As the hut was too small to admit all
the company at once, Grim and Bjarne remained outside, and busied
themselves in skinning the seven wolves which had fallen on the
field of battle. Harry, who had got a bad bite in his arm, which
he refused to regard as serious, consented with reluctance to his
uncle’s surgery, and insisted upon sitting up and conversing with
Olaf Birk, to whom he had taken a great liking. But after a while
the conversation began to lag, and tired heads began to droop; and
when, about midnight, Grim crept in to see how his invalid was
doing, he found the professor reclining on some loose moss upon
the floor, while Harry was snoring peacefully in a bunk, using
Olaf’s back for a pillow. And Olaf, in spite of his uncomfortable
attitude, seemed also to have found his way to the land of Nod.
Grim, knowing the danger of exposure in this cold glacier air,
covered them all up with skins and horse-blankets, threw a few dry
sticks upon the fire, and resumed his post as sentinel at the door.

The next morning Professor Winchester and his nephew accepted
Olaf’s invitation to spend a few days at Hasselrud, and without
further adventures the whole caravan descended into the valley,
calling on their way at the _saeter_ where Edwin had been left. It
appeared, when they came to discuss the strange incidents of the
preceding day, that it was Magnie’s silk handkerchief which had
enabled them to track him to the edge of the lake, and, by means of
a raft, which Bjarne kept hidden among the stones in a little bay,
they had been enabled to cross, leaving their horses in charge of a
shepherd boy whom they had found tending goats close by.

The reindeer cow which Olaf had killed was safely carried down
to the valley, and two wolf-skins were presented to Magnie by
Harry Winchester. The other wolf-skins, as well as the skin of
the reindeer buck, Bjarne prepared in a special manner, and Harry
looked forward with much pleasure to seeing them as rugs upon the
floor of his room at college; and he positively swelled with pride
when he imagined himself relating to his admiring fellow-students
the adventures which had brought him these precious possessions.

THORWALD AND THE STAR-CHILDREN.

Thorwald’s mother was very ill. The fever burned and throbbed in
her veins; she lay, all day long and all night long, with her eyes
wide open, and could not sleep. The doctor sat at her bedside and
looked at her through his spectacles; but she grew worse instead of
better.

“Unless she can sleep a sound, natural sleep,” he said, “there is
no hope for her, I fear.”

It was to Thorwald’s father that he said this, but Thorwald heard
what he said. The little boy, with his dog Hector, was sitting
mournfully upon the great wolfskin outside his mother’s door.

“Is my mamma very ill?” he asked the doctor, but the tears choked
his voice, and he hid his face in the hair of Hector’s shaggy neck.

“Yes, child,” answered the doctor; “very ill.”

“And will God take my mamma away from me?” he faltered, extricating
himself from Hector’s embrace, and trying hard to steady his voice
and look brave.

“I am afraid He will, my child,” said the doctor, gravely.

“But could I not do something for her, doctor?”

The long suppressed tears now broke forth, and trickled down over
the boy’s cheeks.

“_You_, a child, what can you do?” said the doctor, kindly, and
shook his head.

Just then there was a great noise in the air. The chimes in the
steeple of the village church pealed forth a joyous Christmas
carol, and the sound soared, rushing as with invisible wing-beats
through the clear, frosty air. For it was Christmas-eve, and the
bells were, according to Norse custom, “ringing-in the festival.”
Thorwald stood long listening, with folded hands, until the bells
seemed to take up the doctor’s last words, and chime: “What can
you do, what can you do, what can you do?” Surely, there could
be no doubt that that was what the bells were saying. The clear
little silvery bells that rang out the high notes were every moment
growing more impatient, and now the great heavy bell joined them,
too, and tolled out slowly, in a deep bass voice, “Thor--wald!” and
then all the little ones chimed in with the chorus, as rapidly as
the stiff iron tongues could wag: “What can you do, what can you
do, what can you do? Thorwald, what can you do, what can you do,
what can you do?”

“A child--ah, what can a child do?” thought Thorwald. “Christ was
himself a child once, and He saved the whole world. And on a night
like this, when all the world is glad because it is His birthday,
He perhaps will remember how a little boy feels who loves his
mamma, and cannot bear to lose her. If I only knew where He is now,
I would go to Him, even if it were ever so far, and tell Him how
much we all love mamma, and I would promise Him to be the best boy
in all the world, if He would allow her to stay with us.”

Now the church-bells suddenly stopped, though the air still kept
quivering for some minutes with faint reverberations of sound. It
was very quiet in the large, old-fashioned house. The servants
stole about on tiptoe, and spoke to each other in hurried whispers
when they met in the halls. A dim lamp, with a bluish globe, hung
under the ceiling and sent a faint, moon-like light over the broad
oaken staircase, upon the first landing of which a large Dutch
clock stood in a sort of niche, and ticked and ticked patiently
in the twilight. It was only five o’clock in the afternoon, and
yet the moon had been up for more than an hour, and the stars were
twinkling in the sky, and the aurora borealis swept with broad
sheets of light through the air, like a huge fan, the handle of
which was hidden beneath the North Pole; you almost imagined you
heard it whizzing past your ears as it flashed upward to the zenith
and flared along the horizon. For at that season of the year the
sun sets at about two o’clock in the northern part of Norway, and
the day is then but four hours long, while the night is twenty. To
Thorwald that was a perfectly proper and natural arrangement; for
he had always known it so in winter, and he would have found it
very singular if the sun had neglected to hide behind the mountains
at about two o’clock on Christmas-eve.

But poor Thorwald heeded little the wonders of the sky that day.
He heard the clock going, “Tick--tack, tick--tack,” and he knew
that the precious moments were flying, and he had not yet decided
what he could do which might please God so well that he would
consent to let his dear mamma remain upon earth. He thought of
making a vow to be very good all his life long; but it occurred
to him that before he would have time to prove the sincerity of
his promise, God might already have taken his mamma away. He must
find some shorter and surer method. Down on the knoll, near the
river, he knew there lived a woman whom all the peasants held in
great repute, and who was known in the parish as “Wise Marthie.”
He had always been half afraid of her, because she was very old
and wrinkled, and looked so much like the fairy godmother in his
storybook, who was not invited to the christening feast, and who
revenged herself by stinging the princess with a spindle, so that
she had to go to sleep for a hundred years. But if she were so
wise, as all the people said, perhaps she might tell him what he
should do to save the life of his mamma. Hardly had this thought
struck him before he seized his cap and overcoat (for it was a
bitter cold night), and ran to the stable to fetch his skees.[10]
Then down he slid over the steep hill-side. The wind whistled in
his ears, and the loose snow whirled about him and settled in his
hair, and all over his trousers and his coat. When he reached Wise
Marthie’s cottage, down on the knoll, he looked like a wandering
snow image. He paused for a moment at the door; then took heart and
gave three bold raps with his skee-staff. He heard someone groping
about within, and at length a square hole in the door was opened,
and the head of the revengeful fairy godmother was thrust out
through the opening.

“Who is there?” asked Wise Marthie, harshly (for, of course, it was
none other than she). Then as she saw the small boy, covered all
over with snow, she added, in a friendlier voice: “Ah! gentlefolk
out walking in this rough weather?”

“O Marthie!” cried Thorwald, anxiously, “my mamma is very ill----”

He wished to say more, but Marthie here opened the lower panel of
the door, while the upper one remained closed, and invited him to
enter.

“Bend your head,” she said, “or you will knock against the door. I
am a poor woman, and can’t afford to waste precious heat by opening
both panels.”

Thorwald shook the snow from his coat, set his skees against the
wall outside, and entered the cottage.

“Take a seat here at the fire,” said the old woman, pointing to a
wooden block which stood close to the hearth. “You must be very
cold, and you can warm your hands while you tell me your errand.”

“Thank you, Marthie,” answered the boy, “but I have no time to sit
down. I only wanted to ask you something, and if you can tell me
that, I shall--I shall--love you as long as I live.”

Old Marthie smiled, and Thorwald thought for a moment that she
looked almost handsome. And then she took his hand in hers and drew
him gently to her side.

“You are not a witch, are you, Marthie?” he said, a little
tremblingly. For Marthie’s association with the wicked fairy
godmother was yet very suggestive. Then, again, her cottage seemed
to be a very queer place; and it did not look like any other
cottage that he had ever seen before. Up under the ceiling, which
was black and sooty, hung bunches of dried herbs, and on shelves
along the wall stood flower-pots, some of which had blooming
flowers in them. The floor was freshly scrubbed, and strewn with
juniper-needles, and the whole room smelt very clean. In a corner,
between the stone hearth and the wall, a bed, made of plain deal
boards, was to be seen; a shaggy Maltese cat, with sleepy, yellow
eyes, was for the present occupying it, and he raised his head and
gazed knowingly at the visitor, as if to say: “I know what you have
come for.”

Old Marthie chuckled when Thorwald asked if she was a witch; and
somehow her chuckle had a pleasant and good-natured sound, the boy
thought, as he eyed her wistfully.

“Now I am sure you are not a witch,” cried he, “for witches never
laugh like that. I know, now, that you are a good woman, and that
you will want to help me if you can. I told you my mamma was very
ill” (the tears here again broke through his voice)--“so very ill
that the doctor says God will take her away from us. I sat at her
door all yesterday and cried, and when papa took me in to her, she
did not know me. Then I cried more. I asked papa why God makes
people so ill, and he said it was something I didn’t understand,
but I should understand some day. But, Marthie, I haven’t time to
wait, for by that time mamma may be gone, and I shall never know
where to find her; I must know now. And you, who are so very wise,
you will tell me what I can do to save my mamma. Couldn’t I do
something for God, Marthie--something that he would like? And then,
perhaps, he would allow mamma to stay with us always.”

The tears now came hot and fast, but the boy still stood erect, and
gazed with anxious questioning into the old woman’s face.

“You are a brave little lad,” she said, stroking his soft, curly
hair with her stiff, crooked fingers, “and happy is the mother of
such a boy. And old Marthie knows a thing or two, she also, and
you shall not have come to her in vain. Once, child, more than
eighteen hundred years ago, just on this very night, a strange
thing happened in this world, and I dare say you have heard of
it. Christ, the White, was born of Mary in the land of the Jews.
The angels came down from heaven, as we read in the Good Book,
and they sang strange and wonderful songs of praise. And they
scattered flowers, too--flowers which only blossomed until then in
heaven, in the sight of God. And one of these flowers,--sweet and
pure, like the tone of an angel’s voice expressed in color--one of
these wondrous flowers, I say, struck root in the soil, and has
multiplied, and remains in the world until this day. It blossoms
only on Christmas-eve--on the eve when Christ was born. Even in the
midst of the snow, and when it is so cold that the wolf shivers in
his den, this frail, pure flower peeps up for a few brief moments
above the shining white surface, and then is not seen again. It
is of a white or faintly bluish color; and he who touches it and
inhales its heavenly odor is immediately healed of every earthly
disease. But there is one singular thing about it--no one can see
it unless he be pure and innocent and good; to all others the
heavenly flower is invisible.”

“Oh, then I shall never find it, Marthie!” cried Thorwald, in great
suspense. “For I have often been very naughty.”

“I am very sorry to hear that,” said Marthie, and shook her head.

“And do you think it is of any use for me, then, to try to find the
flower?” exclaimed the boy, wildly. “O Marthie, help me! Help me!”

“Well, I think I should try,” said Marthie, calmly. “I don’t
believe you can have been such a dreadfully naughty boy; and you
probably were very sorry whenever you happened to do something
wrong.”

“Yes, yes, always, and I always begged papa’s and mamma’s pardon.”

“Then, listen to me! I will show you the Star of Bethlehem in the
sky--the same one that led the shepherds and the kings of the East
to the manger where Christ lay. Follow that straight on, through
the forest, across the frozen river, wherever it may lead you,
until you find the heavenly flower. And when you have found it,
hasten home to your mother, and put it up to her lips so that she
may inhale its breath; then she will be healed, and will bless her
little boy, who shunned no sacrifice for her sake.”

“But I didn’t tell you, Marthie, that I made Grim Hering-Luck
tattoo a ship on my right arm, although papa had told me that I
mustn’t do it. Do you still think I shall find the heavenly flower?”

“I shouldn’t wonder if you did, child,” responded Marthie, with a
reassuring nod of her head. “It is high time for you to start, now,
and you mustn’t loiter by the way.”

“No, no; you need not tell me that!” cried the boy, seizing his
cap eagerly, and slipping out through the lower panel of the door.
He jumped into the bands of his skees, and cast his glance up to
the vast nocturnal sky, which glittered with myriads of twinkling
stars. Which of all these was the Star of Bethlehem? He was just
about to rush back into the cottage, when he felt a hand upon his
shoulder, and saw Wise Marthie’s kindly but withered face close to
his.

“Look toward the east, child,” she said, almost solemnly.

“I don’t know where the east is, Marthie,” said Thorwald,
dolefully. “I always get mixed up about the points of the compass.
If they would only fix four big poles, one in each corner of the
earth, that everybody could see, then I should always know where to
turn.”

“There is the east,” said Marthie, pointing with a long, crooked
finger toward the distant mountain-tops, which, with their hoods
of ice, flashed and glistened in the moonlight. “Do you see that
bright, silvery star which is just rising between those two snowy
peaks?”

“Yes, yes, Marthie. I see it! I see it!”

“That is the Star of Bethlehem. You will know it by its white,
radiant light. Follow that, and its rays will lead you to the
flower which can conquer Death, as it led the shepherds and the
kings of old to Him over whom Death had no power.”

“Thank you, Marthie. Thank you!”

The second “thank you” hardly reached the ears of the old woman,
for the boy had shot like an arrow down over the steep bank, and
was now half-way out upon the ice. The snow surged and danced in
eddies behind him, and the cold stung his face like sharp, tiny
needles. But he hardly minded it, for he saw the star of Bethlehem
beaming large and radiant upon the blue horizon, and he thought of
his dear mother, whom he was to rescue from the hands of Death. But
the flower--the flower--where was that? He searched carefully all
about him in the snow, but he saw no trace of it. “I wonder,” he
thought, “if it can blossom in the snow? I should rather think that
Christ allows the angels to fling down a few of them every year
on his birthday, to help those that are sick and suffering; they
say he is very kind and good, and I shouldn’t wonder if he sees
me now, and will tell the angels to throw down the precious flower
right in my path.”

II.

The world was cold and white round about him. The tall pines stood
wrapped in cloaks of snow, which looked like great white ulsters,
and they were buttoned straight up to the chin--only a green
finger-tip and a few tufts of dark-green hair showed faintly, at
the end of the sleeves and above the collar. The alders and the
birches, who had no such comfortable coats to keep out the cold,
stood naked in the keen light of the stars and the aurora, and they
shivered to the very marrow. To Thorwald it seemed as if they were
stretching their bare, lean hands against the heavens, praying for
warmer weather. A family of cedar-birds, who had lovely red caps
on their heads and gray uniforms of the most fashionable tint, had
snugged close together on a sheltered pine-branch, and they were
carrying on a subdued twittering conversation just as Thorwald
passed the river-bank, pushing himself rapidly over the snow by
means of his skee-staff. But it was strictly a family matter they
were discussing, which it would be indiscreet in me to divulge.
They did, however, shake down a handful of loose snow on Thorwald’s
head, just to let him know that he was very impolite to take so
little notice of them. They did not know, of course, that his
mother was ill; otherwise, I am sure, they would have forgiven him.

Hush! What was that? Thorwald thought he heard distant voices
behind him in the snow. He looked all about him, but saw nothing.
Then, following the guidance of the star, he still pressed onward.
He quitted the river-bed and traversed a wide sloping meadow;
he had to take a zigzag course, like a ship that is tacking,
because the slope was too steep to ascend in a straight line. He
was beginning to feel tired. The muscles in his legs ached, and
he often shifted the staff from hand to hand, in order to rest
the one or the other of his arms. He gazed now fixedly upon the
snow, taking only an occasional glance at the sky, to see that he
was going in the right direction; the strange hum of voices in
the air yet haunted his ears, and he sometimes imagined he heard
words moving to a wonderful melody. Was it the angels that were
singing, inspiring him with courage for his quest? He dared hardly
believe it, and yet his heart beat joyously at the thought. Ah!
what is that which glitters so strangely in the snow? A starry
gleam, a twinkling, like a spark gathering its light into a little
glittering point, just as it is about to be quenched. Thorwald
leaps from his skees and plunges his hand into the snow. The frozen
crust cuts his wrist cruelly; and he feels that he is bleeding.
With a wrench he pulls his hand up; his heart throbs in his throat;
he gazes with wild expectation, but sees--nothing. His wrist is
bleeding, and his hand is full of blood. Poor Thorwald could hardly
trust his eyes. He certainly had seen something glittering on the
snow. He felt a great lump in his throat, and it would have been a
great relief to him, at that moment, to sit down and give vent to
the tears that were crowding to his eyelids. But just then a clear,
sweet strain of music broke through the air, and Thorwald heard
distinctly these words, sung by voices of children:

“Lead, O Star of Bethlehem,
Me through death and danger,
Unto Christ, who on this night
Lay cradled in a manger.”

Thorwald gathered all his strength and again leaped into his skees;
he was now on the border of a dense pine-forest, and as he looked
into it, he could not help shuddering. It was so dark under the
thick, snow-burdened branches, and the moon only broke through here
and there, and scattered patches of light over the tree-tops and
on the white carpet of the snow. Yet, perhaps it was within this
very wood that the heavenly blossom had fallen. He must not lose
heart now, when he was perhaps so near his goal. Thrusting his
staff vigorously into the snow-crust, he pushed himself forward and
glided in between the tall, silent trunks; at the same moment the
air again quivered lightly, as with the breath of invisible beings,
and he heard words which, as far as he could afterward recollect
them, sounded as follows:

“Make my soul as white and pure
As the heavenly blossom--
As the flower of grace and truth
That blooms upon Thy bosom.”

Thorwald hardly felt the touch of the snow beneath his feet; he
seemed rather to be soaring through the air, and the trunks of the
huge dark trees marched in close columns, like an army in rapid
retreat, before his enraptured vision. Christ did see him! Christ
would send him the heavenly flower! All over the snow sparkling
stars were scattered, and they gleamed and twinkled and beckoned to
him, but whenever he stretched out his hand for them they suddenly
vanished. The trees began to assume strange, wild shapes, and to
resemble old men and women, with long beards and large hooked
noses. They nodded knowingly to one another, and raised up their
gnarled toes from the ground in which they were rooted, and tried
to trip up the little boy who had dared to interrupt their solemn
conversation. One old fir shook the snow from her shoulders, and
stretched out a long, strangely twisted arm, and was on the point
of seizing Thorwald by the hair, when fortunately he saw the
coming danger, and darted away down the hill-side at quickened
speed. A long, bright streak of light suddenly illuminated the
eastern sky, something fell through the air, and left a golden
trail of fire behind it; surely it was the heavenly flower that
was thrown down by an angel in response to his prayer! Forward and
ever forward--over roots and stumps and stones--stumbling, rising
again, sinking from weariness and exhaustion, kneeling to pray on
the frozen snow, crawling painfully back and tottering into the
skee-bands; but only forward, ever forward! The earth rolls with
a surging motion under his feet, the old trees join their rugged
hands and dance, in wild, senile glee, around him, lifting their
twisted limbs, and sometimes, with their talons, trying to sweep
the stars from the sky. Thorwald struggled with all his force to
break through the ring they had made around him. He saw plainly
the flower, beaming with a pale radiance upon the snow, and he
strove with all his might to reach it, but something held him back,
and though he was once or twice within an inch of it, he could
never quite grasp it with his fingers. Then, all of a sudden, the
strange song again vibrated through the air, and he saw a huge star
glittering among the underbrush; a flock of children clad in white
robes were dancing about it, and they were singing Christmas carols
in praise of the new-born Saviour. As they approached nearer and
nearer, the hope revived in Thorwald’s heart. Ah, there the flower
of healing was, lying close at his feet. He made a desperate leap
and clutched it in his grasp--then saw and felt no more.

III.

The white children were children of earth, not, as Thorwald had
imagined, angels from heaven. It is a custom in Norway for the
children of the poor to go about on Christmas eve, from house to
house, carrying a large canvas star, with one or more lanterns
within it, and sing Christmas carols. They are always dressed in
white robes, and people call them star-children. Whenever they
station themselves in the snow before the front door, and lift up
their tiny, shrill voices, old and young crowd to the windows,
and the little boys and girls who are born to comfort and plenty,
and never have known want, throw pennies to them, and wish them a
merry Christmas. When they have finished singing, they are invited
in to share in the mirth of the children of the house, and are made
to sit down with them to the Christmas table, and perhaps to dance
with them around the Christmas tree.

It was a company of these star-children who now found Thorwald
lying senseless in the forest, and whose sweet voices he had heard
in the distance. The oldest of them, a boy of twelve, hung up his
star on the branch of a fir-tree, and stooped down over the pale
little face, which, from the force of the fall, was half buried in
the snow. He lifted Thorwald’s head and gazed anxiously into his
features, while the others stood in a ring about him, staring with
wide-open eyes and frightened faces.

“This is Thorwald, the judge’s son,” he said. “Come, boys, we must
carry him home. He must have been taken ill while he was running on
skees. But let us first make a litter of branches to carry him on.”

The boys all fell to work with a will, cutting flexible twigs with
their pocket-knives, and the little girls sat down on the snow
and twined them firmly together, for they were used to work, and,
indeed, some of them made their living by weaving baskets. In a
few minutes the litter was ready, and Thorwald, who was still
unconscious, was laid upon it. Then six boys took hold, one at
each corner and two in the middle, and as the crust of the snow
was very thick, and strong enough to bear them, it was only once
or twice that any of them broke through. When they reached the
river, however, they were very tired, and were obliged for a while
to halt. Some one proposed that they should sing as they walked,
as that would make the time pass more quickly, and make their
burden seem lighter, and immediately some one began a beautiful
Christmas carol, and all the others joined in with one accord. It
was a pretty sight to see them as they went marching across the
river, one small boy of six walking at the head of the procession,
carrying the great star, then the six larger boys carrying the
litter, and at last twelve little white-robed girls, tripping two
abreast over the shining surface of the ice. But, in spite of
their singing, they were very tired by the time they had gained
the highway on the other side of the river. They did not like
to confess it; but when they saw the light from Wise Marthie’s
windows, the oldest boy proposed that they should stop there for a
few minutes to rest, and the other five said, in a careless sort
of way, that they had no objection. Only the girls were a wee bit
frightened, because they had heard that Wise Marthie was a witch.
The boys, however, laughed at that, and the little fellow with
the star ran forward and knocked at the door, with Thorwald’s
skee-staff.

“Lord ha’ mercy on us!” cried Marthie, as she opened the
peeping-hole in her door, and saw the insensible form which the
boys bore between them; then flinging open both portions of the
door, she rushed out, snatched Thorwald up in her arms, and carried
him into the cottage.

“Come in, children,” she said, “come in and warm yourselves for
a moment. Then hurry up to the judge’s, and tell the folk there
that the little lad is here at my cottage. You will not go away
empty-handed; for the judge is a man who pays for more than he
gets. And this boy, you know, is the apple of his eye. Lord! Lord!
I sent his dog, Hector, after him, and I knew the beast would let
me know if the boy came to harm; but, likely as not, the wind was
the wrong way, and the poor beast could not trace the skee-track on
the frozen snow. Mercy! mercy! and he is in a dead swoon.”

IV.

When Thorwald waked up, he lay in his bed, in his own room, and in
his hand he held a pale-blue flower. He saw the doctor standing at
his bedside.

“Mamma--my mamma,” he whispered.

“Yes, it is time that we should go to your mamma,” said the doctor,
and his voice shook.

And he took the boy by the hand and led him to his mother’s
bed-chamber. Thorwald began to tremble--a terrible dread had come
over him; but he clutched the flower convulsively, and prayed that
he might not come too late. A dim, shaded lamp burned in a corner
of the room, his father was sitting on a chair, resting his head
in his palms, and weeping. To his astonishment, he saw an old
woman stooping over the pillow where his mother’s head lay; it was
Wise Marthie. Unable to contain himself any longer, he rushed,
breathless with excitement, up to the bedside.

“Mamma! Mamma!” he cried, flourishing his prize in the air. “I am
going to make you well. Look here!”

He thrust the flower eagerly into her face, gazing all the while
exultantly into her beloved features.

“My sweet, my darling child,” whispered she, while her eyes kindled
with a heavenly joy. “How can a mother die who has such a noble
son?”

And she clasped her little boy in her arms, and drew him close to
her bosom. Thus they lay long, weeping for joy--mother and son. An
hour later the doctor stole on tiptoe toward the bed, and found
them both sleeping.

When the morrow’s sun peeped in through the white curtains, the
mother awoke from her long, health-giving slumber; but Thorwald
lay yet peacefully sleeping at her side. And as the mother’s
glance fell upon the flower, now limp and withered, yet clutched
tightly in the little grimy, scratched and frost-bitten fist, the
tears--happy tears--again blinded her eyes. She stretched out her
hand, took the withered flower, pressed it to her lips, and then
hid it next to her heart. And there she wears it in a locket of
gold until this day.

BIG HANS AND LITTLE HANS.

On the northwestern coast of Norway the mountains hide their heads
in the clouds and dip their feet in the sea. In fact, the cliffs
are in some places so tall and steep that streams, flowing from the
inland glaciers and plunging over their sides, vanish in the air,
being blown in a misty spray out over the ocean. In other places
there may be a narrow slope, where a few potatoes, some garden
vegetables, and perhaps even a patch of wheat, may be induced to
grow by dint of much coaxing; for the summer, though short, is
mild and genial in those high latitudes, and has none of that
fierce intensity which, with us, forces the vegetation into sudden
maturity, and sends our people flying toward all the points of the
compass during the first weeks in June.

It was on such a sunny little slope, right under the black
mountain-wall, that Halvor Myrbraaten had built his cottage. Halvor
was a merry fellow, who went about humming snatches of hymns and
old songs and dance-melodies all day long, and sometimes mixed
up both words and tune wofully; and when his memory failed him,
sang anything that popped into his head. Some people said they had
heard him humming the multiplication table to the tune of “Old
Norway’s Lion,” and whole pages out of Luther’s Catechism to jolly
dance-tunes. Not that he ever meant to be irreverent; it was just
his way of amusing himself. He was an odd stick, people thought,
and not of much use to his family. Whatever he did, “luck” went
against him. But it affected his temper very little. Halvor was
still light-hearted and good-natured, and went about humming as
usual. If he went out hunting, and came home with an empty pouch,
it did not interfere in the least with his gayety; but knowing
well the reception which was in store for him; it did occasionally
happen that he paused with a quizzical look before opening the
door, and perhaps, after a minute’s reflection, concluded to
spend the night in the barn; for Turid, his wife, had a mind of
her own, and knew how to express herself with emphasis. She was,
as everyone admitted, a very worthy and competent woman, and
accomplished more in a day than her husband did in a fortnight.
But worthy and competent people are not invariably the pleasantest
people to associate with, and the gay and genial good-for-nothing
Halvor, with his bright irresponsible smile and his pleasant ways,
was a far more popular person in the parish than his austere,
estimable, over-worked wife. For one thing, with all her poverty,
she had a great deal of pride; and people who had never suspected
that one so poor could have any objection to receiving alms had
been much offended by her curt way of refusing their proffered
gifts. Halvor, they said, showed a more realizing sense of his
position: he had the humble and contrite heart which was becoming
in an unsuccessful man, and accepted with equal cheerfulness and
gratitude whatever was offered him, from a dollar bill to a pair of
worn-out mittens. It was, in fact, this extreme readiness to accept
things which first made difficulty between Halvor and his wife. It
seemed to him a pure waste of labor to work for a thing which he
could get for nothing; and it seemed to her a waste of something
still more precious to accept as a gift what one might have
honestly earned by work. But as she could never hope to have Halvor
agree with her on this point, she comforted herself by impressing
her own horror of alms-taking upon her children; and the children,
in their turn, impressed the same sound principles upon their pet
kid and the pussy cat.

There were five children at Myrbraaten. Hans, the eldest, was ten
years old, and Dolly, the youngest, was one, and the rest were
scattered between. It was a pretty sight to see them of a summer
afternoon on the grass plot before the house, rolling over one
another and gambolling like a sportive family of kittens; only
you could hardly help feeling vaguely uneasy about the mountain,
the steep, black wall of which, sparsely clad with pines, rose so
threateningly above them. It seemed as if it must, some day, swoop
down upon them and crush them. The mother, it must be admitted,
was occasionally oppressed by some such fear; but when she
reflected that the mountain had stood there from time immemorial,
and had never yet moved, or harmed anyone, she felt ashamed of
her apprehension, and blamed herself for her distrust of God’s
providence.

Besides the children there was another young inhabitant of the
Myrbraaten cottage, and surely a very important one. He too, was
named Hans, but, in order to distinguish him from the son of the
house, the word “Little” was prefixed, and the latter, although
he was really the smaller of the two, was called, by way of
distinction, Big Hans. The most remarkable thing about Little Hans
was that he had, in spite of his youth, a very well-developed
beard. Big Hans, who had not a hair on his chin, rather envied
him this manly ornament. Then, again, Little Hans was a capital
fighter, and could knock you down in one round with great coolness
and sweet-tempered seriousness, as if he were acting entirely from
a sense of duty. He never used any hard words; but the moment
his adversary attempted to rise, Little Hans quietly gave him
another knock, and winked wickedly at him, as if warning him to
lie still. He never bragged of his victories, but showed a modest
self-appreciation to which very few of his age ever attain. Big
Hans, who valued his friend and namesake above others, and had a
hearty admiration for his many fine qualities, declared himself
utterly unable to rival him in combativeness, modesty, and coolness
of temper. For Big Hans, I am sorry to say, was sometimes given to
bragging of his muscle and of his skill in turning hand-springs and
standing on his head, and he could easily be teased into a furious
temper. Now, Little Hans could not turn hand-springs, nor could he
stand on his head; but, though he promptly resented any trifling
with his dignity, I never once knew him to lose his temper. He
never laughed when anything struck him as being funny; in fact,
he seemed to regard every boisterous exhibition of feeling as
undignified. He only turned his head away and stood chewing a piece
of paper or a straw, with his usual look of comical gravity in his
eye.

Many people wondered at the fast friendship which bound Big
Hans and Little Hans together. Their tastes, people said,
were dissimilar; in temperament, too, they had few points of
resemblance. And yet they were absolutely inseparable. Wherever
Big Hans went, Little Hans was sure to follow. Often they were
seen racing along the beach or climbing up the mountain-side;
and, as Little Hans was a capital hand (or ought I to say foot?)
at climbing, Big Hans often had hard work to keep up with him.
Sometimes Little Hans would leap up a rock which was so steep that
it was impossible for his friend to climb it, and then he would
grin comically down at Big Hans, who would stand below calling
tearfully to his companion until he descended, which usually was
very soon. For Little Hans was very fond of Big Hans, and could
never bear to see him cry. And that is not in the least to be
wondered at, as Big Hans had saved him from starvation and death
when Little Hans was really in the sorest need. Their acquaintance
began in the following manner: one day when Big Hans was up in
the mountains trapping hares, he heard a feeble voice in a cleft
of the rocks near by, and hurrying to the spot, he found Little
Hans wedged in between two great stones, and his leg caught in so
distressing a manner that it cost Big Hans nearly an hour’s work to
set it free. Then he dressed the bruised foot with a rag torn from
the lining of his coat, and carried Little Hans home in his arms.
And as Little Hans’ parents had never claimed him, and he himself
could give no satisfactory account of them, he had thenceforth
remained at Myrbraaten, where all the children were very fond of
him. Turid, their mother, on the other hand, had no great liking
for him, especially after he had devoured her hymn-book (which was
her most precious property) and eaten with much appetite a piece
of Dolly’s dress. For, as I intimated, Little Hans’ tastes were
very curious, and nothing came amiss when he was hungry. He had a
trick of pulling off Dolly’s stockings when she was sitting out on
the green, and if he were not discovered in time, he was sure to
make his breakfast off of them. With these tastes, you will readily
understand, Big Hans could have no sympathy, and the only thing
which could induce him to forgive Little Hans’ eccentricities was
the fact that Little Hans was a goat.

II.

In the winter of 187-, a great deal of snow fell on the
northwestern coast of Norway. The old pines about the Myrbraaten
cottage were laden down with it; the children had to be put to work
with snow-shovels early in the morning, in order to hollow out a
tunnel to the cow-stable where the cow stood bellowing with hunger.
The mother, too, worked bravely, and sometimes when the thin roof
of snow caved in and fell down upon them, they laughed heartily,
and their mother too, could not help laughing because they were
so happy. Little Hans also made a pretence of working, but only
succeeded in being in everybody’s way, and when the cold snow
drizzled down upon his nose he grinned and made faces so queer that
the children shouted with merriment.

Day after day, and week after week, the snow continued to descend.
Big Hans and his friend sat at the window watching the large
feathery flakes, as they whirled slowly and silently through the
air and covered the earth far and near with a white pall. Soon
there was a scarcity of wood at the Myrbraaten cottage, and Halvor
was obliged to get into his skees and go to the forest. Humming the
multiplication table (so far as he knew it) to the tune of a hymn,
he pulled on his warmest jacket, took his axe from its hiding-place
under the eaves, and went in a slanting line up the mountain-side;
but before he had gone many rods it struck him that it was useless
to go so far for wood, when the whole mountain-slope was covered
with pines. Fresh pine would be a little hard to burn, to be sure,
but then pine was full of pitch and would burn anyhow. He therefore
took off his skees, dug a hole in the snow, and felled three or
four trees only a few hundred rods above the cottage. When his wife
heard the sound of his axe so near the house, she rushed out and
cried to him:

“Halvor, Halvor, don’t cut down the trees on the slope! They are
all that keep the snow from coming down upon us in an avalanche,
and sweeping us into the ocean!”

“Oh, the Lord will look out for his own,” sang Halvor, cheerily.

“The Lord put the pine-trees there to protect us,” replied his wife.

But the end was that, in spite of his wife’s protests, Halvor
continued to fell the trees.

The heavy fall of snow was followed in the course of a week by a
sudden thaw.

Strange creaking and groaning sounds stole through the forest.
Sometimes when a large load of snow fell, it rolled and grew as it
rolled, until it dashed against a huge trunk and nearly broke it
with its weight.

Then, one night, there came down a great load which fell with a
dull thud and rolled down and down, pushing a growing wall of snow
before it, until it reached the clearing where Halvor had cut his
wood; there, meeting with no obstructions, it gained a tremendous
headway, sweeping all the snow and the felled trunks with it, and
rushed down in a great mass, carrying along stones, shrubs, huge
trees, and the very soil itself, leaving nothing but the bare rock
behind it. How terrible was the sight! A smoke-like cloud rose in
the darkness, and a sound as of a thousand thundering cataracts
filled the night. On it swept, onward, with a wild, resistless
speed! At the jutting rock, where the juniper stood, the avalanche
divided, tearing up the old spruces and the birches by the roots
and hurling them down, but leaving the juniper standing alone on
its barren peak. It was but a moment’s work. The avalanche shot
downward with increased speed--hark!--a sharp shriek, a smothered
groan, then a fierce hissing sound of waves that rose toward the
sky and returned with a long thundering cannonade to the strand!
The night was darker and the silence deeper than before.

III.

Where the Myrbraaten cottage had stood, the bare rock now stares
black and dismal against the sun. The rumor of the calamity spread
like wild-fire through the valley, and the folk of the whole parish
came to gaze upon the ruin which the avalanche had wrought. All
that was left of Myrbraaten was the cow-stable, where the cow and
Little Hans and Big Hans had slept. Little Hans had been very
ill-behaved the night before, so Turid had sent him to sleep with
the cow; and Big Hans, who thought it would be cruel to ask his
companion to spend the night in that dark stable, with only a cow
for company, had gone with him and slept with him in the hay. Thus
it happened that Little Hans and Big Hans both were saved. It was
pitiful to see them shivering in the wet snow. Big Hans was crying
as if his heart would break; and the women who crowded about him
were unable to comfort him. What should he, a small boy of ten, do
alone in this wide world? His father and his mother and his little
brothers and sisters were all gone, and there was no one left who
cared for him. Just then Little Hans, who was anxious to express
his sympathy, put his nose close to Big Hans’ face and rubbed it
against his cheek.

“Yes, you are right, Little Hans,” sobbed the boy, embracing his
faithful friend; “you do care for me. You are the only one I have
left now, in all the world. You and I will stand by each other
always.”

Little Hans then said, “Ma-a-a,” which in his language meant, “Yes.”

The question soon arose in the parish--what was to be done with
Big Hans? He had no relatives except a brother of his mother, who
had emigrated many years before to Minnesota; and there was no one
else who seemed disposed to assume the burden of his support. It
was finally decided that he should be hired out as a pauper to the
lowest bidder, and that the parish should pay for his board. But
when the people who bid for him refused to take Little Hans too,
the boy determined, after some altercation with the authorities,
to seek his uncle in America. One thing he was sure of, and that
was that he would not part from Little Hans. But there was no
one in the parish who would board Little Hans without extra pay.
Accordingly, the cow and the barn were sold for the boy’s benefit,
and he and his comrade went on foot to the city, where they bought
a ticket for New York.

Thus it happened that Big Hans and Little Hans became Americans.
But before they reached the United States some rather curious
things happened to them. The captain of the steamship, Big Hans
found, was not willing to take a goat as a passenger, and Big Hans
was forced to return with his friend to the pier, while the other
emigrants thronged on board. He was nearly at his wits’ end, when
it suddenly occurred to him to put Little Hans in a bag and smuggle
him on board as baggage. This was a lucky thought. Little Hans was
quite heavy, to be sure, but he seemed to comprehend the situation
perfectly, and kept as still as a mouse in his bag while Big Hans,
with the assistance of a benevolent fellow-passenger, lugged him up
the gang-plank. And when he emerged from his retirement some time
after the steamer was well under way, none of the officers even
thought of throwing the poor goat overboard; for Little Hans became
a great favorite with both crew and passengers, although he played
various mischievous pranks, in his quiet, unostentatious way, and
ate some shirts which had been hung out to dry.

It was early in April when the two friends arrived in New York.
They attracted considerable attention as they walked up Broadway
together; and many people turned around to laugh at the little
emigrant boy, in his queer Norwegian costume, who led a full-grown
goat after him by a halter. The bootblacks and the newsboys pointed
their fingers at them, and, when that had no effect, made faces
at them, and pulled Big Hans by his short jacket and Little Hans
by his short tail. Big Hans was quite frightened when he saw how
many of them there were, but, perceiving that Little Hans was
not in the least ruffled, he felt ashamed of himself, and took
heart again. Thus they marched on for several blocks, while the
crowd behind them grew more and more boisterous and importunate.
Suddenly, one big boy, who seemed to be the leader of the gang,
sprang forward with a yell and knocked off Big Hans’ hat, while all
the rest cheered loudly; but just as he was turning around to enjoy
his triumph, Little Hans turned around too, and gave him a bump
from behind which sent him headlong into the gutter. Then, rising
on his hind legs, Little Hans leaped forward again and again, and
despatched the second and third boy in the same manner, whereupon
all the rest ran away, helter-skelter, scattering through the side
streets. It was all done in so quiet and gentlemanly a manner that
not one of the grown-up spectators who had gathered on the sidewalk
thought of interfering. Big Hans, however, who had intended to
see something of the city before starting for the West, was so
discouraged at the inhospitable reception the United States had
given him, that he gave up his purpose, and returned disconsolately
to Castle Garden. There he spent the rest of the day, and when the
night came, he went to sleep on the floor, with his little bundle
under his head; while Little Hans, who did not seem to be sleepy,
lay down at his side, quietly munching a piece of pie which he had
stolen from somebody’s luncheon-basket.

Early the next morning Big Hans was awakened by a gentle pulling
at his coat-collar; and, looking up, he saw that it was Little
Hans. He jumped up as quickly as he could, and he found that
it was high time, for all the emigrants had formed into a sort
of a procession and were filing through the gate on their way
to the railway station. There were some seven or eight hundred
of them--toil-worn, sad-faced men and women, and queer-looking
children in all sorts of outlandish costumes. Big Hans and his
friend ran to take their places at the very end of the procession,
and just managed to slip through the gate before it was closed.
At the railway station the boy exhibited his ticket which he had
bought at the steamship office in Norway, and was just about to
board the train, when the conductor cried out:

“Hold on, there! This is not a cattle-train! You can’t take your
goat into the passenger-car!”

Big Hans did not quite comprehend what was said, but from the
expression of the conductor’s voice and face, he surmised that
there was some objection to his comrade.

“I think I have money enough to buy a ticket for Little Hans, too,”
he said, in his innocent Norwegian way, as he pulled a five-dollar
bill from his pocket.

“I don’t want your money,” cried the conductor, who knew as little
of Norwegian as Big Hans did of English.

“Get out of the way there with your billy-goat!”

And he hustled the boy roughly out of the way to make room for the
other emigrants, who were thronging up to the platform.

“Well, then,” said Big Hans, “since they don’t want us on the
train, Little Hans, we shall have to walk to Minnesota. And as this
railroad is going that way, I suppose we shall get there if we
follow the track.”

Little Hans seemed to think that this was a good plan; for, as soon
as the train had steamed off, he started at a brisk rate along the
track, so that his master had great difficulty in keeping up with
him. For several hours they trudged along cheerfully, and both
were in excellent spirits. Minnesota, Big Hans supposed, might,
perhaps, be a day’s journey off, and if he walked fast he thought
he would probably be there at nightfall. When once he was there, he
did not doubt but that everybody would know his Uncle Peter. He was
somewhat puzzled, however, when he came to a place where no less
than three railroad tracks branched off in different directions;
and, as there was no one to ask, he sat down patiently in the shade
of a tree and determined to wait. Presently a man came along with a
red flag.

“Perhaps you would kindly tell me if this is the way to Minnesota,”
said Big Hans, taking off his cap and bowing politely to the man.

The man shook his head sullenly, but did not answer; he did not
understand the boy’s language.

“And you don’t happen to know my uncle, Peter Volden?” essayed the
boy, less confidently, making another respectful bow to the flagman.

“You are a queer loon of a chap,” grumbled the man; “but if you
don’t jump off the track with your goat, the train will run over
both of you.”

He had hardly spoken, when the train was seen rounding the curve,
and the boy had just time to pull Little Hans over into the ditch
when the locomotive came thundering along, sending out volumes
of black smoke, which scattered slowly in the warm air, making
the sunlight for awhile seem gray and dingy. Big Hans was almost
stunned, but picked himself up, with a little fainter heart than
before, perhaps; but whispering a snatch of a prayer which his
mother had taught him, he seized Little Hans by the halter, and
started once more upon his weary way after the train.

“Minnesota must be a great way off, I am afraid,” he said,
addressing himself, as was his wont, to his companion; “but if we
keep on walking, it seems to me we must, in the end, get there; or,
what do you think, Little Hans?”

Little Hans did not choose to say what he thought, just then, for
his attention had been called to some tender grass at the roadside
which he knew tasted very sweet. Big Hans was then reminded that
he, too, was hungry, and he sat down on a stone and ate a piece of
bread which he had brought with him from Castle Garden. The sun
rose higher in the sky and the heat grew more and more oppressive.
Still the emigrant boy trudged on patiently. Whenever he came to
a station he stopped, and read the sign, and shook his head sadly
when he saw some unfamiliar name.

“Not Minnesota yet, Little Hans,” he sighed; “I am afraid we shall
have to take lodgings somewhere for the night. I am so footsore and
tired.”

It was then about six o’clock in the evening, and the two friends
had walked about twenty miles. At the next station they met a
hand-organ man, who was sitting on a truck, feeding his monkey.

Big Hans, who had never seen so funny an animal before, was greatly
delighted. He went close up to the man, and put out his hand
cautiously to touch the monkey.

“Are you going to Minnesota, too?” he asked, in a tone of great
friendliness; “if so, we might bear each other company. I like that
hairy little fellow of yours very much.”

The hand-organ man, who, like most men of his calling, was an
Italian, shook his head, and the monkey shook his head, too, as if
to say, “All that may be very fine, but I don’t understand it.”

The boy, however, was too full of delight to notice whether he
was understood or not; and when the monkey took off his little
red hat and offered to shake hands with him, he laughed until the
tears rolled down his cheeks. He seemed to have entirely forgotten
Little Hans, who was standing by, glowering at the monkey with a
look which was by no means friendly. The fact was, Little Hans had
never been accustomed to any rival in his master’s affection, and
he didn’t enjoy in the least the latter’s interest in the monkey.
He kept his jealousy to himself, however, as long as he could; but
when Big Hans, after having giving ten cents to the organ-man,
took the monkey on his lap and patted and stroked it, Little Hans’
heart was ready to burst. He could not endure seeing his affections
so cruelly trifled with. Bending his head and rising on his hind
legs, he darted forward and gave his rival a knock on the head
that sent him tumbling in a heap at Big Hans’ feet. The Italian
jumped up with a terrible shout and seized his treasure in his
arms. The monkey made an effort to open its eyes, gave a little
shiver, and--was dead. The boy stood staring in mute despair at
the tiny stiffened body; he felt like a murderer. Hardly knowing
what he did, he seized Little Hans’ halter; but in the same moment
the enraged owner of the monkey rushed at the goat with the butt
end of his whip uplifted. Little Hans, who was dauntless as ever,
dexterously dodged the blow, but the instant his antagonist had
turned to vent his wrath upon his master, he gave him an impetus
from behind which sent him headlong out upon the railroad track.
A crowd of men and boys (of the class who always lounge about
railroad stations) had now collected to see the fight, and goaded
both combatants on with their jeering cries. The Italian, who was
maddened with anger, had just picked himself up, and was plunging
forward for a second attack upon Little Hans, when Big Hans, seeing
the danger, flung himself over his friend’s back, clasping his arms
about his neck. The loaded end of the whip struck Big Hans in the
back of the head; without a sound, the boy fell senseless upon the
track.

Then a policeman arrived, and Little Hans, the Italian, and the
insensible boy were taken to the police-station. A doctor was
summoned, and he declared that Big Hans’ wound was very dangerous,
and that he must be taken to the hospital. And there the emigrant
boy lay for six weeks, hovering between life and death; but when,
at the end of that time, he was permitted to go out, he heard with
dread that he was to testify at the Italian’s trial. A Norwegian
interpreter was easily found, and when Hans told his simple story
to the judge, there were many wet eyes in the court-room. And he
himself cried, too, for he thought that Little Hans was lost. But
just as he had finished his story, he heard a loud “Ba-a-a” in his
ear; he jumped down from the witness-stand and flung his arms about
Little Hans’ neck and laughed and cried as if he had lost his wits.

It is safe to say that such a scene had never before been witnessed
in an American court-room.

The next day Big Hans and Little Hans were both sent by rail,
at the expense of some kind-hearted citizens, to their uncle in
Minnesota. And it was there I made their acquaintance.

A NEW WINTER SPORT.

It is a curious fact that so useful an article as the Norwegian
_skees_ has not been more generally introduced in the United
States. In some of the Western States, notably in Wisconsin
and Minnesota, where the Scandinavian population is large, the
immigrants of Norse blood are beginning to teach Americans the
use of their national snow-shoes, and in Canada there has been an
attempt made (with what success I do not know) to make skee-running
popular. But the subject has by no means received the consideration
which it deserves, and I am confident that I shall earn the
gratitude of the great army of boys if I can teach them how to
enjoy this fascinating sport.

Let me first, then, describe a _skee_ and tell you how to have it
made. You take a piece of tough, straight-grained pine, from five
to ten feet long, and cut it down until it is about the breadth of
your foot, or, at most, an inch broader. There must be no knots
in the wood, and the grain must run with tolerable regularity
lengthwise from end to end.

[Illustration: Bending the Skee.]

If you cannot find a piece without a knot, then let the knot be as
near the hind end as possible; but such a _skee_ is not perfect,
as it is apt to break if subjected to the strain of a “jump” or
a “hollow” in a swift run. The thickness of the _skee_ should be
about an inch or an inch and one-half in the middle, and it should
gradually grow thinner toward each end. Cut the forward end into
a point--not abruptly, but with a gradual curve, as shown in the
drawings. Pierce the middle latitudinally with a hole, about half
an inch in height and an inch or (if required) more in width; then
bend the forward pointed end by means of five sticks, placed as
the drawing indicates, and let the _skee_ remain in this position
for four or five days, until its bend has become permanent, and it
will no longer, on the removal of the sticks, resume the straight
line. Before doing this, however, it would be well to plane the
under side of the _skee_ carefully and then polish and sand-paper
it, until it is as smooth as a mirror. It is, of course, of prime
importance to diminish as much as possible the friction in running
and to make the _skee_ glide easily over the surface of the snow,
and the Norwegians use for this purpose soft-soap, which they rub
upon the under side of the _skee_, and which, I am told, has also
a tendency to make the wood tougher. In fact, too much care cannot
be exercised in this respect, as the excellence of the _skees_,
when finished, depends primarily upon the combined toughness and
lightness of the wood. Common pine will not do; for although, when
well seasoned, it is light enough, it is rarely strong enough to
bear the required strain. The tree known to Norwegians as the fir
(_Sylvestris pinus_), which has long, flexible needles, hanging
in tassels (not evenly distributed along the branch, as in the
spruce), is most commonly used, as it is tough and pitchy, but
becomes light in weight, without losing its strength, when it is
well seasoned and dried. Any other strong and straight-grained
wood might, perhaps, be used, but would, I think, be liable to the
objection of being too heavy.

[Illustration: Side and Face View of Skees, showing Cap and Knob.]

When the _skee_ has been prepared as above described, there only
remains to put a double band through the middle; the Norwegians
make it of twisted withes, and fit its size to the toe of the boot.
If the band is too wide, so as to reach up on the instep, it is
impossible to steer the _skee_, while if it is too narrow the foot
is apt to slip out. Of these two withe-bands, one should stand up
and the other lie down horizontally, so as to steady the foot and
prevent it from sliding. A little knob, just in front of the heel,
might serve a similar purpose. Leather, or any other substance
which is apt to stretch when getting wet, will not do for bands,
although undoubtedly something might be contrived which might be
even preferable to withes. I am only describing the _skees_ as they
are used in Norway--not as they might be improved in America. In
the West, I am told, a good substitute for the withe-band has been
found in a kind of leather cap resembling the toe of a boot. As I
have never myself tried this, I dare not express an opinion about
its practicability; but as it is of the utmost importance that
the runner should be able to free his foot easily, I would advise
every boy who tries this cap to make perfectly sure that it does
not prevent him from ridding himself of the _skee_ at a moment’s
notice. The chief difficulty that the beginner has to encounter is
the tendency of the _skees_ to “spread,” and the only thing for
him to do in such a case, provided he is running too fast to trust
to his ability to get them parallel again, is to jump out of the
bands and let the _skees_ go. Let him take care to throw himself
backward, breaking his fall by means of the staff, and in the soft
snow he will sustain no injury. Whenever an accident occurs in
skee-running, it can usually be traced to undue tightness of the
band, which may make it difficult to withdraw the feet instantly.
A pair of _skees_ kept at the rooms of the American Geographical
Society, New York, are provided with a safeguard against
“spreading” in the shape of a slight groove running longitudinally
along the under side of each _skee_. I have seen _skees_ provided
with two such grooves, each about an inch from the edge and meeting
near the forward point.

There has, of course, to be one _skee_ for each foot, and the
second is an exact duplicate of the first. The upper sides of both
are usually decorated, either in colors or with rude carvings; the
forward ends are usually painted for about a foot, either in black
or red.

[Illustration: Staff with a Wheel that Acts as a Brake]

Now, the reader will ask: “What advantage does this kind of
snow-shoes offer over the ordinary Indian ones, which are in common
use in the Western and Northern States?” Having tried both, I think
I may confidently answer that the _skees_ are superior, both in
speed and convenience; and, moreover, they effect a great saving
of strength. The force which, with the American snow-shoes, is
expended in lifting the feet, is with the _skees_ applied only as a
propeller, for the _skee_ glides, and is never lifted; and on level
ground the resistance of the body in motion impels the skee-runner
with each forward stride several feet beyond the length of his
step. If he is going down-hill, his effort will naturally be to
diminish rather than to increase his speed, and he carries for this
purpose a strong but light staff about six feet long, upon which
he may lean more or less heavily, and thereby retard the rapidity
of his progress. The best skee-runners, however, take great pride
in dispensing with the staff, and one often sees them in Norway
rushing down the steepest hill-sides with incredible speed, with a
whirling cloud of snow following in their track.

[Illustration: Side View, showing Foot in Position.]

Although this may be a very fine and inspiriting sight, I should
not recommend beginners to be too hasty in throwing away the staff,
as it is only by means of it that they are able to guide their
course down over the snowy slope, just as a ship is steered by its
rudder. If you wish to steer toward the right, you press your staff
down into the snow on your right side, while a similar manœuvre on
your left side will bend your course in that direction. If you wish
to test your _skees_ when they are finished, put your feet into the
bands, and let someone take hold of the two front ends and slowly
raise them while you are standing in the bands. If they bear your
weight, they are regarded as safe, and will not be likely to break
in critical moments. In conclusion, let me add that the length and
thickness of the _skees_, as here described, are not invariable,
but must vary in accordance with the size of the boy who wishes to
use them. Five feet is regarded as the minimum length, and would
suit a boy from twelve to fourteen years old, while a grown-up man
might safely make them twice that length.

[Illustration: Under Side and Cross Section of Skee, showing
Groove.]

In Norway, where the woods are pathless in winter, and where heavy
snows continually fall from the middle of October until the middle
of April, it is easily seen how essential, nay indispensable, the
_skees_ must be to hunters, trappers, and lumber-men, who have
to depend upon the forests for their livelihood. Therefore, one
of the first accomplishments which the Norwegian boy learns, as
soon as he is old enough to find his way through the parish alone,
is the use of these national snow-shoes. If he wakes up one fine
winter morning and sees the huge snow-banks blockading doors and
windows, and a white, glittering surface extending for miles as
far as his eye can reach, he gives a shout of delight, buttons his
thick woollen jacket up to his chin, pulls the fur borders of his
cap down over his ears, and then, having cleared a narrow path
between the dwelling-house and the cow-stables, makes haste to jump
into his _skees_. If it is cold (as it usually is) and the snow
accordingly dry and crisp, he knows that it will be a splendid day
for skee-running. If, on the contrary, the snow is wet and heavy,
it is apt to stick in clots to the _skees_, and then the sport is
attended with difficulties which are apt to spoil the amusement. We
will take it for granted, however, that there are no indications of
a thaw, and we will accompany the Norse boy on his excursions over
the snowy fields and through the dense pine-woods, in which he and
his father spend their days in toil, not untempered with pleasure.

“Now, quick, Ola, my lad!” cries his father to him; “fetch the axe
from the wood-shed and bring me my gun from the corner behind the
clock, and we will see what luck we have had with the fox-traps and
the snares up in the birch-glen.”

And Ola has no need of being asked twice to attend to such duties.
His mother, in the meanwhile, has put up a luncheon, consisting of
cold smoked ham and bread and butter, in a gayly painted wooden
box, which Ola slings across his shoulder, while Nils, his father,
sticks the axe into his girdle, and with his gun in one hand
and his skee-staff in the other, emerges into the bright winter
morning. They then climb up the steep snow-banks, place their
_skees_ upon the level surface, and put their feet into the bands.
Nils gives a tremendous push with his staff and away he flies down
the steep hill-side, while his little son, following close behind
him, gives an Indian war-whoop, and swings his staff about his head
to show how little he needs it. Whew, how fast he goes! How the
cold wind sings in his ears; how the snow whirls about him, filling
his eyes and ears and silvering the loose locks about his temples,
until he looks like a hoary little gnome who has just stepped out
from the mountain-side! But he is well used to snow and cold, and
he does not mind it a bit.

In a few seconds father and son have reached the bottom of the
valley, and before them is a steep incline, overgrown with leafless
birch and elder forests. It is there where they have their snares,
made of braided horse-hair; and as bait they use the red berries of
the mountain ash, of which ptarmigan and thrushes are very fond.
Now comes the test of their strength; but the snow is too deep
and loose to wade through, and to climb a declivity on _skees_ is
by no means as easy as it is to slide down a smooth hill-side.
They now have to plod along slowly, ascending in long zig-zag
lines, pausing often to rest on their staves, and to wipe the
perspiration from their foreheads. Half an hour’s climb brings them
to the trapping-grounds. But there, indeed, their efforts are well
rewarded.

“Oh, look, look, father!” cries the boy, ecstatically. “Oh, what a
lot we have caught! Why, there are three dozen birds, as sure as
there is one.”

His father smiles contentedly, but says nothing. He is too old a
trapper to give way to his delight.

“There is enough to buy you a new coat for Christmas, lad,” he
says, chuckling; “and if we make many more such hauls, we may get
enough to buy mother a silver brooch, too, to wear at church on
Sundays.”

“No, buy mother’s brooch first, father,” protests the lad, a little
hesitatingly (for it costs many boys an effort to be generous); “my
coat will come along soon enough. Although, to be sure, my old one
is pretty shabby,” he adds, with a regretful glance at his patched
sleeves.

“Well, we will see, we will see,” responds Nils, pulling off his
bear-skin mittens and gliding in among the trees in which the traps
are set. “The good Lord, who looks after the poor man as well as
the rich, may send us enough to attend to the wants of us all.”

He had opened his hunting-bag, and was loosening the snare from the
neck of a poor strangled ptarmigan, when all of a sudden he heard
a great flapping of wings, and, glancing down through the long
colonnade of frost-silvered trees, saw a bird which had been caught
by the leg, and was struggling desperately to escape from the snare.

“Poor silly thing!” he said, half-pityingly; “it is not worth a
shot. Run down and dispatch it, Ola.”

“Oh, I don’t like to kill things, father,” cried the lad, who with
a fascinated gaze was regarding the struggling ptarmigan. “When
they hang themselves I don’t mind it so much; but it seems too
wicked to wring the neck of that white, harmless bird. No, let me
cut the snare with my knife and let it go.”

“All right; do as you like, lad,” answered the father, with gruff
kindliness.

And with a delight which did his heart more honor than his head,
Ola slid away on his _skees_ toward the struggling bird, which, the
moment he touched it, hung perfectly still, with its tongue stuck
out, as if waiting for its death-blow.

“Kill me,” it seemed to say. “I am quite ready.”

But, instead of killing it, Ola took it gently in his hand, and
stroked it caressingly while cutting the snare and disentangling
its feet. How wildly its little heart beat with fright! And the
moment his hold was relaxed, down it tumbled into the snow, ran
a few steps, then took to its wings, dashed against a tree in
sheer bewilderment, and shook down a shower of fine snow on its
deliverer’s head. Ola felt quite heroic when he saw the bird’s
delight, and thought how, perhaps, next summer (when it had changed
its coat to brown) it would tell its little ones, nestling under
its wings, of its hairbreadth escape from death, and of the
kind-hearted youngster who had set it free instead of killing it.

While Ola was absorbed in these pleasant reflections, Nils, his
father, had filled his hunting-bag with game and was counting his
spoils.

“Now, quick, laddie,” he called out, cheerily. “Stir your stumps
and bring me your bag of bait. Get the snares to rights and fix the
berries, as you have seen me doing.”

Ola was very fond of this kind of work, and he pushed himself with
his staff from tree to tree, and hung the tempting red berries in
the little hoops and arches which were attached to the bark of the
trees. He was in the midst of this labor, when suddenly he heard
the report of his father’s gun, and, looking up, saw a fox making a
great leap, then plunging headlong into the snow.

“Hello, Mr. Reynard,” remarked Nils, as he slid over toward the
dead animal. “You overslept yourself this morning. You have stolen
my game so long, now, that it was time I should get even with you.
And yet, if the wind had been the other way, you would have caught
the scent of me sooner than I should have caught yours. Now, sir,
we are quits.”

“What a great, big, sleek fellow!” ejaculated Ola, stroking
the fox’s fur and opening his mouth to examine his sharp,
needle-pointed teeth.

“Yes,” replied Nils; “I have saved the rascal the trouble of
hunting until he has grown fat and secure, and fond of his ease. I
had a long score to settle with that old miscreant, who has been
robbing my snares ever since last season. His skin is worth about
three dollars.”

When the task of setting the snares in order had been completed,
father and son glided lightly away under the huge, snow-laden trees
to visit their traps, which were set further up the mountain.
The sun was just peeping above the mountain-ridge, and the trees
and the great snow-fields flashed and shone, as if oversown with
numberless diamonds. Round about were the tracks of birds and
beasts; the record of their little lives was traced there in the
soft, downy snow, and could be read by everyone who had the eyes
to read. Here were the tracks telling of the quiet pottering of
the leman and the field-mouse, going in search of their stored
provisions for breakfast, but rising to take a peep at the sun on
the way. You could trace their long, translucent tunnels under the
snow-crust, crossing each other in labyrinthine entanglements. Here
Mr. Reynard’s graceful tail had lightly brushed over the snow, as
he leaped to catch young Mrs. Partridge, who had just come out to
scratch up her breakfast of frozen huckleberries, and here Mr.
and Mrs. Squirrel (a very estimable couple) had partaken of their
frugal repast of pine-cone seeds, the remains of which were still
scattered on the snow. But far prettier were the imprints of their
tiny feet, showing how they sat on their haunches, chattering
amicably about the high cost of living, and of that grasping
monopolist, Mr. Reynard, who had it all his own way in the woods,
and had no more regard for life than a railroad president. This and
much more, which I have not the time to tell you, did Ola and his
father observe on their skee-excursion through the woods. And when,
late in the afternoon, they turned their faces homeward, they had,
besides the ptarmigan and the fox, a big capercailzie (or grouse)
cock, and two hares. The twilight was already falling, for in the
Norway winter it grows dark early in the afternoon.

“Now, let us see, lad,” said Ola’s father, regarding his son with
a strange, dubious glance, “if you have got Norse blood in your
veins. We don’t want to go home the way we came, or we should
scarcely reach the house before midnight. But if you dare risk your
neck with your father, we will take the western track down the
bare mountain-side. It takes brisk and stout legs to stand in that
track, my lad, and I won’t urge you, if you are afraid.”

“I guess I can go where you can, father,” retorted the boy,
proudly. “Anyway, my neck isn’t half so valuable as yours.”

“Spoken like a man!” said the father, in a voice of deep
satisfaction. “Now for it, lad! Make yourself ready. Strap the
hunting-bag close under your girdle, or you will lose it. Test your
staff to make sure that it will hold, for if it breaks you are
gone. Be sure you don’t take my track. You are a fine chap and a
brave one.”

Ola followed his father’s directions closely, and stood with loudly
palpitating heart ready for the start. Before him lay the long,
smooth slope of the mountain, showing only here and there soft
undulations of surface, where a log or a fence lay deeply buried
under the snow. On both sides the black pine-forest stood, tall and
grave. If he should miss his footing, or his _skees_ be crossed or
run apart, very likely he might just as well order his epitaph. If
it had not been his father who had challenged him, he would have
much preferred to take the circuitous route down into the valley.
But now he was in for it, and there was no time for retreating.

“Ready!” shouted Nils, advancing toward the edge of the slope:
“One, two, three!”

[Illustration: NORWEGIAN SKEE-RUNNERS.]

And like an arrow he shot down over the steep track, guiding
his course steadily with his staff; but it was scarcely five
seconds before he was lost to sight, looking more like a whirling
snow-drift than a man. With strained eyes and bated breath, Ola
stood looking after him. Then, nerving himself for the feat, he
glanced at his _skees_ to see that they were parallel, and glided
out over the terrible declivity. His first feeling was that he had
slid right out into the air--that he was rushing with seven-league
boots over forests and mountain-tops. For all that, he did not lose
hold of his staff, which he pressed with all his might into the
snow behind him, thus slightly retarding his furious speed. Now
the pine-trees seemed to be running past him in a mad race up the
mountain-side, and the snowy slope seemed to be rising to meet him,
or moving in billowy lines under his feet. Gradually he gathered
confidence in himself, a sort of fierce courage awoke within him,
and a wild exultation surged through his veins and swept him on.
The wind whistled about him and stung his face like whip-lashes.
Now he darted away over a snowed-up fence or wood-pile, shooting
out into the air, but always coming down firmly on his feet,
and keeping his mind on his _skees_, so as to prevent them from
diverging or crossing. He had a feeling of grandeur and triumphant
achievement which he had never experienced before. The world lay
at his feet, and he seemed to be striding over it in a march of
conquest. It was glorious! But all such sensations are unhappily
brief. Ola soon knew by his slackening speed that he had reached
the level ground; yet so great was the impetus he had received
that he flew up the opposite slope toward his father’s farm, and
only stopped some fifty feet below the barn. He then rubbed his
face and pinched his nose, just to see whether it was frozen. The
muscles in his limbs ached, and the arm which had held the staff
was so stiff and cramped that the slightest movement gave him pain.
Nevertheless, he could not make up his mind to rest; he saw the
light put in the north window to guide him, and he caught a glimpse
of a pale, anxious face behind the window-pane, and knew that it
was his mother who was waiting for him. And yet those last fifty
feet seemed miles to his tired and aching legs. When he reached the
front door, his dog Yutul jumped up on him in his joy and knocked
him flat down in the snow; and oh, what an effort it took to rise!
But no sooner had he regained his feet, than he felt a pair of arms
flung about his neck and he sank, half laughing, half crying, into
his mother’s embrace.

“Cheer up, laddie,” he heard someone saying. “Ye are a fine chap
and a brave one!”

He knew his father’s voice; but he did not look up; he was yet
child enough to feel happiest in his mother’s arms.

One of the most popular winter sports in Norway is skee-racing. A
steep hill is selected by the committee which is to have charge
of the race, and all the best skee-runners in the district enter
their names, eager to engage in the contest. The track is cleared
of all accidental obstructions, but if there happens to be a stone
or wooden fence crossing it, the snow is dug away on the lower
side of it and piled up above it. The object is to obtain what
is called a “jump.” The skee-runner, of course, coming at full
speed down the slope will slide out over this “jump,” shooting
right out into the air and coming down either on his feet or any
other convenient portion of his anatomy, as the case may be. To
keep one’s footing, and particularly to prevent the _skees_ from
becoming crossed while in the air, are the most difficult feats
connected with skee-racing; and it is no unusual thing to see even
an excellent skee-runner plunging headlong into the snow, while
his _skees_ pursue an independent race down the track and tell the
spectators of his failure. Properly speaking, a skee-race is not
a race--not a test of speed, but a test of skill; for two runners
rarely start simultaneously, as, in case one of them should fall,
the other could not possibly stop, and might not even have the
time to change his course. He would thus be in danger of running
into his competitor, and could hardly avoid maiming him seriously.
If there were several parallel tracks, at a distance of twenty to
thirty feet from each other, there would, of course, be less risk
in having the runners start together. Usually, a number fall in
the first run, and those who have not fallen then continue the
contest until one gains the palm. If, as occasionally happens, the
competition is narrowed down to two, who are about evenly matched,
a proposal to run without staves is apt to result in a decisive
victory for one or the other.

It can hardly be conceived how exciting these contests are, not
only to the skee-runners themselves, but also to the spectators,
male and female, who gather in groups along the track and cheer
their friends as they pass, waving their handkerchiefs, and
greeting with derisive cries the mishaps which are inseparable
from the sport. Prizes are offered, such as rifles, watches, fine
shooting equipments, etc., and in almost every valley in the
interior of Norway there are skee-runners who, in consequence of
this constant competition, have attained a skill which would seem
almost incredible. As there are but two things essential to a
skee-race, viz.: a hill and snow, I can see no reason why the sport
should not in time become as popular in the United States as it
is in Norway. We have snow enough, certainly, in the New England
and Western States; neither are hills rare phenomena. If I should
succeed in interesting any large number of boys in these States in
skee-running, I should feel that I had conferred a benefit upon
them, and added much to their enjoyment of winter. But before
taking leave of them, let me give them two pieces of parting
advice: 1. Be sure your staff is strong, and do not be hasty in
throwing it away. 2. Never slide down a hill on a highway, or any
hard, icy surface. It is only in the open fields and woods and in
dry snow that _skees_ are useful.

THE SKERRY OF SHRIEKS.

People live even within the Polar Circle, although grown-up folks
are apt to think it a poor sort of life. But to boys the “land of
the midnight sun” is a veritable paradise. Every season of the year
has its own kind of sport; and as schoolmasters are rare birds so
far north, the boys are to a great extent left to follow their
own devices until they are old enough to be sent away to school
in the cities. From morning till night the air is filled with a
screaming host of birds, which whirl in through the fiords like an
approaching snow-storm. The eider-ducks lie gently bobbing upon
the water, the black surf-scoters dive in the surf and make short
work of the young whiting, and the puffins sit in long soldier-like
rows on the rocks, and plunge headlong into the sea at the first
signal of danger. In this glorious region the fish and fowl from
all quarters of the globe seem to have appointed an annual meeting
about New Year’s; and the Norwegian peasants, who are dependent
upon the inhabitants of the sea and the air for their living, are
on the lookout for them, and hasten to the coast to give them a
fitting reception.

Harry Winchester’s motive, however, for visiting the Arctic
wonderland was quite a different one. He had made the acquaintance
of the Birk boys during the previous summer, and he had struck up
a warm friendship with one of them, named Magnus. His parents,
who lived in New York, had permitted him to accept the invitation
of Mr. Birk to spend the winter with his sons, and Harry was so
completely fascinated with the sports and adventures which every
day offered in abundance that he would have liked to prolong his
stay indefinitely.

Hasselrud, the estate of the Birks, was a fine, old-fashioned
mansion, which peeped out from the dense foliage of chestnut and
maple trees. Mr. Birk conducted a large business in fish and
lumber, and manned every year several boats and sent them to the
Lofoten fisheries. His three sons, Olaf, Magnus, and Edwin, were
brisk and courageous lads, who had been accustomed to danger from
their earliest years, and could handle a gun and manage a sail
as well as any man in that region. Olaf was nineteen years old,
and wore the uniform of a midshipman in the navy, and by courtesy
was styled lieutenant; Magnus, who was sixteen, was a fair-faced,
curly-headed lad, with frank blue eyes, a straight, handsome nose,
and a singular talent for getting into mischief. Edwin was but
twelve years old; but, as he does not figure conspicuously in this
narrative, there is no need of describing him. But altogether the
most important person at Hasselrud, next to Mr. Birk, was Grim
Hering-Luck, a hoary, bow-legged fisherman, who was Mr. Birk’s
right-hand man and captain of his boat-guild. Grim had a stern,
deep-wrinkled face, framed in a wreath of grayish whiskers. He
had small, piercing eyes, and bushy, gray-sprinkled hair. On his
head he wore a sou’wester. The seat and knees of his trousers and
the elbows of his coat were adorned with great shiny patches of
leather. The leathern girdle about his waist did not quite fulfil
its duties as suspenders, but allowed the trousers to slip down
on his hips, leaving some four inches of shirt visible under the
border of the waistcoat. Grim was a gruff old customer, but it
was commonly believed that his bark was worse than his bite. He
liked the bright American boy better than he cared to confess,
and therefore neglected no opportunity for quarrelling with him.
In fact, everybody admired Harry’s enterprising spirit and was
entertained by his lively talk. Olaf was fairly dazzled by his
knowledge and experience of the world, and little Edwin copied his
walk and his picturesque recklessness to the extent of his small
ability; but among all the family there was no one who was more
ardently attached to Harry than Magnus. The two were inseparable;
from morning till night they roamed about together, setting traps
for hares and ptarmigan, spearing trout in the shallows of the
river, trawling for mackerel in the salt water, and sometimes
tacking in and out of the fiord in a furious gale. At such times,
however, they were sure to have Grim in the boat, and Grim was a
capital man to have in a boat in case of an emergency. Thus they
spent the beautiful autumn months until the November storms began
to blow, the snow began to fall, and the air, when they looked out
the fiord, was thick and the sky threatening. The great trees bent
in agony and howled in the blast with voices of despair. Then Grim
would begin to investigate and to mend the nets which hung in long
festoons along the walls of the boat-houses, and, with his friendly
grunt, he would say in reply to Magnus’ queries:

“Wal, Mester Yallertop, the Lord he looks out fer them as they look
out fer themselves. He puts the cod in the sea, but I never heared
of his puttin’ it in yer mouth fer ye. He made the land poor up
here, but he made the sea rich, jest fer to make the average right
in the end. He lets ye starve like a toothless rat if ye have a
taste fer starvin’. But thar ain’t no call for anybody to starve
here north, ef he can bait a hook and ain’t afeared of bein’ late
to his funeral.”

“Being late to your own funeral, Grim!” Magnus would exclaim, in
amazement; “how can a man be late to his funeral?”

“Wal, now, Mester Yallertop, that I’ll tell ye. Fur that ain’t no
uncommon case here north. Suppose ye go out in the mornin’ with
the fishin’ fleet, and it blows up right lively, and ye don’t
never come back again. Then after a week or so the parson reads
the sarvice over yer name and prays fer ye, and the next mornin’,
likely as not, yer legs drift ashore, quite independent-like, jest
because the cod found yer tarred top-boots indergestible.”

“And do such things ever happen, Grim?” the boy would ask,
shuddering at the ghastly picture which his friend’s words
suggested.

“Do they ever happen? Wal, I reckon they do. I might jest mention
to ye that I ain’t in the habit of tellin’ no lies. My father--God
ha’e mercy on his soul--he sent only his legs fur to represent
him at his funeral; and my grandfather--wal, the cod turned the
tables on him; he had meant to eat them, but--it ain’t no use bein’
squeamish about it--they ate him. It war in the great storm of the
11th of February, 1848, when five hundred fisherman cheated the
parson out of his funeral fees.”

“How terrible, Grim! How can you go to the fisheries every winter,
when both your father and your grandfather lost their lives there?”

“Wal, now ye are puzzlin’ me, Mester Magnus,” Grim replied,
taking his clay pipe from the corner of his mouth, and looking up
seriously from his labor; “but I’ll tell ye a yarn I heared when I
was young. I reckon it is true, because I have never heared nobody
say it warn’t. Some city chap axed a fisherman purty much what ye
have axed me, and the fisherman says, says he: ‘Whar did yer father
die?’ ‘Why, he expired peacefully in his bed,’ said the city chap.
‘And yer grandfather?’ axed the fisherman. ‘Wal, he had jest the
same luck,’ says the city chap. ‘And yer great-grandfather?’ ‘He,
too, turned up his toes in the same style.’ ‘Wal, now,’ says the
fisherman, ‘if I were you I wouldn’t never go to bed again, sence
all yer forbears come to their death in it.’ Now, I reckon that is
the way with all of us. Ef the Lord wants us he will know whar to
find us, wharsoever we be.”

When the Christmas holidays, with all their old-fashioned
hospitality and sports, were over the question was seriously
debated whether the boys should be permitted to accompany Grim and
the housemen (tenants) to the Lofoten fisheries. It was decided
that three boats should be manned, and Grim was as usual elected
captain of the whole guild. The “tokens” had been uncommonly good
this year, and a profitable fishery was expected. Mr. Birk, who
well knew the dangers connected with this enterprise, was very
unwilling to let the boys start out in the open boats, and suffer
the discomforts which were inseparable from the life on these
barren islands, where thousands of people were huddled together
in booths and shanties, and quarrels and fights were the order
of the day. Harry, however, argued that such an experience would
scarcely offer itself to him a second time in his life, and that
it was easy to avoid danger while still observing all that was
interesting and instructive in the lives of the people. Olaf and
Magnus, too, added their powers of persuasion to those of Harry,
and in the end Mr. Birk (after enjoining a hundred precautions)
had to yield, stipulating only that Edwin should remain at home.
Grim promised to keep a careful look-out over the movements of the
boys, but he refused to be responsible for their safety, because,
as he remarked, “they were too lively a lot to be controlled by a
stiff-legged old crab like himself.”

It was a gray morning in January that the long eight oared boats
were made ready, the chests containing provisions and clothes were
placed in the stern, and the sails with a rattling noise flew up
and bulged before the wind. The sky had a peculiar whitish-gray
color, which has always an ominous look and promises squalls. Yet
it was a glorious sensation to feel the boats shooting away over
the crests of the waves, dashing the spray like smoke about them
and yielding like living things to the slightest prompting of the
rudder. Grim himself sat in the stern of the first boat, which the
boys had named “The Cormorant,” holding the tiller in his left hand
and the sheet in his right. Magnus had found a rather elevated seat
in the prow, from whence he could observe the captain’s manœuvres
and take lessons in seamanship. Harry and Olaf sat on the middle
bench, watching the horizon and seeing the squalls dash down from
the mountains and sweep their trails of smoke across the fiord.

“It must be dangerous sailing here, Grim,” Harry observed, uneasily.

“It ain’t no joke--fer goslings,” answered Grim.

“I should think, on the whole, it would be more comfortable for
goslings than for men,” retorted Harry, carelessly. “They wouldn’t
mind a ducking half as much as I should.”

“If ye are afeard just say so, and I’ll put ye ashore,” said Grim,
sternly.

“Afraid!” said Harry, indignantly; “not much, old man; guess I can
give you odds any day if you want to try my courage.”

“I want to try ef ye can hold your tongue,” was the captain’s
ungracious reply. “I ain’t much for gassin’ on the water.”

Harry, thinking that perhaps the situation was graver than he
supposed, failed to resent the snub, and fell again to watching
the horizon. They shot away at a tearing speed over the waves, and
sometimes “The Cormorant” careened heavily to leeward and shipped
a sea, but Grim still made no motion to reef the sail. The other
Hasselrud boats, which had kept bravely in the wake of their
leader, were now falling behind, and the blinding spray often hid
them completely from sight. The fiord was growing wider, and the
long “ground swell” showed that they were nearing the ocean. The
stormy petrel was seen skimming lightly, half flying, half running,
over the tops of the billows, and her shrill scream pierced like
a sharp instrument through the deep bass of the wind. The boats
round about them multiplied, and a whole fleet of reddish-brown
sails was seen steering toward the Lofoten Islands. The day passed
without any incident, and when about three o’clock in the afternoon
the darkness came rolling in like a gray curtain from the west,
Grim put into port and the boys devoured between them a five-pound
cod, whereupon they all crawled into the same bunk in a fisherman’s
lodging-house and slept the sleep of the just.

The next morning they were aroused before daybreak, and after
a frugal repast of coffee and sandwiches were hurried into the
boat. The wide ocean now stretched out before them, rolling with
a mighty thundering rhythm against the rock-bound coast. A light
mist was hovering over the water, but the wind was fair, and
hundreds of boats were already scudding northward toward the rich
fishing-banks. As soon as the fog rose and was scattered, the
invisible sun sent a faint semblance of light up among the low
clouds, and immediately thousands of gulls and auks and cormorants
were on the wing, and whirled with a wild confusion of screams in
the wake of the fishing-fleet. When toward noon the wind slackened
a little, Magnus swung out a trawling-line and had almost in the
same moment a bite which sent the line whizzing over the gunwale.

“Gracious! I am afraid I have caught a whale,” he shouted, standing
up in the boat, and holding on to the line with all his might; but
being unable to keep his footing, he flung himself prone across the
row-bench and would inevitably have been pulled overboard if Harry
and Olaf had not caught hold of him by the legs and told him to let
the line go.

“You remind me of the Englishman at the siege of Quebec who had
caught three Frenchmen,” said Harry. “I should say it was the
whale who had caught you, in the present case, if a whale it is.
Now _I_ am going to try my luck,” he added, seizing the wooden
frame to which the line was attached just as it was about to fly
overboard. He braced himself against the mast and flung his body
backward, but the line cut into his hands so terribly that he had
to cry for help. Then Olaf was promptly at his side, and by their
united efforts they succeeded in hauling in a couple of fathoms;
but it was not until one of the boatmen added his strength to
theirs that they made any sensible headway. Great was their delight
when, at the end of five minutes, they caught sight of an enormous
halibut, weighing some forty or fifty pounds, but, as well might be
imagined, it was no easy job to get such a monster into the boat
without upsetting it. The only way was evidently to tire him out
until he lost all power of resistance, and as he had swallowed the
metal bait with tremendous vim there was no danger of his escaping.

It was well on toward evening when they put into harbor on the
northern coast of Lofoten, where they were to remain while the
fisheries lasted. An endless double row of boats stretched
along the shore, and behind these the so-called “Hjælder,” or
drying-houses, rose in gaunt perspective against the dark sky.
Thousands of boats were drawn up along the whole beach, and the
smell of fish pervaded the air and seemed even to be borne in on
the ocean breeze. Grim, followed by all the men from the three
boats, marched up to the Hasselrud booth, which he unlocked,
and ordered the temporary cook to make a fire on the hearth and
to prepare supper. It was a large empty room, one wall of which
was occupied by the hearth and two by rows of bunks, one above
the other, resembling the berths in the steerage of an immigrant
steamer. It looked cheerless, and the boys, whose expectations
had pictured to them something quite different, shivered at the
sight of the bare and sooty walls. Nevertheless when the fire had
been lighted, and a couple of burning pine knots stuck into the
wall, they took heart again and determined to make the best of the
situation.

The next morning at daybreak they jumped into their clothes,
pulling complete oil-cloth suits on the outside of their ordinary
garments. Then fastening their yellow sou’westers under their
chins, they surveyed each other with undisguised looks of
admiration and began to feel like real fishermen. The breakfast was
swallowed in haste, and they scarcely noticed how the hot coffee
scalded their mouths, so eager were they to be off. Nevertheless,
as they had no nets to draw as yet, they delayed their departure
for several hours. It was a raw, cold morning, but the signals
at the government station indicated fair but blustery weather.
The whole fleet had already started, and the Hasselrud boats were
among the last to set sail for the fishing-banks. It was glorious
to see the wide ocean studded, as far as the eye could reach, with
swelling sails, and the air filled for miles with a screaming host
of great, white-winged sea-birds. Round about the whales were
spouting, shooting columns of water into the gray light of the
morning: and the auks were rocking upon the waves, and vanishing,
quick as a flash, as soon as a boat approached them. The fresh
sea-breeze blew into the faces of the three boys, and they felt
like Norse Vikings of the olden time starting out in search of
fame and adventures. It was about twelve o’clock when they arrived
at the fishing-banks; the sails were lowered and the nets sunk by
means of lead sinkers and stones attached to their lower edge.
Wooden floats, similarly attached to their upper edge, held them
in position in the water. Grim sat, grave and imperturbable, in
the stern, issuing his commands in a voice which rose high above
the rushing of the water and the whizzing of the wind, and every
man obeyed with a promptness as if his life depended upon it. The
sea was so packed with cod that the nets often stopped, gliding
slowly over the backs of the fishes, and being again arrested by
the myriads of finny creatures below. Often the same net had to be
taken up and disentangled several times before it made its way to
the bottom. The water was thick with spawn, which clung in long
gelatinous ropes to the blades of the oars, and doubled their
weight to the rowers. The boys, leaning out over the gunwale, could
see the huge male cods winding themselves onward through the dense
throngs of females which stood still with their noses against the
current, moving their fins, and shedding their spawn. It seemed a
positive mercy to haul up a million or so of them, just to make
room for the rest.

“I understand now,” exclaimed Harry, “how the Canadians managed
to cheat us out of so much money--six millions, more or less, I
think--because we had encroached upon their fishing-grounds. I
would myself pay a good round sum for sport like this; and the joke
of it is that you are making money at it and have all the fun in
the bargain.”

“And have ye fisheries in America too, lad?” Grim asked, with
visible interest, as he let the last float slip from his hand.

“Have we got fisheries in America? Well, I should say we had, old
man,” said Harry, fired with patriotic ardor. “You just tell me
what we haven’t got in America. If you’ll come over and see I shall
be happy to entertain you.”

“Ye are safe in invitin’ me, lad,” Grim retorted, biting a quid
from his roll of tobacco. “A purty figger an old sea-dog like me
would make in your ma’s carpeted parlor.”

Harry in his heart admitted the force of this remark, and he
laughed to himself at the thought of Grim’s ungainly form seated in
one of his mother’s spindle-legged blue satin chairs; but, for all
that, he liked Grim too much to wish to offend him, and therefore
stuck bravely to his invitation, insisting that it was sincerely
meant. As they were amicably squabbling, the sun suddenly burst
forth, and flung its dazzling radiance upon the ocean. The noise of
the sea-birds grew louder, making the vast vault of the sky alive
with countless varieties of screams. The fishes leaped, the whales
spouted lustily, the stormy petrel danced over the crests of the
billows; thousands of boats lay bobbing up and down on the waves,
while the lines were being baited; a thousand voices shouted to
each other from boat to boat; oars and rudders rattled, and the
wind sang in the mast-tops. It was a scene which once seen could
never be forgotten.

II.

Long before the Hasselrud men had their lines set the whole fleet
had rowed back toward land. But Grim’s boat-guild, which had just
arrived, and had as yet no nets to draw, lingered for a while
eating their dinner, which they had brought with them in the boats.
They chatted and told stories about Draugen, the sea-bogey, who
rows in a half boat, and whose scream sounds terribly through
the tempest. Any man who sees him knows that he will never see
land again. Draugen is only out in the worst weather; he has a
sou’wester on his head, his face is white and ghastly as death
itself, and his empty eye-sockets have no eyes in them. The boys
shuddered at the horrible picture which was conjured up before
them, and it was a relief to them when the time came for pulling up
the lines, and the great codfishes were hauled sprawling into the
boat; each one had plenty to do now in cutting out the hooks and
in winding the lines upon their frames. A smart gale had sprung up
while they were thus engaged, and Grim began to look wistfully at
the lurid sunset.

“The sun draws water,” he said; “that means lively weather. Hoist
the sails, lads, and let us turn our noses shoreward.”

He had hardly uttered his command when a thick curtain seemed to be
drawn across the face of the sun, and the sea became black as ink.

“Clew up the sail!” he shouted, in a voice of thunder; “we are in
for it.”

With a roar as of a chorus of cataracts the storm advanced, lashing
the water into smoke which whirled heavenward, making the sky dense
as night. The masts creaked, the boats tore away with a frantic
speed, and the waves rose mountain-high, with steep, black gulfs
between them.

“Cap’n,” one of the men ventured to remonstrate, “are we not
carryin’ too much sail?”

Grim deigned him no reply, but, with a sharp turn of the tiller,
ran The Cormorant closer to the wind. Forward bounded the boat,
cleaving the coming wave with a blow of her bows which made her
timbers groan. The spray was dashed fathoms high, and would
have drenched every man on board if his oil-skins had not been
water-tight. Of the other boats only two were visible, and it was
splendid to see how they rose out of one sea, until half the length
of their keels were visible, then buried their noses in the next,
while great sheets of foam splashed on either side, and were torn
into shreds by the gale.

“This is rather lively work, I should say,” remarked the
midshipman. “I think I should prefer a man-of-war to The Cormorant
in this sort of weather.”

“I confess to a weakness for Cunarders,” said Harry; “yet I dare
say I shall enjoy this affair well enough when we get safely
ashore.”

“You mean _if_ we get safely ashore,” said Magnus, quietly. “This
has rather an ugly look to me. Though I dare say Grim knows what he
is about.”

He had scarcely spoken when a harsh voice bellowed, “Lay hold of
the mast, lads!” and in the same moment they seemed to be flung to
a dizzying height; a huge wave towered in front, showing a white
whirling top which seemed on the point of breaking right over them.
They had just time to clasp the mast when the boat, lying flat on
her side, pressed down by her weight of canvas, plunged her nose
into this mountain of water, but by some astonishing manœuvre
righted herself, slid down within another black hollow, and again
rose high on the crest of another wave.

“All hands bail!” roared the captain.

The command came not a moment too soon; the water was rushing in
from the leeward, and the flying wreaths of foam struck the boy’s
faces with a terrible force and made them smart furiously.

“Grim! Grim!” shouted Olaf, making himself heard with a difficulty
above the storm, “you are carrying too much sail.”

“Hold your tongue, gosling,” Grim thundered back; “we have got
nothin’ but the sail fer to save us.”

“What point are you making for?”

“The Bird Islands.”

“I thought there was no harbor there.”

“Reckon ye be right.”

“Gracious heavens!” cried Olaf, turning a terrified countenance
toward his comrades; “he means to wreck the boat; but he knows what
he is about. There is no other chance.”

He sat for a moment silent, gazing up into the cloud rack which
scudded along at a furious rate before the wind. Strips of
storm-riven sky, with momentary vistas of blue, were now and then
visible, but vanished again, making the dusk more dismal by their
memory.

“Breakers ahead!” shouted Olaf, “look out!”

“I see a black ridge against the sky,” cried Harry; “now it is gone
again!”

He was going to say more, but the wind came with a howling screech
and forced his breath down his throat. He gasped, and as the boat
gave a tremendous lurch, diving down into a black hollow, he could
only cling to the base of the mast, lest the next tumble might toss
him overboard. The sound of a steady rhythmic roar rose and fell
upon the air, and made them strain their eyes in the direction from
which it was coming.

“Why, Grim, you are steering away from the island,” Magnus
screamed, pointing to the black ridge which was, once more, for a
moment revealed.

“He means to land us on the leeward side,” Olaf bawled in his
brother’s ear; “the chances are that the water is there a bit
smoother.”

To reach the leeward side was, however, a task which required
no mean order of seamanship. The distance was too short for
tacking, and moreover the water was filled with blind rocks and
skerries which made the approach tenfold dangerous. It seemed to
the unskilled eyes of the boys that for nearly half an hour The
Cormorant was tumbling aimlessly upon the waves, shipping seas
which it was a wonder did not swamp her, and righting herself,
as by a miracle, when again and again she seemed on the point of
capsizing. And yet all these wonderful feats were only the result
of the coolest calculation and the most consummate skill.

Just as they were clearing the hidden skerries at the western point
of the island the wind veered a point to the north, but did not
fall off perceptibly. The spray rose from the shore like a dense
and blinding smoke, and in the depths of every black abyss which
opened before them death’s jaws seemed to be yawning. Harry closed
his eyes; and though he was no coward, his heart failed him.

“What is the use of fighting any longer?” he said to Magnus, who
was lying at his side, clinging like him to the mast; “we are going
to the bottom, any way. The archangel Gabriel himself couldn’t land
us on this shore, with all the heavenly hosts to assist him.”

“But Grim is a better sailor than Gabriel,” Magnus replied, quite
unconscious of his joke. “He knows every inch of the bottom here
from the time he was a boy and used to row out here and gather
eider-down. He has told me about it often. If I were you I wouldn’t
give up yet.”

“All right, old fellow,” Harry answered, taking heart once more. “I
am ready for anything. But I am an unlucky chap--a sort of a Jonah,
who has a talent for getting into scrapes. I shouldn’t wonder if,
in case you threw me overboard, the storm would fall off and you
might sail home in comfortable fashion.”

“We mean to go overboard, all of us, in a few minutes,” Magnus
retorted, hugging Harry tightly with his left arm, which he had
freed for that purpose. “Now I am going to propose something to
you. Let us tie ourselves together with a rope so that each may
help the other; and we may either live or perish together.”

“I am afraid you would be the loser by that arrangement,” his
friend exclaimed. “You are a good deal stronger than I am, and you
will need every bit of your strength if you are to plow your way
through those awful breakers.”

Magnus, instead of answering, slipped the end of a rope about
Harry’s waist and secured it tightly; the other end he tied about
his own waist, although he came near losing his balance, and going
headlong over the gunwale. The Cormorant had now slipped around
to the leeward side of the island, where, under the shelter of
the steep rock, the water was a trifle less tumultuous. And yet a
gigantic surf was running and the undertow on the steeply sloping
bottom seemed strong enough to take an elephant off his feet. The
wind yelled and screeched from the top of the towering rock, and
rushed down in thundering eddies on the leeward side. If it had
not been for a momentary clearing of the sky, which showed the
position of the breakers and the outline of the shore, it would
have been madness to risk landing; and even as it was, the chance
of being dashed to pieces against the rocks seemed altogether to
preponderate. But Grim apparently took a different view of the
situation; as long as the sail was whole and the boat true to her
rudder he saw no cause for despair.

“Now, lads,” he roared, hoarsely, “steady on yer shanks. No
chicken-hearted chap among ye! Uncoil the rope! Thar’s a bit of
sandy beach thar--sixty or a hundred feet wide. If we be in luck
we’ll be thar in a minute.”

The ridge of the island was now half visible against the dark
horizon, but the beach below was wrapped in a dense smoke, through
which came glimpses of the black jagged rock.

“Almighty Lord! thar’s a skerry ahead,” screamed one of the
boatmen, as the retreating surf broke with a wild uproar over the
hidden rock and rose like a mighty water-spout against the sky.
There was a moment of breathless suspense. Each man seemed to hear
the beating of the other’s heart. As the boat was flung upward
again on the next wave, the wind gave a frantic shriek; the mast
bent forward under the terrible strain. The incoming surf buried
the skerry under a mountain of towering water, and high upon its
crest The Cormorant rode triumphant, only to be hurled from its
crest, fairly shooting through the air, upon the beach.

“Jump overboard!” bellowed Grim, and seizing Magnus in his arms he
leaped from the stern just as the boat struck the sand and broke
into fragments. Every man followed his example; but the undertow
swept them off their feet. Still Grim stood like a rock, holding
with his gigantic strength the rope to the other end of which Harry
was attached. Once he tottered, and if he had had sand under his
feet he would have been dragged down by his double burden. But by
a lucky chance he had planted his heels upon a bowlder which rose
slightly out of the surf. When the wildest force of the wave had
been exhausted he sprang up on the beach, depositing Magnus and
the half-unconscious Harry beyond the reach of the waves. Back he
rushed again to his former station, just as one of the boatmen, who
had momentarily regained his footing, was scrambling up toward him.

“I am tied to the rope,” shouted the man; “someone is tugging at
it.”

“Hand it to me,” commanded Grim.

The man struggled to his feet and planted himself resolutely at his
captain’s side. All this was the work of a moment. With the next
incoming wave, which was happily much smaller than the preceding
one, four men were flung up on the sand; but they seemed half dead,
and made no effort to save themselves. Grim, who thought he saw a
glimmer of brass buttons in the water, dashed forward and seized
Olaf by the collar, just as he would have been sucked back by the
undertow. He bore him up on the shore, while the boatman came
dragging two of his unconscious comrades out of the roaring surf.
One was still missing; but as the next wave that broke in tumult at
their feet showed no trace of him, they knew that he was beyond the
reach of human help.

The work of resuscitating the men was a long and tedious one; but
Grim and Magnus both worked with their hearts in their throats, yet
with a resolution which scorned fatigue. Harry revived the moment
they had poured a glass of brandy down his throat, and he soon
recovered his spirits and volunteered his help. But the midshipman
was both badly battered and had swallowed a quantity of water; and
it was only after long and persistent efforts on Grim’s part that
his breath came back to him. Their next thought was of fire; for
the wind was raw and chill, and the last glimmer of daylight was
vanishing. The problem, however, was a serious one, for there was
not a tree growing on the island, except perhaps a few stunted
juniper shrubs up in the crevices of the rocks. And to get at these
in the dark was no easy undertaking. Nor was their situation in
other respects an enviable one. Above them loomed the black cliff,
and the surf was thundering at their feet. And there they were
sitting, huddled together in a heap to keep each other warm, and
yet shivering in their wet clothes, and thinking with horror of
the long hours of the night which must pass before they could be
rescued.

“Lads,” cried Magnus, suddenly extricating himself from Harry and
Olaf’s embrace, “I am the only one of you who is not wet to the
skin, and I am going to explore this island and see if we can’t
scare up some fuel. To sit here hugging each other in the dark is a
dismal sort of business, and I am not so affectionately disposed as
the rest of you.”

“A mighty peart chap ye be, lad,” Grim said, raising his tall
figure out of the group; “but ye had better let me crawl ahead, and
ye keep astern o’ me. I know summat o’ the island and ye don’t know
nothin’.”

“I’ll keep abreast of you, Grim,” Magnus replied, “but your stern
would obscure my view; so take your bearings and let’s be off.”

“Ye be a mighty lively customer,” Grim grumbled, admiringly, giving
the boy a caressing pat in the dark.

They had scarcely crawled fifty yards up the beach when their
fumbling hands touched something cold and clammy, which felt like
the nose of some aquatic animal. There came immediately a little
chorus of whining barks, which was followed by a great flapping, as
if something broad and wet struck against the stones.

“Thunder and lightning, Grim,” cried Magnus, “what sort of beasts
are these?”

“A herd of seals,” answered Grim, quietly; “it was funny I didn’t
think o’ them. Here we have got our fuel.”

In the same moment a cold nose was stuck right into Magnus’ face
and he tumbled backward, scarcely knowing how to return the
unexpected caress.

“Draw yer knives, lads,” shouted Grim to the men, “a herd of seals
is a comin’ right upon ye.”

The seals were now in full flight, rolling, tumbling, and pushing
themselves on over the smooth sand. They instinctively knew, even
in the dark, the way to the water, and they thus came plump down
upon the shipwrecked men, who had arisen in response to Grim’s call
and were ready to give them a warm reception. In the storm and the
fright of the sudden attack the keen scent of the animals scarcely
served them at all. They rushed right down upon their enemies, and
within a few minutes fully a dozen of them lay gasping and bleeding
upon the beach. The rest plunged into the surf, where their
plaintive bark was heard as they battled with the raging sea.

Grim and Magnus in the meanwhile pushed on, groping their way over
the slippery bowlders, and keeping close together so as to help
each other in case of accident. But the farther they climbed the
steeper grew the rock, and as far as they could ascertain by their
sense of touch there was no sign of vegetation.

“Now look sharp, lad,” cried Grim, warningly.

“Look sharp!” repeated Magnus, “how am I to look sharp when it is
as dark as pitch about me?”

“Right ye be, lad, right ye be,” the other retorted; “ye be a smart
chap and a peart one. But don’t ye lay hold o’ nothin’ here before
ye know it is rock. Thar be thousands o’ birds here on the lee’ard
side when thar be a storm from the north; and ef ye mistook a gull
or a cormorant fer somethin’ solid ye might tumble down and break
yer precious neck. Mark ye my word, chap, thar will be a mighty
lively hubbub here in a couple o’ minutes.”

Grim had hardly uttered this prophecy when Magnus felt something
feathery under his touch, and in the same instant there came a
piercing scream and a powerful wing dealt him a blow across the
bridge of his nose. Immediately there commenced a wild chorus of
screams and chattering protest, as if the more sober-minded birds
were deprecating this senseless uproar. Magnus thought, too, that
he heard his name called from below, but the deafening thunder
of the surf and the noise of the birds drowned all other sounds,
and he concluded that he had been deceived. It was a terrible
sensation, all these invisible wings flapping about him in the
dark; unseen bodies precipitated against him and tumbling blindly
about him with a murderous tumult from a thousand discordant
voices. He raised his elbows above his head to protect himself from
the blind assaults and the perpetual beating of wings. It hardly
occurred to him to assume the offensive until he heard Grim’s voice
shouting to him:

“Draw yer knife, lad, and make it lively fer them screamin’
rascals. Their down is worth money and they’ve got blubber as
thick as a seal’s. Give ’em no odds, I tell ye, my laddie.”

Magnus followed this advice promptly. He drew his knife, and fought
with a will, thrusting and striking right and left, and hearing
the great birds tumbling about him down the steep sides of the
rock. He had been thus occupied for a few minutes when suddenly,
to his unutterable amazement, a great blaze rose from the strand
below, lighting up the barren wall of the cliff, and showing him
how narrow the ledge was upon which he was sitting. It was a superb
spectacle, too, to see the whirling host of gulls, auks, and
cormorants eddying wildly about his head, the great black cliff
looming up above him, and the spray of the surf spouting, with
angry brawl, high up into the nocturnal air.

“Hurrah! lad,” yelled Grim, through the ear-splitting noise and
confusion, “I war a blasted fool not to think on it. They be
a-burnin’ the wreck.”

The descent was a much easier affair than the ascent; for the light
of the fire below blazed up every now and then and enabled them to
see where they were treading. They picked up between them several
dozen birds, of nearly half as many varieties, and flung them down
before the fire, where the company were now seated in comparative
comfort, warming their stiffened limbs. Two of the boatmen were
engaged in skinning the seals and cutting off the blubber, which,
after squeezing out the blood, they flung into the fire. Soon the
oil began to ooze out, and, flowing over the wood, burned with a
clear and strong flame.

“I am going to make myself comfortable, fellows,” said Harry, who
was looking very pale and chilly after his involuntary bath; “and
if you don’t mind it, I’ll make a scarf of this big duck. She fits
very nicely about my throat, though she won’t accommodate herself
to the bow-knot. This little one I am going to stuff down my bosom.
She feels so deliciously warm and downy! I tell you,” he went
on, with emphasis, suiting his actions to his words, “I mean to
patent this invention, when I get back home, as an infallible cure
for rheumatism, toothache, consumption, chillblains, corns, and
kidney disease. I am going to call it Winchester’s In-_w_incible
_W_ivifier. That will sound well and catch the public eye. I was
about ready to give up the ghost awhile ago, and now I feel quite
jolly.”

He stretched himself luxuriously on the windward side of the fire,
arranged half a dozen ducks and auks under his head as a pillow,
and closed his eyes. Magnus and Olaf soon followed his example,
each tying a big gull about his throat, and feeling a grateful
warmth creeping through their half-frozen bodies. The men had the
good luck to find a bunch of drift-wood large enough to keep the
fire going until morning, and to satisfy their hunger they roasted
a piece of seal-flesh, which, in spite of its oily flavor, tasted
better than they had expected. When Grim saw that the boys were
asleep he covered them carefully with his own oil-skin clothes,
while he himself kept marching up and down on the beach to keep his
blood in motion. After midnight the wind shifted suddenly to the
west and fell off gradually, the clouds were scattered, and the
moon sailed calmly through the dark-blue sky.

The three boys slept soundly after their terrible hardships, and
the eastern sky was already bright with the dawn when they opened
their eyes. The whole screaming colony of birds were again on the
wing, and whirled about the projecting crags of the cliff with wild
clamor. Several sails were already visible on the horizon and,
as soon as signals of distress were hoisted, steered toward the
island. Harry, who was ravenously hungry, made a courageous assault
upon the roasted seal-flesh, but after two futile attempts declared
that he was not sufficiently acclimated to relish such diet. If
necessity compelled him, he preferred to roast his boots, and to
use the seal-oil as gravy.

“What do you say you call this island?” he asked Grim, who was
trotting at his side up and down on the sand.

“The Bird Island,” answered Grim.

“I should rather call it the ‘Skerry of Shrieks,’” said Harry; “for
in all my living days I have never heard a finer assortment of
varied yells than I heard here last night. It must be a jolly place
in summer, when the nights are light and the weather comfortable.”

“It ain’t bad fer such as like it,” was Grim’s non-committal reply.

“And do you know,” Magnus put in eagerly, “during the early fall
the island is quite covered with eider-ducks’ nests, so that you
can hardly move your feet without stepping into them. All those
little round depressions up on the slope there are such nests; and
thousands of dollars have been made here in times past by gathering
the down with which the eider-duck lines her nest; and it is even
possible during the brooding season to catch the bird alive and
pull the down from her breast; though I think that would be cruel,
as she probably needs all she has left after having picked herself
for the benefit of her young.”

“The eider-duck must be very tame,” Harry observed.

“Yes, it is very tame, indeed, because people rarely molest it,”
said Magnus; “the peasants have a kind of superstitious respect for
it, and they won’t allow anyone to kill it. It is very much the
same kind of feeling as they have for the swallow. They think a
misfortune will befall him who robs or pulls down a swallow’s nest.”

Several boats were by this time within hailing distance, and they
were easily persuaded to run up and take the shipwrecked company
on board. They insisted, however, upon drawing their nets before
returning, and thus it happened that it was nearly noon before the
party set foot on shore. They now learned that a great many boats
besides their own had been wrecked during yesterday’s storm, and
that some fifty or sixty men had been drowned. Many dead bodies
were washed ashore during the day, and some were even drawn up in
the nets and sent home to their sorrowing widows. Sad, indeed, was
the sight of the little fleet of boats which sailed southward that
afternoon, each with a tarred pine box showing above its gunwales.
The three boys, although they would scarcely have admitted that
the disaster had discouraged them, concluded, after a short
consultation, that the experience they had already had of the
fisheries was an instructive one and would probably last them for
the remainder of their lives. They therefore, without much regret,
induced Grim to hoist the sails and pilot them safely home.

FIDDLE-JOHN’S FAMILY.

“Queer sort of chap that Fiddle-John is,” said the men, when
Fiddle-John went by.

“Quaint sort o’ cr’atur’ is Fiddle-John,” echoed the women; “not
much in the providin’ line.”

“A singular individual is that Violin-John,” said the parson;
“I can never make up my mind whether he is a worthless scamp or
a man of genius.” “Possibly both,” suggested the parson’s wife.
“Apartments to let,” remarked the daughter, tapping her forehead
significantly.

“Hurrah! There is Fiddle-John,” cried the children, flocking
delightedly about him, clinging to his arms, his legs, and his
coat-tails. “Sing us a song, Fiddle-John! Tell us a story!”

Then Fiddle-John would seat himself on a stone at the road-side,
while the children nestled about him; and he would tell them
stories about knights and ladies, and ogres, and princesses, and
all sorts of marvellous things.

“Worthless fellow, that Fiddle-John,” said the passers-by; “there
he sits in the middle of the day talking nonsense to the children,
when he ought to be working for the support of his family.”

It was perfectly true; Fiddle-John ought to have been working.
He would readily have admitted that himself. He was well aware
that his wife, Ingeborg, was at home, working like a trooper to
keep the family from starving. But then, somehow, Fiddle-John had
no taste for work, while Ingeborg had. He much preferred singing
songs and telling stories. And a very pretty picture he made, as
he sat there at the roadside, with his handsome, gentle face, his
large blue eyes, and his wavy blond hair, and the children nestling
about him, listening in wide-eyed wonder. There was something very
attractive about his face, with its mild, melancholy smile, and
a sort of diffident, questioning look in the eyes. He had an odd
habit of opening his mouth several times before he spoke, and then,
possibly, if his questioner’s face did not please him, he would
go away, having said nothing. And, after all, it was diffidence
and not insolence which prompted this action. It would never have
occurred to Fiddle-John to take a critical view of anybody; he
approved of all humanity in general, only he had an intuitive
suspicion when anyone was making fun of him, and in such cases he
found safety only in flight and silence.

By profession Fiddle-John was a ballad-singer; a queer profession,
you will say, but nevertheless one which in Norway enjoys a certain
recognition. He had a voice which the angels might have envied
him--a clear and sweet tenor which rang through the depths of the
listener’s soul. Hearing that voice, it was impossible not to stay
and listen. The deputy sheriff, who once came to arrest Fiddle-John
for vagrancy, when Fiddle-John began to sing, sat and cried. It
came over him so “sorter queer,” he said. The parson, who had made
up his mind to give Fiddle-John a thundering reproof for neglect of
his family, the first time he should catch him, quite forgot his
sinister purpose when, one day, he saw the ballad-singer seated
under a large tree, with a dozen children climbing over him, and,
with rollicking laughter, tumbling and rolling about him. And when
Fiddle-John, having quieted his audience, took two little girls on
his lap, while the boys scrambled and fought for the places nearest
to him, the parson could not for the life of him recall the harsh
things he had meant to say to Fiddle-John. The fact was--though, of
course, it is scarcely fair to tell--the ballad which Fiddle-John
sang to the children reminded the parson of the time (now long ago)
when he was paying court to Mrs. Parson, and sometimes, on slight
provocation, dropped into poetry.

“Thy cheeks are like the red, red rose,
Thy hands are like the lily.”

These were the very extraordinary sentiments which the parson had,
at that remote period, professed toward Mrs. Parson, and these were
the very words which Fiddle-John was now singing. No wonder the
parson forgot that he had come to scold Fiddle-John. “I suppose
that such good-for-nothings may be good for something, after all,”
he said to his wife as he related the incident at the dinner-table.

Fiddle-John and his family lived in a little cottage close up
under the mountain-side, where the sun did not reach until late in
the afternoon. In the winter they were sometimes snowed down so
completely that they had to work until noon before they could get
a glimpse of the sky. The two boys, Alf and Truls, would go early
in the morning with their snow-shovels and dig a tunnel to the
cow-stable, where a lonely cow, a pig, and three sheep were penned
up. Their father would then sit at the window, holding a lantern,
the light of which vaguely penetrated the darkness and showed
them in what direction they were digging; but, after awhile, this
monotonous occupation wearied him, and he would take his fiddle and
play the most mournful tunes he could think of. It never occurred
to him to lend a helping hand; and it never occurred to the boys to
ask him.

They accepted their fate without much reasoning; it seemed part of
the right order of things that they and their mother should work,
while their father played and sang. Ingeborg, their mother, had
nursed a kind of tender reverence for him in their hearts, since
they were babes. He seemed scarcely part of the coarse and common
work-a-day world to which they belonged; with his gentle, handsome
face, and his clear blue eyes, he seemed like some superior being
who conferred a favor upon them by merely consenting to grant them
his company. His songs travelled from one end of the valley to
the other, and everybody learned them by heart and sang them at
weddings, dances, and funerals. Even though the parishioners might
themselves find fault with Fiddle-John, and call him quaint and
queer, they stood up for him bravely if a stranger ventured to
attack him.

They knew there was not another such singer in the whole land,
and it was even said that people had come from foreign lands and
had made him enormous offers if he would go with them and sing
at concerts in the great foreign cities. Thousands of dollars he
might have earned if he had gone, but Fiddle-John knew better
than to abandon the valley of his birth, where he had been
known since his babyhood, and trust himself to the faithless
foreign world. Thousands of dollars! Only think of it! The very
thought made Fiddle-John dizzy; ten or twenty dollars would have
presented something definite to his imagination, which he would
have comprehended, but thousands of dollars was a blank enormity
which diffused itself like mist through his dazed brain. And yet
Fiddle-John could never stop thinking of the thousands of dollars
which he might have earned, if he had gone with the foreigner. If
the truth must be told, he himself would have liked well enough to
go; and it was only the persuasions of Ingeborg, his wife, which
had restrained him. “What could you do in the great foreign world,
John,” she had said to him; “you, with your want of book-learning
and your simple peasant ways? They would laugh at you, John, dear,
and that would make me cry, and we should both be miserable. And
all the little children here in the valley, what would they do
without you, and who would sing to them and tell them stories when
you were gone?”

The last argument was what decided Fiddle-John, He did not believe
that people would laugh at him in the great foreign world, but he
did believe that the children would miss him when he was gone,
and he could not bear to think of someone else sitting under the
great maple-tree at the roadside and telling them stories. For all
that, he regretted many a time that he had been soft-hearted, and
had allowed the gate of glory to be slammed in his face, as he
expressed it. He had never suspected it before; but now the thought
began to grow upon him, that he was a great man, who might have
gained honor and renown if his wife had not deprived him of the
opportunity.

Every day the valley seemed to be growing darker and narrower; the
sight of the mountains became oppressive; it was as if they weighed
upon Fiddle-John’s breast and impeded his breath. With feverish
restlessness he roamed about from farm to farm and played, until
every string on his fiddle seemed on the point of snapping.

“I am a great man,” he reflected indignantly, “and might have
earned thousands of dollars. And yet here I go and fiddle for
half-drunken boors at twenty-five cents a night.”

And to drown the voices that rose clamorously out of the depths of
his soul, he strummed the strings wildly; and the peasants whirled
madly around him, shouted, and kicked the rafters in the ceiling.
The gentleness and the mild radiance which had made the children
love him passed out of his countenance; his eyes grew restless, his
motions aimless and unsteady. Sometimes he flung back his head
defiantly and mumbled threats between his teeth; at other times he
shuffled along dejectedly, or lay under a tree, dreaming of the
great world which had forever been closed to him.

“If I had only dared!” he whispered to himself; “oh, if I had only
dared!”

At that moment someone stepped up to him and shook him by the
shoulder. “Hallo, old chap,” said the man, “you are just the fellow
I want! You are the party they call Fiddle-John?”

There was something brisk and aggressive about the stranger which
almost frightened Fiddle-John. It was easy to see that he came
from afar; for he had smartly-cut city-clothes, a tall shiny hat,
and a huge watch-chain from which half a dozen seals and trinkets
depended. Fiddle-John had never seen anything so magnificent; he
was completely dazzled. He sat half-raised upon his elbow and
stared at the stranger in mute wonder. “Well, Fiddle-John,” the
latter went on glibly; “you don’t seem very cordial to an old
friend. Or perhaps you don’t know me. Reckon I’ve changed some
since you used to tell me stories about the Ashiepattle and the
ogre who stowed his heart away for safe keeping inside of a duck
in a goose-pond, some thousands of miles off. I have often thought
of that story since. Fact is, that is just the kind of arrangement
I am after. I’ve too much heart, Fiddle-John, too much heart. My
heart is always getting me into trouble, and if I could make an
arrangement to leave it behind here in Norway, while I myself
return to America, I should like it first rate. You don’t happen
to know of any party who would be willing to keep it for me during
my absence, hey, Fiddle-John?”

The man here laughed uproariously and slapped Fiddle-John on the
shoulder.

“You are the same rum old customer you used to be, Fiddle-John,” he
said in a tone of cordial good-fellowship; “but you don’t seem as
talkative as you used to be--don’t even tell me you are glad to see
me. Now, that’s what I call hard, Fiddle-John. Don’t even know the
name of your little friend James Forrest--or--beg your pardon--Jens
Skoug, I mean to say, who used to climb on your back and listened
in rapture to your wonderful voice and your marvellous fairy tales.”

A gleam of intelligence flitted across Fiddle-John’s features, as
he heard the name Jens Skoug, and he arose with bashful hesitancy
and extended his hand to the talkative stranger. He remembered well
that Jens’ family had emigrated, some ten years ago, to the United
States, and he remembered also vividly the uncouth little creature
in skin-patched trousers and ragged jacket who had embarked, at
that time, in the great steamer that came to take the emigrants off
to Bergen. And now this little creature was a tall, dazzling man
with a silk hat and showy jewellery, and an address which a prince
might have envied. Thus reasoned Fiddle-John in his simplicity.
Such a marvellous transformation he had never in all his life
witnessed. The name James Forrest which Jens had dropped by a
deliberate accident also impressed him strangely. It seemed to add
greatly to Jens’ magnificence. A man who could afford to have such
a foreign-sounding name must indeed be a person of enterprise and
prominence. It surrounded Jens with a delightful foreign flavor
which captivated his friend even more than his brilliant talk.
“Jens,” he said, making an effort to conquer his diffidence, “you
have grown to be a great man, indeed. How could you expect me to
recognize you?”

“A great man!” exclaimed Jens, expanding agreeably under his
friend’s sincere flattery; “no, Fiddle-John, I am not a great
man--that is, not yet, Fiddle-John. But I mean to become a great
man before I die. In America, where I live, every man can become
great if he only chooses to. But I thought, being young yet,
that I could afford to spend a couple of months in opening to my
countrymen the same road to fortune which is open to myself, before
I settled down to tackle life in earnest. Fact is, Fiddle-John, as
I said before, I have too much heart. My conscience would leave me
no peace, whenever I thought of my poor countrymen who were toiling
here at home for twenty-five or forty cents a day, and scarcely
could keep body and soul together, while I could earn five and ten
dollars a day as readily as I could blow my nose. I positively
cried, Fiddle-John, cried like a girl, when I thought of you and
your small chaps and of all the other poor fellows here in the
valley who had such a hard time of it, tearing off their caps and
bowing and scraping before the parson and the judge and all the big
guns, while in America we step up to the President himself, wring
his hand and say, ‘How are you, old chap? I’ll drop in and take
pot-luck with you to-morrow, if you don’t happen to have company.’
And he, likely as not, will say to me, ‘Right welcome shall you be,
Jim; bring a couple of good fellows along with you. We don’t stand
on ceremony around the White House. Perhaps I may be able to hunt
up a consulship or a foreign mission for you, if you should happen
to be out of office and pressed for cash.’ Now, that’s what I call
good manners, Fiddle-John, and the chances are ten to one that, if
you call upon him with a note from me, he may set you up in a right
fat office, where you may cock your head at parsons and judges and
feel yourself as big as the very biggest.”

Fiddle-John listened with eager ears and open mouth to this
alluring narrative. It did not occur to him to question the truth
of what Jens said, for did not his appearance and his independent
and dazzling demeanor plainly show that he was a great and
prosperous man? And, moreover, how could he have undergone such a
startling transformation in a few years, if it had not been true,
as he said, that the President of the United States or some other
mighty personage took an interest in him. Fiddle-John had often
heard it said that in America all things were possible; and he
had himself read letters from persons who here at home had been
poor tenants or even day laborers, and who over there had become
colonels, and merchants, and legislators. Therefore, he was not
in the least surprised at the good luck which had overtaken his
former friend. He was only surprised that the thought of going to
America had never occurred to him before, and he made up his mind
on the spot to sell his cow, his pig, and his three sheep, and take
the first ship for New York. He could scarcely stop to bid Jens
Skoug good-by, so eager was he to rush home and communicate his
resolution to his wife and children. He foresaw that he would meet
with opposition from Ingeborg; but he steeled his heart against all
her entreaties and vowed to himself that this time he would have
his own way. Was it not enough that she had once nearly ruined his
life? Should he permit her again to snatch the chance of greatness
away from him?

He was flushed and breathless when he reached his little cottage up
under the mountain-wall. It had never looked so mean and miserable
to him as it did at this moment. The walls were propped up on the
north and west sides with long beams, and dry, brownish grass from
last year grew in tufts along the roof-tree and drooped down over
the eaves. His two sons, Alf and Truls, were playing bear with
their little sister Karen, who was seven years old. But they rose
hurriedly when they saw their father, and brushed the sand from the
knees of their trousers. There was something in his bearing and in
the expression of his face which vaguely alarmed them. He stooped
no more in walking, but strode along proudly with uplifted head.

“Boys,” he cried, joyously, “run in and tell your mother, to-morrow
we are going to America!” Ingeborg, who was just coming across the
yard with a new-born lamb in her arms, paused in consternation, and
gazed with a frightened expression at her husband.

“What has happened to you, John?” she asked, gently. “I thought
that matter about the foreigner was settled long ago.”

“I tell you, no!” he shouted, wildly; “it is not settled. It never
will be settled as long as there is breath left in my body. This
time I mean to have my own way. Jens Skoug has come back from
America, and he says that America is the place for me. I knew it
all along, and whether you will follow me or not, I am going.”

“Follow you, John? Yes, if go you must, then I will follow you.
But to America I will not go willingly, unless I know what we are
to do there, and how we are to make our living. It is a long, long
distance, John, across the great ocean; they speak a language there
which neither you nor I understand.”

Fiddle-John turned impatiently on his heel, as if to say that he
knew all that twaddle from of old; but Ingeborg, giving the lamb to
Alf, went up to him, laid her hand on his arm, and said:

“You and I have lived together for so many years, John, and we love
each other too well ever to be happy away from each other. Don’t
let us speak harsh words. They rankle in the bosom and cause pain,
long after they are spoken. If you must go to America, I will go
with you. But I have a feeling that I shall never get there alive.
I beg of you, don’t decide rashly and don’t believe all that Jens
Skoug tells you. He was not a truthful child, and I doubt if he has
grown up to be a good man. Let us say no more about it to-night. We
will sleep on it, and see how it will look to us to-morrow.”

Fiddle-John was not a bad fellow; on the contrary, he was quite
soft-hearted and easily moved. This wife of his had toiled in
poverty and ill-health all her life long, and he had never offered
to lift a finger to help her. Yet she loved him, accepting her lot
meekly, and never uttering a word of reproach against him. He had
never observed before how thin and worn she looked, how hollow her
cheeks were, and how large her eyes. He felt for the first time
in his life a pang of remorse. He had not been a good husband, he
thought; not as good as he might have been. But then he was a great
man, and great men were never the best of husbands. And when he
reached America, and his greatness became generally recognized,
and fortune began to smile upon him, then he would shower kindness
upon her, and she would be rewarded a thousand-fold for all she had
suffered. Surely, he would turn over a new leaf--in America.

Thus Fiddle-John consoled himself, when his conscience grew uneasy.
When only they got to America, he reasoned, then everything would
be right. He would have started without delay if Ingeborg’s health
had not failed so rapidly that the doctor positively forbade her to
think of travelling. The look of suffering and sweet forbearance
upon her face seemed a perpetual reproach to Fiddle-John, and he
roamed restlessly from one end of the valley to the other, playing,
singing, and telling his stories, in order to earn money for the
voyage, he said to his sons; but, in reality, to escape from the
unspoken reproach of his wife’s countenance. But the day soon came
when he needed no longer to flee from her presence. One bright
spring day, just as the snow was melting, and the bare spots on the
meadows steamed in the sun, Ingeborg closed her weary eyes forever;
and a few days later she was laid to rest in the shadow of the old
church down on the headland, where the song-thrush warbles through
the brief Arctic summer night.

II.

Down in the valley the Easter bells were chiming; the bell-strokes
trembled through the clear, sun-steeped air. There was commotion in
the valley, too, in spite of the fact that it was Easter Sunday.
Out in the middle of the fiord lay a huge black steamer, which
panted and shrieked, as if it were in distress, and sent volumes of
gray smoke out of its chimneys. Around about little black fragments
of coal-dust were drizzling through the air and swimming on the
water; and the gulls which kept whirling about the smoke-stacks
were quite shocked when they caught the reflections of themselves
in the tide; with wild screams they plunged into the fiord. They
probably mistook themselves for crows.

The pier, which broke the line of the beach at the point of the
headland, was thronged with men, women, and children. The men were
talking earnestly together; most of the women were weeping, and the
children were gazing impatiently toward the steamboat and tugging
at their mother’s skirts. Some twenty or thirty boats, heavily
laden with chests and boxes, lay at the end of the pier; and one
after another, as it was filled with people, put off and was rowed
out to the steamer. Only the old folk remained behind; with heavy
hearts and tottering steps they walked up the sloping beach and
stood at the roadside, straining their eyes to catch a last glimpse
of the son or daughter, whom they were never to see again. Some
flung themselves down in the sand and sobbed aloud; others stooped
over the weeping ones and tried to console them.

At last there was but one little group left on the pier; and that
was composed of Fiddle-John and his three children. Jens Skoug,
the emigration agent, was standing in a boat, shouting to them
to hurry, and the boys were scrambling down the slippery stairs
leading to the water, while the father followed more deliberately,
carrying the little girl in his arms.

There was a Babel of voices on board; and poor Fiddle-John and
his sons, who had never heard such noise in their lives before,
stood dazed and bewildered, and had scarcely presence of mind
to get out of the way of the iron chains and pulleys which were
hoisting on board enormous boxes of merchandise, horses, cattle,
pigs, and a variety of other commodities. It was not until they
found themselves stowed away in a dark corner of the steerage,
upon a couple of shelves, by courtesy styled berths, which had
been assigned to them, that they were able to realize where they
were, and that they were about to leave the land of their fathers
and plunge blindly into a wild and foreign world which they had
scarcely in fancy explored.

The first day on board passed without any incident. The next day,
they reached Hamburg, and were transferred to a much larger and
more comfortable steamer, named the Ruckert, and before evening
the low land of North Germany traced itself only as a misty line
on the distant horizon. Night and day followed in their monotony;
Russian Mennonites, Altenburg peasants, and all sorts of queer and
outlandish-looking people passed in kaleidoscopic review before
the eyes of the astonished Norsemen. It was the third day at sea,
I think, when they had got somewhat accustomed to their novel
surroundings, that a little incident occurred which was fraught
with serious consequences to Fiddle-John’s family.

The gong had just sounded for dinner, and the emigrants were
hurrying down-stairs with tin cups and bowls in their hands. The
children were themselves hungry, and needed no persuasion to follow
the general example. They unpacked their big tin cups, which
looked like wash-basins, and took their seats at an interminably
long table, while the stewards went around with buckets full of
steaming soup, which they poured into each emigrant’s basin, as it
was extended to them, by means of great iron dippers. Many of the
Russians were either so hungry or so ill-mannered that they could
not wait until their turn came, but rushed forward, clamoring for
soup in hoarse, guttural tones; and one of the stewards, after
having shouted to them in German to take their places at the
tables, finally, by way of argument, gave one of them a blow on the
head with his iron dipper. Then there arose a great commotion, and
everybody supposed that the angry Mennonites would have attacked
the offending steward. But instead of that, the crowd scattered and
quietly took their places, as they had been commanded. They were an
odd lot, those Mennonites, thought the Norse boys, who did not know
that their religion forbade them to fight, and compelled them to
pocket injuries without resentment.

Next to Alf, on the same bench, sat a swarthy boy, fourteen or
fifteen years old, with yellow cheeks and large black eyes. He
had a thin iron chain about his wrist and seemed every now and
then to direct his attention to something under the table. Alf
concluded that, in all probability, he had his bundle of clothes
or his trunk hidden under his feet. But he was not long permitted
to remain in this error. Just as the steward approached them and
extended the long-handled dipper, filled with soup, a fierce growl
was heard under the bench, and a half-grown black bear-cub rushed
out and made a plunge for his legs. The frightened steward made
a leap, which had the effect of upsetting the soup-pail over his
assailant’s head.

A wild roar of pain followed, and everybody jumped on tables and
benches to see the sport; while the Savoyard boy who owned the bear
darted forward, his eyes flashing with anger, and hurled a flood of
unintelligible imprecations at the knight of the soup-pail. There
was a sudden change of tone, as he stooped down over his scalded
and dripping pet, and, showering endearing names upon it, hugged it
to his bosom.

The emigrants jeered and shouted, the waiters swore, and the
purser, who had been summoned to restore order, elbowed his way
ruthlessly through the crowd until he reached the author of the
tumult.

“How do you dare, you insolent beggar, to bring a bear into the
steerage?” he cried, seizing the boy by the collar, and shaking
him. “Who permitted you to bring such a dangerous beast----”

His harangue was here suddenly interrupted by the bear, which
calmly rose on its hind legs and, showing its teeth in an
unpleasant manner, prepared to resent such disrespectful language.
The purser took to his heels, while the steerage rang with jeers
and laughter, and the Savoyard had all he could do to prevent
his friend from pursuing him. The Norse boys, whose sympathy was
entirely with the bear and his master, quite forgot their hunger in
their excitement over the stirring incident; and when the Savoyard,
feeling that the steerage was scarcely a safe place for him after
what had occurred, mounted the stairs, dragging his bear after him,
they could not resist the temptation to follow him at a respectful
distance. But when they saw him crouching down behind the big
smokestack and gazing timidly about him while he wiped the bear’s
head and face with his sleeve, they could not conquer the impulse
to make the acquaintance of so distinguished and interesting a
personage. They accordingly sidled up slowly, holding their sister
between them, and were soon face to face with the Savoyard.

“What is your name?” asked Truls with a boldness which raised him
immensely in his brother’s esteem.

The Savoyard shook his head.

“What do people call you when they speak to you?” Truls repeated,
raising his voice and drawing a step nearer.

“_Non capisco. Je ne sais pas_,” answered the boy in Italian and
French, giving them the choice of the only two languages he knew.

“Capisco,” Truls went on confidently in his Norse dialect; “that is
a very funny name. I am afraid you don’t understand me. It wasn’t
the bear’s name I asked for; it was your own.”

The Savoyard shrugged his shoulders expressively, then poured out a
torrent of speech which bewildered his Norse friends exceedingly.
If the bear had opened its mouth and addressed them in the ursine
language, it would not have succeeded in being more unintelligible.

“You are a very funny chap,” Truls remarked with a discouraged air.
“Why don’t you talk like a Christian?”

He was determined to make no more advances to so irrational a
creature, and was about to lead the way back to the dinner-table,
when the arrival of the purser and the third officer of the ship
again arrested his attention. The purser had evidently been hunting
for the Savoyard; for, as he caught sight of him, he made an
exclamation in German and called out to the third officer:

“There is the vagabond! Make him understand, please, that his bear
must be shot and that he must get out of the way. He has taken
out no ticket for his beast and we don’t take that kind of freight
gratis!”

The third officer, who spoke French fluently, explained the purport
of the purser’s remarks to the Savoyard, but in a gentle and kindly
manner which almost deprived them of their cruel meaning. The boy,
however, made no motion to stir, but remained calmly sitting, with
his arm thrown over the bear’s neck and one hand playing with his
paws.

The officer, seeing that his words had no effect, repeated his
remark with greater emphasis. A startled look in the boy’s eyes
gave evidence that he was beginning to comprehend. But yet he
remained immovable.

“Get out of the way, I tell you!” cried the purser, drawing a
revolver from his hip-pocket and pointing it at the bear’s head.
“I have orders to kill this beast, and I mean to do it now. Quick,
now, I don’t want to hurt you!”

The boy gazed for a moment with a fascinated stare at the muzzle
of the terrible weapon, then sprang up and flung himself over the
bear, covering it with his own body. The animal, not understanding
what all this ado was about, took it to mean a romp, and began to
lick his master’s face and to claw him with his limp paws.

“Well, I have given you fair warning!” the purser went on,
excitedly, as he vainly tried to find an exposed vital spot on the
bear at which he could fire. “If you don’t look out, you will have
to take the consequences.” A large crowd had now gathered about
them, and a loud grumble of displeasure made itself heard round
about. The purser began to perceive that the sentiment was against
him, and that it would scarcely be safe for him to execute his
threat. Yet he found it inconsistent with his dignity to retire
from the contest, and he was just pausing to deliberate when, all
of a sudden, a small fist struck his wrist and the pistol flew
out of his hand and dropped over the gunwale into the sea. A loud
cheer broke from the crowd. The purser stood utterly discomfited,
scarcely knowing whether he should be angry with his small
assailant or laugh at him. He would, perhaps, have done the latter
if the cheering of the people and their hostile attitude toward him
had not roused his temper.

“Bravo, Tom Thumb!” they cried. “At him again! don’t be afraid of
the brute because he has got brass buttons on his coat.”

“Good for you, Ashiepattle!” the Norwegians shouted; “go it again!
We’ll stand by you!”

It was Truls, Fiddle-John’s son, who had thus suddenly become the
hero of the hour; he had acted in the hot indignation of the moment
and was now abashed and bewildered at the sensation he was making.
He looked anxiously about for his brother and sister, and as soon
as he caught sight of them, was about to make his escape when the
purser seized him by the collar and bade him remain.

“You are a nice one, to be attacking your betters, who have never
given you any provocation,” he said in German, which Truls,
fortunately, did not understand. “I am going to take you to the
captain, and he will have you punished for assault.”

He made a motion to drag the struggling boy away, but the crowd
closed about him on all sides, and pressed in upon him with angry
shouts and gestures. The third officer, who had so far taken no
part in the proceedings, now stepped up to the purser and begged
him to release the boy.

“Of course,” he said, “you are in the right; but if I were you, I
would waive my right this time. It’s hardly worth while making a
row about so small a matter; and it is always bad policy to go to
the captain with squabbles and grievances, especially when they
might so easily have been avoided. I assure you, you will only
injure yourself by doing it.”

They talked for a minute together, while the ever-increasing throng
surged hither and thither about them. Whether purposely or not,
the irate purser, in the zeal of his argument, released his hold
on Truls’ collar, and the liberated boy dodged away, as quickly as
possible, and was soon lost in the crowd. The Savoyard and his bear
had long before seized the opportunity to withdraw from the public
gaze.

III.

The life on shipboard did not agree with Fiddle-John. Like a
spoiled child, he was restless and unhappy when he was unnoticed.
All day long he sat on the top of a coil of rope in the forecastle
of the ship and sang. The forecastle was often deserted, and there
were probably not many among the emigrants who would have been
capable of judging whether his voice was in any way extraordinary.
And yet, one there was who found an untold amount of comfort in
listening to that clear, sweet tenor of Fiddle-John’s, and that
one was the Savoyard boy. It had been his constant effort, since
his encounter with the purser, to make himself as inconspicuous as
possible, and it would have gratified him much if he had possessed
some means of making the bear invisible. As the forecastle was the
least visited portion of the ship, he had chosen to hide himself
there behind the anchor-cable.

He trembled whenever anyone approached, and threw the end of the
tarpaulin which covered the deck-freight over his friend, the
bear. The only people whose company did not incommode him were
Fiddle-John and his children, for whom he testified his devotion by
smiles and gestures and all sorts of endearing Italian diminutives,
which, on account of his caressing tones, even a dumb brute could
not have failed to appreciate. After a long and exciting pantomime,
Truls ascertained that his name was Annibale Petrucchio and that
his bear gloried in the name of Garibaldi.

Both boys felt that they had made great progress in each other’s
friendship when these facts had been established, and another hour
of dumb show, intersprinkled with exclamations, resulted in a still
more astonishing revelation, which was that Annibale and his friend
slept every night on deck, because they feared to arouse once
more the purser’s displeasure by invading the steerage. Sometimes
Annibale curled himself up with Garibaldi within the coil of the
anchor-cable--he jumped up, dragging the bear after him, to show
the attitude in which they slept--but when it rained, or when the
sea was high enough to sprinkle the deck, they both crept under
the deck-freight tarpaulin, where they had made themselves a
little house between two trunks which they had pushed apart. The
only trouble was that the April nights were very cold--Annibale
shivered all over to show how cold he was--and anchor-cables and
deck-freight were not particularly soft to sleep upon.

As Alf and Truls became duly impressed with the unpleasantness of
the Savoyard’s situation, they took counsel in order to ascertain
how they might relieve his distress. But all the plans that were
suggested were found to be risky, and night came before they
arrived at a decision. The weather had been raw and blustery all
the afternoon, and the officer on the bridge had been looking
every minute uneasily at the falling barometer. After sunset the
gale increased in violence and the ship pitched and rolled in the
heavy sea. In the steerage there was a terrible commotion; women
prayed and screamed and moaned, children of all ages joined in the
chorus, the lamps swung forward and backward in their brass frames,
and bottles, glasses, and loose crockery made a terrible racket,
sliding to starboard and back again to port with every motion
of the ship. The wind howled in the rigging, and every now and
then a big wave swept across the deck and poured out through the
scupper-holes.

Alf and Truls, who had been lying awake for hours listening to the
hollow boom of the waves and the shrieking of the wind, conversed
in a whisper about the poor Savoyard, who had to be on deck in
that terrible weather, and they finally summoned courage to creep
toward the ladder and slowly to mount it, tightly clutching each
other’s hands. It was a risky undertaking, and their hearts stuck
in their throats as they clung to the door-knob, hesitating whether
they should open the door. Without knowing, however, they must
have given the knob a twist; for suddenly the door swung open with
a tremendous bang, and Truls was flung across the deck against
the bulwarks with such force that for an instant he scarcely knew
whether he had lighted on his head or his feet.

He picked himself up, however, without any serious damage, and as
there was a momentary lull in the storm, he half rolled, half crept
up toward the prow, where a couple of lanterns were swinging in the
fore-royal stays. Nevertheless it was so dark that he could not
discern an object ahead of him, and only groped his way along the
bulwarks, until he stumbled upon a demoralized mass of rope which
he knew to be the anchor-cable.

“Annibale!” he shouted at the top of his voice, “are you here?”
But before he had time to receive a reply the ship plunged into a
monstrous wave, which rose in a storm of spray and drenched the
whole forecastle up to the mainmast. Truls, in his effort to keep
his footing, tumbled forward and grabbed hold of something wet and
hairy, which slid along with him for a couple of yards, and then
was hauled back by some unseen force. The boy crawled along in the
same direction and shouted once more, “Annibale! where are you?”
And a voice close to his ear answered:

“_Ah, Monsieur Truls, Garibaldi et moi, nous sommes à demi
morts._”[11]

“Now, don’t jabber at me, Annibale,” Truls observed, making his
voice heard above the wind; “but if you will come along with me,
Alf and I will give you half of our berth; and Garibaldi can sleep
at our feet.”

Whether Annibale understood the words or not, he could not fail to
comprehend the friendly gestures which accompanied them. He eagerly
seized Truls’ hand and they plunged bravely forward, but slipped on
the wet deck, and the bear and the boys slid with great speed in
the direction of the descent to the steerage. They were drenched to
the skin and considerably bruised when, after several unsuccessful
efforts, they seized the door-knob. Alf, as it turned out,
feeling too ill to keep watch, had already preceded them to bed.
Garibaldi, who seemed keenly conscious of his disgrace since the
day he molested the purser, slunk along as meekly as possible, and
only now and then shook his wet skin and coughed in a dispirited
fashion. He was not as grateful, moreover, as might have been
expected, when he was assigned his place on the straw at the foot
of the berth, but gradually pushed himself upward until his nose
nearly touched that of his master; whereupon he curled himself up
comfortably and went to sleep. It was a very pretty sight to see
the blond Norse boys and the swarthy Savoyard peacefully reposing
on the same pillow, with the shaggy head of the bear between them,
and the Savoyard half unconsciously clutching his pet in his
embrace.

Toward morning the storm began to abate, and the dim light peeped
in through the port-holes. The steerage was comparatively quiet.
Fiddle-John arose and went on deck; a strange oppression had come
over him. The dim, gray light, the all-enveloping dampness, and the
incessant throbbing and clanking of the machinery wrought upon his
sensitive soul, until he seemed in danger of going mad. The world
seemed so vast and so empty! The waves heaved and wrestled in their
gray monotony, until it made him dizzy to look at them. Merely to
rid himself of this terrible oppression, Fiddle-John lifted up
his voice and sang wildly against the wind; his beautiful tenor
seemed to cut through the fog like a bright sword and to flash
and ring under the sky. His soul expanded with his voice; the sun
broke forth from the clouds, and he felt once more free and happy.
He scarcely knew how long he sang; but when by chance he turned
about, he saw to his surprise that a crowd of well-dressed cabin
passengers had gathered about him. His three children stood holding
one another’s hands, looking in astonishment at the fine ladies
shivering in fur-trimmed cloaks, and wondered why their father was
attracting so much attention.

“Charming!” “Wonderful!” “Magnificent!” exclaimed the fine people,
when Fiddle-John had stopped singing; and a portly American
gentleman, with gray side-whiskers, who seemed more enthusiastic
than the rest, gave him a slap on his shoulder, and said that if
he himself were ten years younger, he would undertake to make a
fortune out of Fiddle-John, which, of course, was a very generous
offer on his part. Jens Skoug, the emigration agent, translated
the remark; and as the American seemed to have more to say to
Fiddle-John, offered his services as interpreter.

“What is your trade?” asked the gentleman.

“I sing and play,” said Fiddle-John.

“But I mean, how do you make your living?” repeated his questioner.

“By singing and playing,” said Fiddle-John.

“You won’t make much of a living by that in America; people won’t
understand you, unless you sing in English,” remarked the American.

It had actually never before occurred to Fiddle-John that his songs
would be unintelligible in America. He had supposed that music
appealed equally to all nations and needed no interpreter. The
remark of his new friend, therefore, was a positive shock to him,
and it took him fully a minute to recover from its effect.

“I will sing to the President of America,” he said, in an injured
tone. “Jens Skoug, there, says that the President will make me a
great man when he hears my voice.”

It did not suit Skoug’s convenience to translate this remark
correctly; and he observed instead, with a confidential air, that
Fiddle-John was a harmless monomaniac who had got it into his
head that he wanted to sing to the President. The American was
evidently amused at this, and said, with a laugh, that he feared
the President was not so great an authority in music as in affairs
of state.

Fiddle-John was extremely puzzled and a little distressed at the
jocose manner of the American gentleman; it could scarcely be
possible that he was making fun of him. But American ways were
probably different from Norwegian ways, and he would therefore not
be hasty in taking offence.

“I know a great many songs,” he said, with a determination to
appear amiable; “and what is more, I can make songs about anything
you choose.”

“Aha, you are a sort of poet--an _improvisatore_, as the Italians
say. Now I begin to understand. Perhaps you can make a song about
me,” suggested the American.

“Indeed I can!” cried the Norseman.

“Well, let us have it!” urged the other.

Fiddle-John never needed much urging to sing. He straightened
himself up, flung back his head and was about to begin, when his
son Truls, whose ears had been burning uncomfortably during the
whole interview, seized his father’s hand and entreated him not to
sing.

“Don’t sing to that man, father,” he said. “He is making sport of
you. Please don’t! Both Alf and I are distressed to think that the
gentleman should dare to speak to you as he does. He thinks----”

“Get out of the way, sonny! No one is talking to you,” interrupted
Jens Skoug, pushing Truls rudely aside; but the boy, fired with
sudden wrath, wheeled quickly around.

“It is you who have brought all this misery upon us,” he cried,
excitedly. “I know you mean to desert us as soon as we get to New
York, and I only wish I were big enough to give you the thrashing
you deserve, now, on the spot.”

“Why, little chickens can crow like big roosters!” Jens Skoug
exclaimed; “but if you don’t keep a civil tongue in your head,” he
added, with a menacing scowl, “I will make you dance a jig to a
very lively tune--the hazel tune; perhaps you may have heard of it.”

This was more than Truls could stand; and with clinched fists,
a flushed face, and eyes blazing with anger, he rushed at the
exasperating emigration agent. But the American, who thought that
the fun had now gone far enough, seized the angry boy by the collar
and restrained him. “Hold on, my little fellow!” he said; “it is
time to stop for refreshments. You are a lively little customer for
your years. I don’t know exactly what you are mad about, but I can
assure you it isn’t worth fighting for. Now, simmer a little, and
then cool down.”

During this scene, Fiddle-John had been standing irresolutely
shifting his weight from one foot to the other and gazing with a
bewildered air at Jens and Truls. He could not understand what had
happened to arouse the anger of his son, and his excited words had
scarcely furnished him with a clew to the mystery.

“Why--why--why, don’t you want me to sing, Truls?” he stammered,
helplessly. “I am sure I sing as well as anybody, and need not be
ashamed to be heard.”

“Oh, it isn’t that, father!” the son responded in a tone of
tender consideration, which appealed strongly to the American.
“You sing beautifully; but these people would not understand
you--and--and--wait till we are alone, father; I will tell you what
I mean.”

It was the manner, rather than the words, of the boy which gave the
stranger an insight into the relations which existed between him
and his father; and what he saw, and still more what he inferred,
interested him greatly. There was a diffidence in Truls’ tone, and
at the same time an air of protectorship, which, in one of his
years, was quite touching. The American could not help admiring
his spirited behavior, and he only wished he could have told him
how far he was from wishing to humiliate either him or his father.
But he had lost confidence in Mr. Skoug as an interpreter, and he
saw no one else who, for the moment, could take that gentleman’s
place. He therefore put his hand caressingly on the boy’s head and,
trusting to his intuition rather than his knowledge of English,
said:

“If you should ever happen to need a friend in the United States,
you must remember to come to me. My name is Alexander Tenney, and I
live in New York. Here is my card, with my address upon it.”

He gave Fiddle-John and his son each a friendly nod and
sauntered away toward a group of ladies who were seated in their
steamer-chairs, conversing with the captain about the state of the
weather.

IV.

It was a beautiful sunny morning in May that the steamer cast
anchor in the bay of New York. Fiddle-John and his children and
a thousand other poorly clad people from all parts of the world
were carried by little steam-tugs to a large building by the
water, where there was a babel of noise and confusion. Everybody
was shouting at the top of his voice; children were crying, women
hunting for their husbands, husbands hunting for their baggage;
policemen were pushing back the crowd of screaming hotel-runners
who were besieging the doors, and an official, standing on the top
of a barrel, was yelling instructions to the emigrants in half a
dozen different languages.

Fiddle-John, to whom this spectacle was positively terrifying,
could do nothing but stare about him in a hopeless and dazed
manner, while he pressed his violin-case tightly in his arms and
allowed himself to be pushed hither and thither by the surging
motion of the crowd. He was finally pushed up to a gate, where an
official sat writing at a desk.

“How old are you?” asked the official, or, rather, the interpreter,
who was standing at his elbow.

“Thirty-five years,” said Fiddle-John; but a vague alarm took
possession of him at the question, and his heart began to beat
uneasily.

“What is your occupation?”

“Occupation? Well, I sing. I am a singer.”

“A singing-teacher? Is that what you are?”

“No, I don’t teach.”

“What do you do, then, for a living? Perhaps you are a sort of
theatrical chap--a play-actor?”

Fiddle-John looked greatly mystified; he had never heard of such a
thing as a theatre in all his life, and the word “actor” was not
found in his vocabulary. Nevertheless, he thought it best to keep
on good terms with the great official, and he therefore made one
more effort to explain the nature of his occupation.

“If you will pardon my boldness,” he began, with a quaking voice,
“I may say that I am a kind of poet--a minstrel----”

“Aha, that’s what you are!” roared the official, with a laugh, as
if he had at last found the solution of the problem; “you are a
negro-minstrel, an end-man, clog-dancer, and lively kind of a chap
generally.”

Fiddle-John stood aghast; he was not a combative character, but the
recent scene with the American gentleman on shipboard had aroused
his suspicion, and the conclusion now suddenly flashed upon him
that the official was making fun of him. The blood mounted to his
head and his whole frame trembled.

“How dare you mock me?” he cried, passionately; “how dare you call
me a negro? Don’t you see with your own eyes that I am as white as
you are?”

“Keep a civil tongue in your head, now, or I’ll have you arrested
on the spot,” the other replied, coolly. “I can’t afford to waste
my time on you. So far as I can learn, you are a beggar who walks
about in the street, singing. Now, that kind of thing won’t go
down over here; and you had better not try it. How much money have
you?”

“I haven’t any money.”

“And what is your destination? Where do you intend to go?”

“I am going to see the American President, and sing to him.”

“Sing to the President! Well, I expected as much. Why, my good
friend, it seems you are a lunatic as well as a beggar. I shall
send you to the Island, and you will be returned by the next
steamer to Norway. It is only able-bodied, self-supporting
emigrants we receive here, not street-singers and crazy people!”

The poor Norseman stood as if riveted to the spot. A sudden
faintness came over him, and he felt as if he were going to sink
into the ground. He made desperate attempts to speak, but his words
stuck in his throat and he could not utter a sound. A policeman
was summoned and he was unceremoniously hustled through the crowd
and forced to board a small steam-tug, where, with three other
forlorn and miserable-looking individuals, he was locked up in a
dirty and ill-smelling cabin. All this had been done so quickly
that he scarcely had time to realize what was happening to him. But
now the thought of his three children came over him with terrible
force, and a sickening sense of his helplessness took possession
of him. In one moment the blood throbbed in his face and temples,
and he burned with heat and indignation; in the next, the thought
of what was to become of his dear ones, alone and friendless as
they were, in a foreign land, suddenly drove the blood away from
his cheeks and he shivered with dread. He was in the midst of these
tormenting fancies, when the tug gave a couple of shrill whistles
and steamed through the harbor toward an island covered with gray,
dismal-looking stone buildings, the very sight of which filled
Fiddle-John’s breast with fear.

The children, in the meanwhile, had an experience hardly less
discouraging. They had seen their father led away by a policeman,
and had shouted to him with all their might; but their voices had
been drowned in the general confusion, and in spite of all their
efforts they had not been able to make their way to him through the
dense throng. They searched for hours, but could find no trace of
him. Being afraid of the man at the desk, who had been so severe
with their father, they hit upon the plan of slipping through the
gate in the train of a German family which had so many children
that it seemed hopeless to count them. This scheme succeeded
admirably, and toward evening they found themselves in a broad
square planted with trees and budding shrubs. They still had some
hope of finding their father, thinking that perhaps his detention
would merely be temporary; and they sat upon the benches or roamed
along the Battery esplanade with a miserable feeling of loneliness
gnawing at their hearts. They were hungry, but they did not know
where to turn to obtain bread. The world seemed so vast and strange
and bewildering that it gave one a headache only to look at it.
To ears accustomed only to the murmur of the pines in the summer
night and the song of birds and the river’s monotonous roar, the
huge city, with its varied noises and its incessant, deafening
rattle of wheels over stone pavements, seemed overwhelming and
terrible.

Only Truls, who had a spirit less sensitive and less easily daunted
than his brother and sister, could summon courage to think--to
devise a way, if possible, out of their perplexities. He carefully
investigated first his own pockets, then his brother’s, in the
hope of finding something that might be exchangeable for a loaf
of bread. But he could find nothing except a couple of buttons,
some curious snail-shells, and a folding knife, the blades of
which had been sharpened until there was scarcely anything left of
them. After a few minutes’ meditation, he resolved, although with
an aching heart, to part with his valuable treasures; and he took
Karen by one hand and Alf by the other, and led the way through
the Battery Park toward Greenwich Street, where he hoped to find a
baker’s shop.

They had advanced but a short distance, however, when they caught
sight of their friend Annibale, who was sitting on a bench,
swinging his legs with an air of deep dejection. His eyes lighted
up a little when he recognized Truls; he jumped up and, pointing to
something resembling a large muff under the bench, exclaimed, in a
tearful voice:

“Garibaldi is very sick. Garibaldi will die. He has been ill a long
time; he will not stand up any more. He hangs his head like this.”

Annibale here demonstrated, with pathetic absurdity, the pitiful
manner in which the little bear hung his head. There could be no
doubt; it was a serious case. Truls was especially conscious of
this, after having stooped down and noted Garibaldi’s symptoms. His
eyes were much inflamed, his nose was hot, and he frothed slightly
at the corners of his mouth. Yes, it was plain that Garibaldi was
going to die.

Alf and Truls nearly forgot their hunger and their distress at
the thought of this great calamity. By signs and gestures, they
persuaded Annibale to seek lodgings where his pet might receive
proper care and perhaps stand some chance of recovering. This
seemed sound advice, and Annibale was not slow in following it,
when once he understood it. But it was a very sad march; for
Garibaldi refused to move, and the three boys had to carry him as
best they could.

A lodging-house was finally found where supper and bed could be
procured for twenty cents; and though neither was particularly
inviting, the boys were too hungry and tired to be fastidious. The
Savoyard fortunately had a little money, which he was very willing
to share with his Norse friends, as soon as he had gained an
inkling of the day’s adventures. Moreover, he had relatives in the
city, and knew the addresses of many Italian friends. He therefore
had no fear of suffering want, and, as he asserted in his own
jargon, could well afford to be generous.

The boys and the bear slept in a little square box of a room in
which there were two beds, while a kind-hearted servant carried
weary little Karen to her own apartment. Truls, out of gratitude
to Annibale, offered to watch over the bear; but, unhappily, his
gratitude was not lively enough to keep him awake, though he
struggled bravely to keep his eyes open. Toward midnight his head
sank slowly down upon Garibaldi’s back, and when the daylight
peeped in through the dusty window-panes he was yet sleeping
peacefully. The sunbeams crept, inch by inch, across the floor,
until they lighted on Truls’ chin, then climbed up to his nose and
reached his eyes. Then he awoke with a pang, sprang up, and stared
confusedly about him.

Suddenly his eyes fell upon Garibaldi, who lay immovable at the
foot of the bed; he stooped down and touched him. The poor bear
was stone cold! It had died quietly in the night. Truls, with
a dim notion that Garibaldi’s death was due to his own lack of
watchfulness, made haste to rouse his friend and explain to him,
with tears of grief and remorse, that he had, without meaning
to do it, used Garibaldi as a pillow, and that the poor animal
had probably died in consequence. Annibale, however, showed no
disposition to reproach Truls, but, leaping out of bed with a
frightened face, flung himself down over the bear, hugged him, and
wept over him, overwhelming him with caresses and endearing names.
But it was all in vain. Garibaldi was, and remained, dead. He had
caught a violent cold during the night of the storm at sea, from
which he had never recovered.

Although it was yet early in the morning, all the city seemed to be
awake and to be surging and roaring outside of the windows like
a storm-beaten sea. Stage-coaches, carriages, and enormous drays
laden with bales and barrels and boxes, were pouring in steady
streams up and down the street; people of all sorts and conditions
were hurrying hither and thither; and out in the harbor, but a
stone’s throw distant, there was a forest of masts, and big and
little steam-boats rushed shrieking in all directions. It seemed
like tempting Providence to venture out into this wild turmoil, and
Truls implored Annibale not to risk it, when he perceived that the
latter was bent upon some such dangerous expedition.

Annibale, however, had seen great cities before, and gave no heed
to his companion’s fear, but tore himself away, promising to return
before noon. With a painful fascination Truls stood watching him
from the window, following his lithe and dexterous motions as he
wound himself through the crowd and dodged the huge wheels and
wagon-poles, as they seemed on the point of knocking him down. When
at last the Savoyard vanished around a street-corner, and Truls
was about to relapse into his sad meditations, the kind-hearted
servant-girl caused a sensation by entering with Karen and a tray,
upon which were three pieces of bread and three cups of coffee.
Truls then awakened his brother, who had slept soundly through
the recent excitement, and the three had quite a pleasant meal,
considering their forlorn condition.

They covered Garibaldi with a blanket. He had had a hard life of
it on board the steamer, and had suffered much. Now his career
was finished. At least, so Alf and Truls supposed, until a very
extraordinary thing happened.

They had finished their breakfast some little time, when the door
opened and Annibale entered with a little, smoky, and shrivelled-up
Italian. He was Annibale’s uncle; his name was Giacomo Bianchi, and
by trade he was a tobacconist. When he talked he used his arms,
legs, eyes, and mouth, all with equal vigor. Fiddle-John’s children
stood and gazed at him in undisguised wonder; they had never in all
their lives seen anything so lively.

“_Ecco!_” he cried, pointing excitedly first to the dead bear and
then to Truls; “the fit is perfect. He is of the same height, and
will do perfectly well. If he has ordinary intelligence, and not
too much of it, he can act the bear as well as if he were born
one. I will prepare the skin for you, and stuff it just enough to
fit his figure. Then you can make money like the sands of the sea.
I have a small hand-organ at home, and a tambourine which that
vagabond Gregorio left me for a debt. You give me half of what
you earn, and I will lend you all these things. You will become a
rich man before you die. The bigger boy can play the hand-organ,
the little girl can strike the tambourine, and you yourself lead
the bear and make him dance. Behold, my son, your fortune is made.
_Ecco_, I have spoken!”

Giacomo’s dark eyes flashed with enthusiasm as he unfolded this
glorious scheme, and he flourished his stick so violently in the
direction of Karen that she grew frightened and began to cry. Her
brothers, too, viewed the excitable little man with suspicion, and
listened in no friendly spirit to his unintelligible talk. To their
guileless Norse minds his gestures seemed at first to indicate
insanity, but after awhile they concluded that, for some reason, he
was angry at their sister. Then they clinched their fists in their
pockets and made themselves ready to pounce upon him, the very
moment he ventured to touch her.

His apparent wrath suddenly left him, however, and he came up to
shake hands with each of them, smiling, and nodding his shaggy
head with extreme affability. Still they could not quite conquer
their distrust of him, and it required a long and lively pantomime
to induce them to accompany him to his own dwelling. At last they
yielded, because they knew of nothing else to do. Garibaldi was put
into a bag, and Giacomo and the boys, taking each a corner, carried
him easily. First they went to Castle Garden to inquire for their
father, but there was no one there who knew anything about him.
Another steamer had just come in with over eleven hundred Polish
Jews, and the officials were too busy to give heed to the questions
of the strange-looking boys who talked a strange-sounding language.
All their attempts to get possession of the baggage were also
unavailing; and with heavy hearts they plodded along together with
the Italian and Garibaldi, winding their way through a labyrinth of
dirty streets, until they reached a little, ill-smelling bird-shop
in Canal Street.

Here, too, there was a bedlam of noise, and the young Norsemen
remained standing in the middle of the floor, staring about
them in helpless bewilderment. Two great blue-and-yellow macaws
were shrieking overhead, an ancient and wise-looking cockatoo
was apparently scolding them for their undignified behavior, and
uncounted paroquets, pigeons, and canary-birds were chirping,
cooing, and screaming in a confused chorus which would have racked
the nerves of a mummy. The barking of a number of dogs, which
seemed to object to the limited area of their cages, added to the
uproar; and it was a great relief to the whole juvenile company
when Giacomo invited them up-stairs, where he had his own personal
domicile.

The bird-store, according to Annibale’s assertion, was a source
of enormous revenue, but belonged to his other uncle, Matteo,
who was a citizen of much weight and influence in the Italian
colony. This great man, however, it was understood, had more
important matters to attend to, and left the business in charge of
his humbler brother, Giacomo. A vague impression of these facts
Annibale had managed to communicate to his friends, in spite of
the linguistic difficulties under which he labored; and the Norse
boys, who during the two weeks on the steamship had learned the
Italian names for many common things and ideas, were pleasantly
surprised at the readiness with which they comprehended the mixture
of signs, gestures, and words which constituted Annibale’s medium
of communication.

Uncle Giacomo’s rooms proved much more agreeable than the
shop below. The noise of the birds penetrated the floor only
as a subdued confusion of sounds, and did not interfere with
conversation. On a little low table at the window there was a
multitude of small, sharp tools, and an array of bottles which
emitted strong but not unpleasant odors. Some of them had feathers
sticking through their stoppers, and others were labelled “Poison”
in big red letters. About the walls there were rows of shelves,
upon which stood bright-colored birds, perching upon twigs, as if
on the point of taking flight, owls with big yellow eyes and a
dignified sullenness of expression, hawks with wings outspread,
swooping down upon unseen, unsuspicious rabbits; and, besides,
there were little pet dogs and birds, whose skins had been
preserved by the taxidermist’s art for sorrowing owners.

All these objects the boys and Karen found highly entertaining, and
Uncle Giacomo, who was bent upon making a good impression, allowed
them to take down and examine anything that struck their fancy. The
work of skinning poor Garibaldi also served to occupy their minds,
and thus the forenoon passed rapidly until it was time to sit
down to dinner. They did not sit down, however, for their dinner
consisted only of bread and milk, and that could be eaten just as
well standing. In the afternoon they were allowed to fetch up some
rabbits and guinea-pigs from the store, and when they had played
with them for a couple of hours, Uncle Giacomo brought them a green
parrot that could talk and scold in both English and Italian.
Neither Alf nor Truls nor Karen understood its talk; but, for all
that, it entertained them, and served for a time to keep their
minds from dwelling on their misfortunes. They scarcely knew what
was to become of them; the world seemed so vast and so pitiless,
and they themselves such a very small part of it. They thought with
flutterings of hope and fear of their father, and determined never
to abandon their search for him until they should find him.

Their fate seemed strange and incomprehensible. But a few weeks ago
they were living happily in their quiet Norse home, in the little
cottage under the mountain-wall. Now they were flung out, helpless
and alone, into a huge whirlpool of foreign life; their mother,
whom they had loved more than anyone else in the whole world, was
dead, and their father was wandering about, no one knew where,
vainly seeking them, perhaps, and not knowing whither to turn.
Indeed, much can happen in two short weeks. If they had but known
what was to befall them before they left their happy home! Oh, if
they had but known!

Nearly a week passed before Garibaldi’s skin was properly padded
and prepared for the reception of its new occupant; but then it
fitted to perfection, and was as soft and flexible as an overcoat.
Truls put it on with perfect ease, and breathed as freely through
Garibaldi’s nose as if it had been his own. Fortunately the bear
had been of the shaggy, long-haired kind, and when the opening was
laced together with fine silk cords the joining was completely
hidden by the fur. The children had repeated rehearsals in Uncle
Giacomo’s room; and they all agreed that Truls made a very
respectable bear. He could walk on his hind-legs beautifully, he
could salute with his right fore-paw, and he could even nod with
his head in a very intelligent fashion. In fact, there was a danger
that he might be too intelligent.

“Now, do remember,” Alf would cry out to him, “a bear cannot blow
his nose. He may be allowed to sneeze, and even to cough; but he
must not be too frisky and intelligent. And remember, that if you
laugh or make any sound whatever, the game is up and we are ruined.
Uncle Giacomo only keeps us to make money with us, but he is not
unkind, and as long as we don’t starve, we ought to be thankful.
It all depends upon you, whether we shall have a home or be thrown
into the streets.”

It was with a great flutter of excitement that the Savoyard and his
Norse friends started out early one Monday morning in the middle
of May. Alf was carrying the hand-organ, Karen the tambourine, and
Annibale was leading the make-believe bear by the same iron chain
which had regulated the movements of Garibaldi. They were about
to open their first performance on the sidewalk at the corner of
Broadway and Canal Street, but two policemen were immediately on
hand and sternly commanded them to “trot.” Trot they accordingly
did; but the sidewalks were everywhere so crowded that they seemed
in danger of being knocked down, in case they should offer to
obstruct the hurrying stream of humanity.

It was not until they reached the broad steps of the Sub-Treasury
in Wall Street that they summoned courage to make a second stop;
and Truls was by that time so tired of the unnatural four-footed
gait that he rose, without invitation, and began to promenade in a
very unbearlike fashion. Presently Alf’s hand-organ began to wail a
very sad air from “Il Trovatore,” and Karen struck the tambourine
with a vigor which threatened to ruin both her knuckles and the
drum-skin. A number of newsboys and bootblacks instantly scampered
up to witness this attractive entertainment, and half a dozen
brokers and bank-messengers also paused to view the antics of the
little bear. Annibale shouted and swung his whip, and the animal
saluted and danced slowly and clumsily (as he had been commanded),
and at the end of five minutes quite a shower of pennies dropped
into the Savoyard’s hat. The crowd increased; the newsboys screamed
with delight, and scrambled up the steps, pell-mell, whenever the
bear approached them. Truls began to enjoy the fun, and chuckled
to himself at the thought that he could chase a whole flock of big
boys who, if they had known what sort of a creature he was, would
in all likelihood have chased him. This reflection made him every
moment bolder, and he would have been in danger of overstepping his
part altogether if Alf had not screamed to him in Norwegian:

“Now, take care, smarticat, don’t be too intelligent!”

Nevertheless, just as he was resolving to heed this advice, a
little ragged bootblack, while trying to back away from him, fell,
turned a dexterous somersault, and came down on his feet on the
sidewalk at the foot of the stairs. The sight was so comical that
Truls lost control of himself and burst out laughing; but in the
same instant his brother and sister were at his side, and made
so terrific a noise with their respective instruments that his
laughter was completely drowned in the din. Someone, however, must
have noticed his mirth; for there was a shriek of merriment among
the boys, and one of them cried out:

“Did you hear that? The bear is a-laughin’! He is a jolly old coon,
that bear is.”

“No, he was only a-yawnin’!” shouted another boy. “He is a queer old
party, and he knows lots of tricks.”

“Them b’ars is a mighty funny lot,” the first boy rejoined. “I once
seed one at the circus; he could ride bare-back and drink beer.”

“I once knowed one as could smoke cigars and kiss his boss,”
shouted number two, determined not to be outdone.

All these comments escaped the bear’s brother, but Annibale caught
a suspicion that something was wrong. He hastily gathered in the
second shower of pennies, and made a sign to his friends to stop
the entertainment. They made their way as quickly as they could
down to the water-front, and thence to the Battery Park, where
there was plenty of room for another exhibition. The newsboys
and bootblacks followed them for a couple of blocks, but seeing
that they had no intention of stopping, gradually dropped behind
and returned to their accustomed haunts. Alf and Truls heaved
a sigh of relief when the last of their importunate followers
had disappeared; and it was with a lighter heart that they took
their station under the trees of the park and commenced the same
programme which had been so successful in Wall Street.

Their audience was here even larger than it had been at their
first performance, but it was not nearly so profitable; for the
foreign emigrants and corner-loafers who abound in this locality
had probably no money to spare, or they preferred to have their
entertainment gratis. Hardly half a dozen pennies dropped into
Annibale’s hat, in spite of his repeated invitations to contribute.
It was obvious that they had hit upon a bad locality, where art was
not properly appreciated.

As Karen’s knuckles were by this time quite numb, it was agreed
that Annibale should take his turn at the hand-organ and give Alf
a chance to distinguish himself at the tambourine. They had just
completed this arrangement, and were strolling rather aimlessly
past Castle Garden toward the Coney Island Pier, when they saw
a dense crowd gathered at the entrance of the great immigration
depot. Curiosity prompted them to discover the cause of the
demonstration, and as everyone fell aside to make room for the
bear, they had no difficulty in reaching the open space in the
centre of the throng.

What was their horror when they suddenly found themselves
confronted with a real bear--a huge black beast which was dancing
slowly upon his hind-legs, and every now and then, with an angry
yawn, showing an array of terrible teeth! They wished themselves
well out of sight again, and strove with all their might to avoid
attracting attention. But instead of that, they found themselves
pushed right into the middle of the ring. And the moment the huge
bear spied a comrade, down he dropped on all-fours and insisted
upon making his acquaintance. With a wild scream which was anything
but bearlike, Truls rose up and rushed toward his brother Alf,
flinging his paws about his neck. The keeper of the big bear gave
him a cut with his whip, but he still strained at his chain and
gave forth angry growls. The people fled in all directions, and Alf
grabbed his disguised brother in his arms and ran as fast as he
could carry him. The others followed; but before they had overtaken
him he was stopped by a policeman, who inquired whether he had a
license. The boy stared in abject terror at the officer of the law.

“Pl-please, sir,” he stammered, imploringly, in his native tongue,
“don’t hurt my brother! He isn’t a bear at all, if you please, sir;
and--and--I am a harmless lad who--who--arrived from Norway the
other day, and--and--never did mortal thing any harm as long as I
lived, sir!”

“Don’t jabber yer Dutch at me, ye young scalawag!” the policeman
replied, seizing the boy by the arm and shaking him. “Ef it is an
honest loivelihood ye’re afther, why don’t ye drap that poor dumb
cr’atur’ and foind some dacent imployment, begorra?”

Alf was altogether too frightened to make any answer to this
suggestion, of which, moreover, he understood not a word. He only
gazed with his large blue eyes at the policeman, and moved his
lips nervously, without being able to utter a sound.

“Pl--please, sir,” he faltered, after several vain attempts to
speak, “please let me go.” And Truls, completely forgetting his
disguise, raised two hairy paws imploringly toward the officer and
begged tearfully.

“Please, sir, do let my brother go!”

The policeman’s face underwent a sudden and startling change. His
eyes nearly popped out of his head, his jaw dropped down on his
chest, and the veins on his forehead swelled. “I’ll be blowed,” he
cried in breathless amazement, “ef the dumb cratur’ ain’t a-talkin’
Dutch!”

He stooped for a minute, with his hands resting upon his knees,
and stared with a perplexed expression at the supposed bear; then
the situation began to dawn upon him, and he burst out into a
tremendous laugh.

“Oh, it is a foine bear ye be, sonny!” he exclaimed, lifting the
boy-bear unceremoniously on his arm, and grabbing hold of Alf’s
collar with his disengaged hand. “A smart young un ye be, be
jabers! It is an alderman ye will be before ye doi--if ye only vote
the roight ticket. ’Tis a shame, it is, ye don’t talk a Christian
language, sech as a gintleman can understand.”

He was moving up Greenwich Street, talking in this humorous strain,
half to himself and half to his prisoners, whom he was dragging
reluctantly along, when his progress was suddenly arrested by a
little girl who became unaccountably entangled in his legs.

[Illustration: IN BATTERY PARK.]

“Mr. Policeman,” the child cried, in the same unintelligible
tongue, gazing up with a pale and excited face at the tall
officer, “please don’t hurt my brothers. And won’t you please take
me along, too? I have been bad, too, Mr. Policeman--much badder
than Truls.”

“Why, how-de-do, sis!” the officer asked, with a broad grin. “Is it
the bear ye be, did ye say, as lent yer skin to this little chap?
Ah, be jabers! now I begin to take in yer capers. It is a moighty
mixed-up lot ye be, and up to no end of thricks. But jest ye wait
till his honor gits hold on ye, and he will know how to git each
one of ye back into his roight skin.”

This sinister allusion was lost, however, on the three culprits,
and even if they had understood it, it would probably not have
impressed them greatly. Their life had been so exciting since they
left their quiet Norse valley, that they had almost ceased to be
surprised at anything that might happen to them. Alf and Karen
plodded on wearily at the policeman’s side, holding on to the tails
of his coat, and showing no desire to part company with him; and
Truls, who was wellnigh exhausted by the labors and excitement
of the day, was only too glad to be able to rest his shaggy head
on the officer’s shoulders, and to embrace his neck with his two
hairy paws. The officer, somehow, seemed to enjoy the situation;
for he laughed and chuckled incessantly to himself, as if he were
contemplating some delightful plan which promised a great deal of
amusement. He shook his club good-naturedly at the crowd which
followed him, and pushed his way onward, until he reached a large
brick building, over the door of which was carved, in big Roman
letters, “Police Precinct, No. ----.” Here he entered with his
prisoners, and after having made an entry in a book, consigned them
to a large, bare, and dreary-looking room, where a few miserable
people were reposing in various attitudes upon the floor.

The two Norse boys, who vaguely understood that this was some
kind of a prison, looked with horror upon the ragged and untidy
occupants of the room, and withdrew with their sister into the
remotest corner they could find, so as to escape observation. Here
they held a consultation, glancing all the while fearfully about
them, and lowering their voices to a whisper.

“Truls,” said Alf, raising his guileless eyes to those of his
younger but braver-hearted brother, “what do you think will become
of us? do you think we shall have to stay long in this dreadful
place?”

“Oh, no, you sillibub!” replied the ursine Truls, with well-feigned
cheerfulness; “we will be let out before night; and anyhow, I
know what I am going to do. You remember that handsome American
gentleman on board the steamboat, whom I wanted to fight because I
thought he was making fun of father?”

“Yes, I remember,” said Alf.

“Well, he gave me his card, which I gave you to keep in your
pocket-book; and he made me promise that if ever I needed a friend,
I should send for him. There is an address on the card, and I
shouldn’t wonder if he is a great man; and then everybody will be
sure to know him.”

“Oh, Truls!” his brother exclaimed, admiringly; “you are always so
bright and so clever; and I have the card here; and I’ll not lose
it. But don’t you think you had better take off your bear-skin, so
that the judge may see you aren’t a bear, but a little boy?”

“I have thought of that,” Truls rejoined, earnestly; “but the
trouble is I haven’t anything else to put on. So I shall have to go
to the judge as I am, and I guess he won’t be so very mad, when I
tell him I haven’t got nothing else under.”

A dreary hour passed--dreary beyond expression. The two boys tried
each to persuade the other that he was, on the whole, not at all
afraid, but really quite cheerful. The only one whose argument was
really convincing, however, was Karen; for she went peacefully to
sleep on Truls’ shoulder, and did not wake until the policeman came
and summoned them all into court. They made quite a sensation when
they entered; and people rose and craned their necks to catch a
glimpse of the curious group. It was probably the first time that a
bear had marched on its hind-legs into a police-court and taken its
place behind the bar as a prisoner. The judge smiled a little when
he saw it, and leaned himself half over to the policeman who was
apparently giving an account of the case.

“The officer charges you with roaming about with an unlicensed
bear,” he said severely, fixing a stern glance upon Alf. “What have
you to say to the charge?”

Alf gazed up helplessly, and shook his head.

“Why don’t you answer?” repeated the judge, impatiently. “Why
didn’t you take out a license for your bear?”

The policeman again leaned over and explained that the prisoners
were Dutch, or some other kind of foreigners, and that they did not
understand a word of English.

“Hm,” growled his Honor, “why didn’t you tell me that before? Is
there anyone in this court-room,” he went on, raising his voice,
“who understands foreign languages and would be willing to help the
court out of a difficulty?”

He looked expectantly about the large room, but no one volunteered
to act as interpreter of anything so comprehensive as “foreign
languages.”

“The gintleman over there,” the policeman remarked, pointing out a
well-dressed man in the audience, “looks as if he understood furrin
languages.”

The gentleman in question disclaimed all knowledge of the languages
referred to, and the Court visited him with a look of serious
displeasure. It was very annoying, and there seemed positively no
way of disposing of the case, except to recommit the prisoners
until an interpreter could be found. The judge was about to resort
to that expedient, when a new prisoner was led into the court, and
the boys gave a simultaneous exclamation of surprise at beholding
Jens Skoug, the emigration agent. Mr. Skoug had evidently come
into collision with a policeman’s club, or some other unyielding
substance, for his left eye was much blackened, and he had a great
bump on his forehead. He had been arrested the previous night for
disturbing the peace.

“That man, it appears, is acquainted with these Dutch boys,” the
Court remarked, nodding to the policeman who had charge of Mr.
Skoug; “bring him up.”

“Do you understand foreign languages?” the justice went on,
addressing the emigration agent in his severest judicial tones.

“Yes, lots of them,” replied Jens, drowsily.

“Do you know these boys?”

Jens contemplated the boys with a puzzled frown; then he shook his
head boozily and replied:

“No, yer Honor, I never saw them in all my life. They are not my
style, yer Honor; don’t look as if they had moved in the best
society.”

“Well, never mind that,” interrupted the Court; “but can’t you find
out anything about them? why they did not license their bear? Who
provides for them? Where do they live?”

Jens, in turning his back to the Court, gave Alf and Karen and
the bear a fierce glance, as if to say that he would make them
smart, if they dared in any way to compromise him. Then, to their
surprise, he stooped down and talked with them earnestly for
several minutes.

“Your Honor,” he resumed, rising and facing the judge; “these boys
are, as you supposed, Dutch. They are utterly destitute, and have
no money wherewith to buy a license for their bear. In other words,
they are vagrants; and if I may be permitted to make a suggestion,
I think the Reform School or the workhouse would be the right place
for them. They are a hardened lot, I am afraid, judging by their
talk----”

“You may spare your suggestions,” the judge interrupted curtly;
“though they happen to fit in exactly with what I had determined to
do with them. Their bear will have to be killed or sold, and they
are hereby recommitted, and will be sent to the Island for thirty
days.”

Mr. Skoug again stooped down and explained to the two culprits; but
he had no sooner mentioned the word “kill” than Alf gave a shout,
half of anger, half of dread, pulled his Norse tolle-knife[12] from
its sheath, and with one swift motion slit the bear’s skin from the
neck downward. The policeman rushed forward, the audience jumped
up on the benches, the judge himself started at the flash of the
knife, and was on the point of leaping over his desk. What was his
amazement when, instead of a bear, he saw a little shivering boy
in very scanty attire! A roar of laughter and a deafening salvo
of applause burst forth from all parts of the room, and it was in
vain that the judge hammered with all his might on his desk, and
in thunderous tones demanded order. The Irish policeman, to whose
taste for practical jokes the whole scene was due, laughed as if
he were going to split his sides. He would not have ventured to
confess that he had planned some such dramatic incident, although,
as he admitted to himself, it had turned out even more startling
than he had dared to hope.

When order was finally restored, the Court commanded that
the prisoners be removed; but Truls, who now comprehended the
situation, and was determined not to submit to further imposition,
marched boldly up to the judge, and put Mr. Tenney’s card before
him on the desk.

“This gentleman,” he said, confidently, “made me promise to send
for him if I should ever need a friend. Now I need him, and if you
would kindly send someone to fetch him, I should be much obliged.”

The judge understood the purport of this speech, even though the
words were unintelligible to him. Mr. Tenney’s name was well known
to him, as that of a citizen of great wealth and influence, and his
prisoners immediately rose in his estimation when he heard that
they enjoyed the protection of so prominent a man. He therefore
beckoned to a policeman, wrote a hasty note, and told him to
have it instantly despatched. The boys and their sister, in the
meanwhile, were permitted to sit down in the court-room, awaiting
Mr. Tenney’s arrival. Mr. Skoug, who betrayed a great anxiety to be
off, pleading a variety of business engagements, was then examined
and fined ten dollars. He had just managed to disappear through
a side-room when Mr. Tenney’s tall and portly figure was seen
entering. He gave the boys a friendly nod, as he walked rapidly up
to the judge, with whom he conversed amicably for several minutes.
There was something brisk, energetic, and business-like in all his
movements. He laughed very heartily when the recent incident with
the bear was related to him, and the judge joined in the laugh,
and asserted that it was the most amusing thing that ever had
occurred in all his long experience on the bench. Then Mr. Tenney
apologized for having taken up so much of the Court’s valuable
time, and the Court expressed itself delighted to have made Mr.
Tenney’s acquaintance and to have been in any way able to serve
him; whereupon Mr. Tenney had the three children conveyed to his
carriage, and they drove away through the glorious May sunshine, up
one street and down another, until they reached a large and stately
house on Madison Avenue. Here they stepped out of the carriage,
and a liveried servant flung the doors open before them, as they
entered the house.

Such magnificence the boys had never beheld before: long, wonderful
mirrors which looked like strips of lake standing on end, carpets
which felt soft under the feet like fine moss, and gilt and carved
furniture, which seemed to have stepped right out of a fairy story.
It was certainly very extraordinary; but still more extraordinary
was the kindness and consideration with which they were treated by
Mr. Tenney and his wife. Two pretty rooms were assigned to them
on the fourth floor of the house; little Karen was dressed in
beautiful clothes, and the boys themselves got each a new suit, the
like of which they had never had on their backs before. They felt
like young princes, and if they could only have talked with the
kind people who took so much trouble on their account, they would
have expressed to them their gratitude, and perhaps, too, solicited
their aid in ascertaining the whereabouts of their lost father.

Mr. Tenney, however, guessed their thoughts, and did not need to
be told that their minds were torn with anxiety. He first procured
a Norwegian interpreter from one of the steamship companies, and
made the boys describe to him accurately the time and circumstances
of Fiddle-John’s disappearance. He wrote letters to the emigration
commissioners, inserted advertisements in the newspapers, and set
the whole official machinery in motion to get a clew by which to
unravel the mystery.

Investigations were set on foot, detectives were employed, the
Castle Garden officials were questioned and cross-examined, but
there was no one who had the slightest recollection of having seen
Fiddle-John. Thus three days passed. Mr. Tenney’s determination
to accomplish his purpose increased, the greater the obstacles
were that he encountered. There was a streak of obstinacy in his
temperament, and there seemed to be an impression abroad that Mr.
Tenney was not to be trifled with, when once he was aroused, and
that may have been the reason why Fiddle-John grew in the course
of a week to be a kind of public character, and people asked each
other jocosely when they met in street cars or in hotel vestibules:

“How do you do? Seen Fiddle-John?”

Someone, it appears, had seen Fiddle-John, and that was the purser
of the steamboat Ruckert, whose encounter with the lamented
Garibaldi was yet fresh in the boys’ memories. He came late one
evening to Mr. Tenney’s residence, and explained to him that a
man called Fiddle-John had just been put aboard the ship, as a
lunatic, to be taken back to Norway free of charge. The ship
was to sail the next day at noon; and if Mr. Tenney would hold
himself responsible for the consequences, the purser said he would
undertake to restore Fiddle-John to his family within--well, within
five minutes.

Mr. Tenney was quite ready to assume all the responsibility in the
matter, and accordingly the purser raised the window, and beckoned
to a carriage which had stopped on the other side of the street.
The carriage drove up before the door, and out stepped Fiddle-John.
But oh, how miserable he looked! The light from the gas-lamp fell
upon his pale face, his disordered hair, and his tall, stooping
figure. He was led carefully up the steps, and the children flew
into his arms, hugging him, kissing him, and weeping over him.
He sat down on a low stool, and stared about him in a bewildered
fashion. But gradually, as his eyes rested upon the dear familiar
faces, his expression softened, the wild look of fright departed
from his face, and the tears began slowly to course down his cheeks.

“O, children!” he said in a hoarse, broken voice; “I thought I
should never see you again!”

He covered his face with his hands, and wept long and silently.

“They wanted to make a madman of me,” he sobbed; “and they almost
succeeded. Whatever I did or said--it made no difference--it only
proved that I was mad. I came to believe it, children, and the
thought was terrible to me; if I had staid another day, I should
never have recovered my reason.”

VI.

Five years have passed since Fiddle-John and his sons were rescued
from misery by Mr. Tenney. They now live in the porter’s lodge of
Mr. Tenney’s beautiful Berkshire country-seat; and Fiddle-John,
with all his eccentricities, makes a very acceptable porter. The
little stone cottage at the gate of the larger villa looks very
picturesque with the green vines trailing over it, and it is very
comfortably and prettily furnished. Little Karen is now a matronly
little body, with a strict sense of order, and many housewifely
accomplishments. She goes to the public school in the morning, but
studies at home in the afternoon, and keeps her father company. The
boys are both big fellows now, and they are as good Americans as
any to the manner born. Truls brags of American enterprise, and the
blessings of democratic institutions, as if every drop of his Norse
blood had become naturalized. He is an engineer, and earns good
wages, and is full of hopefulness for the future. It need scarcely
be said that his sister adores him, and regards him as one of the
most remarkable men of the century.

Alf, who has inherited his father’s handsome face, and incapacity
for practical concerns, is at present preparing to enter college.
Mr. Tenney is much interested in him, as a lad of unusual ability
and a singular sweetness of character; and it is owing to his
generosity that Alf has been able to follow the career for which
he is by nature and inclination adapted. He has his father’s
beautiful voice, too, and makes a sensation in the church choir
every Sunday when he sustains the lovely tenor solo in the anthems
“As Pants the Hart,” and “I Know that My Redeemer Liveth.”

He is a rather serious fellow, with thoughtful eyes, and a frank
and open countenance. Some think he would have a fine career as a
clergyman, but it is difficult to tell whether his inclination,
in later years, will turn in that direction. His father, however,
does all in his power to encourage this ambition, and it is not
unlikely that his hopes may some day be fulfilled. In fact, it
is Fiddle-John’s favorite occupation to hope and dream about the
future of his sons.

During the long summer afternoons he sits in the shadow of the
vines, outside of his cottage, while his daughter reads aloud to
him from the old Norse ballad books which he yet loves so dearly.
And it happens very frequently, then, that the young ladies and
gentlemen who are visiting at the neighboring villas come, in a
company, and beg him to sing to them. They throw themselves down
in easy attitudes upon the soft, close-trimmed lawn; and their
bright garments, their crimson sunshades, and their fresh, youthful
faces make a fine picture against the green background of elms and
chestnut trees.

To the gentle and guileless minstrel it is a great pleasure to see
these gay and happy creatures; and when the young girls hang upon
his arms and urge him to sing, his eyes beam with delight.

“Now, do sing, Fiddle-John,” they coaxingly say. “You know we have
walked miles and miles to hear your voice. And here is a young lady
from New York, who never heard a Norse song in all her life, and is
disappointed, because you look so nice and gentle, and not wild and
savage as a son of the Vikings should.”

Fiddle-John likes this kind of banter very well; and when, finally,
he yields to their coaxing and lifts up his clear, strong voice,
singing the sad, wild ballads of his native land, there falls a
hush upon the noisy company, as if they were in the presence of
a renowned artist. These are Fiddle-John’s happiest moments. And
it was just on such an occasion when, on a beautiful afternoon in
July, he had been entertaining the young people with his songs,
that a swarthy-looking Savoyard walked up before his door, and
began to whip up a bear which danced to a tune from “Il Trovatore,”
played upon a wheezy hand-organ.

“Stop, you sacrilegious brute!” said one of the young men,
addressing, not the bear, but his master; “we have a better kind of
music here than your asthmatic organ can produce.”

The Savoyard, being apparently well accustomed to this manner of
address, swung his organ across his back and was about to take his
departure, when Karen, prompted by some idle impulse, stepped up to
the bear and patted it. Then a sudden change came over the young
man’s countenance. He stared for a moment fixedly at the little
girl.

“Take care, _Carina mia_,” he said, with a smile; “that bear is a
real one!”

“Annibale!” she cried in surprise; and, to be sure, it was Annibale!

He had grown five years older, but in other respects he had changed
but little. He knew but very little more English than he had done
on the day of his arrival, and his ambition still did not extend
beyond hand-organs and bears. He reaped a plentiful harvest of
coins that night; but that was owing to little Karen, and not to
the doleful hand-organ. She ran into the cottage and spread out
upon the lawn a rug, made out of a small bear-skin. “Do you know
that, Annibale?” she cried.

“Garibaldi, my poor Garibaldi!” exclaimed the Savoyard, while the
tears glittered in his eyes; and he stooped down and caressed the
furry head.

Now the curiosity of the young ladies was excited, and the whole
company clamored for the story of Annibale and the bear-skin. They
all seated themselves in a ring about Fiddle-John, and he told the
story, as I have told it to you. For I had the good luck to be one
of the listeners.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Skees are a kind of snowshoe, four to six feet long, bent
upward in front, with a band to attach it to the foot in the middle.

[2] Lord Dufferin tells, in his Letters from High Latitudes,
how the Icelandic pilots conversed with him in Latin, and other
travellers have many similar tales to relate.

[3] Professor Willard Fiske, formerly of Cornell University, was
instrumental in collecting in the United States a library of
several thousand volumes, which he presented to the Icelanders on
the one thousandth birthday of their nation.

[4] The auk cannot fly well, but uses its wings for swimming and
diving.

[5] The burgomaster gull is the largest of all gulls. It is thirty
inches long, exclusive of its tail, and its wings have a span of
five feet.

[6] The national knife of Norway. It has a round or oblong handle
of wood, bone, or ivory, often beautifully carved, and a slightly
curved, one-edged blade, with a sharp point.

[7] The sheriffs in Norway are by law required to pay, in behalf
of the State, certain premiums for the killing of bears, wolves,
foxes, and eagles.

[8] A species of grouse.

[9] The finishing-stroke.

[10] Skees (Norwegian _skier_) are a peculiar kind of snow-shoes,
generally from five to nine feet long, but only a few inches
broad. They are made of tough pine-wood, and are smoothly polished
on the under side, so as to make them glide the more easily over
the surface of the snow. In the middle there are bands to put the
feet into, and the front end of each skee is pointed and strongly
bent upward. This enables the runner to slide easily over logs,
hillocks, and other obstacles, instead of thrusting against them.
The skee only goes in straight lines; still the runner can, even
when moving with great speed, change his course at pleasure by
means of a long pole which he carries for this purpose, and uses
as a sort of rudder. Skees are especially convenient for sliding
downhill, but are also, for walking in deep snow, much superior to
the common American snow-shoes.

[11] “Ah, Mr. Truls, Garibaldi and I are half dead.”

[12] All Norse peasant lads wear a sheathed knife at the side,
called a “tolle-knife.”

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.

Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been
corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within
the text and consultation of external sources.

Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text,
and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained. For example,
book-case, bookcase; hind-legs, hind legs; drift-wood, driftwood;
bowlder; despatch; skee; inspiriting.

Pg 4, “the otto’s name” replaced by “the otter’s name”.
Pg 51, “tore his watstcoat” replaced by “tore his waistcoat”.
Pg 82, “gentle plashing” replaced by “gentle splashing”.
Pg 115, “to find himself himself in” replaced by “to find himself in”.
Pg 125, “into the the twilight” replaced by “into the twilight”.
Pg 257, “I onct seed” replaced by “I once seed”.
Pg 257, “I onct knowed” replaced by “I once knowed”.

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Modern Vikings - Stories of Life and Sport in the Norseland" ***

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