"Signe, I wish you would let me do you a favor."
She thought for a moment before she asked what it was.
"Let me help you attend college. You know I am able to, besides--besides, some day you may learn to think as much of me as I do of you, and then, dear Signe--"
Signe arose. "Hr. Bogstad," she said, "I wish you would not talk like that. If you do, I shall go back to Hansine."
"Why, Signe, don"t be offended. I am not jesting." He stood before her in the path, and would have taken her hand, but she drew back.
"Signe, I have thought a great deal of you for a long time. You know we have been boy and girl together. My absence at school has made no difference in me. I wish you could think a little of me, Signe."
"Hr. Bogstad, I don"t believe in deceiving anyone. I am sorry that you have been thinking like that about me, because I cannot think of you other than as a friend. Let us not talk about it."
If Henrik could not talk about that nearest his heart, he would remain silent, which he did.
Signe was gathering some rare ferns and mosses when Hansine"s _lur_ sounded through the hills. That was the signal for them, as well as the cows, to come home.
Early the next morning Hansine"s brother came up to the _saeter_ to take home the week"s acc.u.mulation of b.u.t.ter and cheese. Signe, perched on the top of the two-wheeled cart, was also going home. Hr. Bogstad, mounted on his horse, accompanied them a short distance, then rode off in another direction.
V.
"Can two walk together, except they be agreed?"--_Amos 3:3_
It was nearly noon when Signe Dahl sprang from the cart, and with her bundle under her arm, ran down the hillside into the woods, following a well-beaten trail. That was the short cut home. Hans had found her poor company during the ride, and even now, alone in the woods, the serious countenance was loth to relax. A ten minutes" walk brought her to the brow of a hill, and she sauntered down its sloping side. Signe had nearly reached home, and being doubtful of her reception there, she lingered. Then, too, she could usually amuse herself alone, for she always found some new wonder in the exhaustless beauty of her surroundings.
She threw herself on a green bank, and this is the picture which she saw: Just before her, the greensward extended down to a lake, whose waters lost themselves behind cliffs and islands and pine-clad hills.
Here and there in the distance towards the north, there could be seen shining spots of water; but towards the south the hills closed in precipitously, and left room only for the outlet of the lake to pour over its rocky bed into another valley below. On the farther sh.o.r.e, five miles distant, a few red farm houses stood out from the plats of green--all the rest was forest and rock. The sky was filled with soft, fleecy clouds, and not a breath stirred the surface of the lake. Signe gazed towards a rocky island before her. Only the roof of the house upon it could be seen, but from its chimney arose no smoke. That was where Signe had been born, and had lived most of the eighteen years of her life. The girl walked down the hillside to the lake and again seated herself, this time on a rock near the edge of the water. She took a book from her bundle and began to read; but the text was soon embellished with marginal sketches of rocks and bits of scenery, and then both reading and drawing had to give place to the consideration of the pictures that came thronging into her mind.
Hr. Bogstad had actually proposed to her--the rich and handsome Hr.
Bogstad; and she, the insignificant farmer girl, had refused him, had run away from him. Signe Dahl, she ruminated, aren"t you the most foolish child in the world? He is the owner of miles and miles of the land about here. The hills with their rich harvest of timber, the rivers with their fish, and even the island in the lake, are his. To be mistress over it all--ah, what a temptation. If she had only loved Hr.
Bogstad, if she had only liked him; but she did neither. She could not explain the reason, but she knew that she could not be his wife.
How could such a man love her, anyway? Was she really so very good looking? Signe looked down into the still, deep water and saw her own reflection asking the question over again. There! her face, at least, was but a little, ordinary pink and white one. Her eyes were of the common blue color. Her hair--well, it was a trifle wavy and more glossy than that of other girls, but--gluck! a stone broke her mirror into a hundred circling waves. Signe looked up with a start. There was Hagbert standing half concealed behind a bush.
"Oh, I see you," she shouted.
He came down to the water, grinning good-naturedly.
"Well," said he, "I didn"t think you were so vain as all that."
"Can"t a person look at the pebbles and fish at at the bottom of the lake without being vain?" and she laughed her confusion away. "Say, Hagbert, is your boat close by?"
"Yes, just down by the north landing."
"Oh, that"s good. I thought I would have to wait until father came this evening to get home. You"ll row me across, won"t you?"
"Why, certainly; but I thought you had gone to the _saeter_ to stay, at least a week."
"Yes, but--but, I"ve come home again, you see."
"Yes, I see," and he looked oddly at her. He had also seen Hr. Bogstad set out for the mountains two days before, and now he wondered.
Hagbert fetched the boat, took in his pa.s.senger, and his strong arms soon sent the light craft to the other bank.
"A thousand thanks, Hagbert," she said, as she sprang out, and then climbed up the steep path, and watched him pull back. He was a strong, handsome fellow, too, a poor fisherman, yet somehow, she felt easier in his company than in Hr. Bogstad"s.
Signe found no one at home. Her mother and the children had, no doubt, gone to the mainland to pick blueberries; so she went out into the garden to finish her book. She became so absorbed in her reading that she did not see her mother"s start of surprise when they came home with their baskets full of berries.
"Well, well, Signe, is that you? What"s the matter?" exclaimed her mother.
"Nothing, mother; only I couldn"t stay up there any longer." And that was all the explanation her mother could get until the father came home that evening. He was tired and a little cross. From Hans he had heard a bit of gossip that irritated him, and Signe saw that her secret was not wholly her own. She feared her father.
"Signe," said he, after supper, "I can guess pretty well why you came home so soon. I had a talk with Hr. Bogstad before he went to the _saeter_."
The girl"s heart beat rapidly, but she said nothing.
"Did he speak to you about--why did you run away from him, girl?"
"Father, you know I don"t like Hr. Bogstad. I don"t know why; he is nice and all that, but I don"t like him anyway."
"You have such nonsensical ideas!" exclaimed the father, and he paused before her in his impatient pacing back and forth. "He, the gentleman, the possessor of thousands. Girl, do you know what you are doing when you act like this? Can"t you see that we are poor; that your father is worked to death to provide for you all? That if you would treat him as you should, we would be lifted out of this, and could get away from this rock-ribbed island on to some land with soil on? Our future would be secure. Can"t you see it, girl? O, you little fool, for running away from such a man. Don"t you know he owns us all, as it were?"
"No, father, he does not."
"The very bread you eat and the water you drink come from his possessions."
"Still, he does not own us all. He does not own me, nor shall he as long as I feel as I do now, and as long as there is other land and other water and other air to which he can lay no claim."
It was a bold speech, but something prompted her to say it. She was aroused. The mother came to intercede, for she knew both father and daughter well.
"I tell you, girl, there shall be no more foolishness. You shall do as I want you, do you hear!"
Signe arose to go, but her father caught her forcibly by the arm.
"Sit down and listen to me," he said.
The girl began to cry, and the mother interposed: "Never mind, father; you know it"s useless to talk to her now. Let her go and milk the cow.
It"s getting late."
So Signe escaped with her pail into the little stable where the cow had been awaiting her for over an hour. But she was a long time milking, that evening.
VI.