Thelma

"I am no poacher, old fellow," he answered in the same quiet accents; "I think you know that. If that girl"s mind is as lovely as her face, I say, go in and win!"

Sir Philip smiled. His brow cleared and an expression of relief settled there. The look of gladness was unconscious; but Lorimer saw it at once and noted it.

"Nonsense!" he said in a mirthful undertone. "How can I go in and win, as you say? What am I to do? I can"t go up to that window and speak to her,--she might take me for a thief."

"You look like a thief," replied Lorimer, surveying his friend"s athletic figure, clad in its loose but well-cut yachting suit of white flannel, ornamented with silver anchor b.u.t.tons, and taking a comprehensive glance from the easy pose of the fine head and handsome face, down to the trim foot with the high and well-arched instep, "very much like a thief? I wonder I haven"t noticed it before. Any London policeman would arrest you on the mere fact of your suspicious appearance."

Errington laughed. "Well, my boy, whatever my looks may testify, I am at this moment an undoubted trespa.s.ser on private property,--and so are you for that matter. What shall we do?"

"Find the front door and ring the bell," suggested George promptly. "Say we are benighted travellers and have lost our way. The _bonde_ can but flay us. The operation, I believe, is painful, but it cannot last long."

"George, you are incorrigible! Suppose we go back and try the other side of this pine-wood? That might lead us to the front of the house."

"I don"t see why we shouldn"t walk coolly past that window," said Lorimer. "If any observation is made by the fair "Marguerite" yonder, we can boldly say we have come to see the _bonde_."

Unconsciously they had both raised their voices a little during the latter part of their hasty dialogue, and at the instant when Lorimer uttered the last words, a heavy hand was laid on each of their shoulders,--a hand that turned them round forcibly away from the window they had been gazing at, and a deep, resonant voice addressed them.

"The _bonde_? Truly, young men, you need seek no further,--I am Olaf Guldmar!"

Had he said, "I am an Emperor!" he could not have spoken with more pride.

Errington and his friend were for a moment speechless,--partly from displeasure at the summary manner in which they had been seized and twisted round like young uprooted saplings, and partly from surprise and involuntary admiration for the personage who had treated them with such scant courtesy. They saw before them a man somewhat above the middle height, who might have served an aspiring sculptor as a perfect model for a chieftain of old Gaul, or a dauntless Viking. His frame was firmly and powerfully built, and seemed to be exceptionally strong and muscular; yet an air of almost courtly grace pervaded his movements, making each att.i.tude he a.s.sumed more or less picturesque. He was broad-shouldered and deep-chested; his face was full and healthily colored, while his head was truly magnificent. Well-poised and shapely, it indicated power, will, and wisdom; and was furthermore adorned by a rough, thick ma.s.s of snow-white hair that shone in the sunlight like spun silver. His beard was short and curly, trimmed after the fashion of the warriors of old Rome; and, from under his fierce, fuzzy, grey eyebrows, a pair of sentinel eyes, that were keen, clear, and bold as an eagle"s, looked out with a watchful steadiness--steadiness that like the sharp edge of a diamond, seemed warranted to cut through the brittle gla.s.s of a lie. Judging by his outward appearance, his age might have been guessed at as between fifty-eight and sixty, but he was, in truth, seventy-two, and more strong, active, and daring than many another man whose years are not counted past the thirties. He was curiously attired, after something of the fashion of the Highlander, and something yet more of the ancient Greek, in a tunic, vest, and loose jacket all made of reindeer skin, thickly embroidered with curious designs worked in coa.r.s.e thread and colored beads; while thrown carelessly over his shoulders and knotted at his waist, was a broad scarf of white woollen stuff, or _wadmel_, very soft-looking and warm. In his belt he carried a formidable hunting-knife, and as he faced the two intruders on his ground, he rested one hand lightly yet suggestively on a weighty staff of pine, which was notched all over with quaint letters and figures, and terminated in a curved handle at the top. He waited for the young man to speak, and finding they remained silent, he glanced at them half angrily and again repeated his words--

"I am the _bonde_,--Olaf Guldmar. Speak your business and take your departure; my time is brief!"

Lorimer looked up with his usual nonchalance,--a faint smile playing about his lips. He saw at once that the old farmer was not a man to be trifled with, and he raised his cap with a ready grace as he spoke.

"Fact is," he said frankly, "we"ve no business here at all--not the least in the world. We are perfectly aware of it! We are trespa.s.sers, and we know it. Pray don"t be hard on us, Mr.--Mr. Guldmar!"

The _bonde_ glanced him over with a quick lightening of the eyes, and the suspicion of a smile in the depths of his curly beard. He turned to Errington.

"Is this true? You came here on purpose, knowing the ground was private property?"

Errington, in his turn, lifted his cap from his cl.u.s.tering brown curls with that serene and stately court manner which was to him second nature.

"We did," he confessed, quietly following Lorimer"s cue, and seeing also that it was best to be straightforward. "We heard you spoken of in Bosekop, and we came to see if you would permit us the honor of your acquaintance."

The old man struck his pine-staff violently into the ground, and his face flushed wrathfully.

"Bosekop!" he exclaimed. "Talk to me of a wasp"s nest! Bosekop! You shall hear of me there enough to satisfy your appet.i.te for news.

Bosekop! In the days when my race ruled the land, such people as they that dwell there would have been put to sharpen my sword on the grindstone, or to wait, hungry and humble, for the refuse of the food left from my table!"

He spoke with extraordinary heat and pa.s.sion,--it was evidently necessary to soothe him. Lorimer took a covert glance backward over his shoulder towards the lattice window, and saw that the white figure at the spinning-wheel had disappeared.

"My dear Mr. Guldmar," he then said with polite fervor, "I a.s.sure you I think the Bosekop folk by no means deserve to sharpen your sword on the grindstone, or to enjoy the remains of your dinner! Myself, I despise them! My friend here, Sir Philip Errington, despises them--don"t you, Phil?"

Errington nodded demurely.

"What my friend said just now is perfectly true," continued Lorimer. "We desire the honor of your acquaintance,--it will charm and delight us above all things!"

And his face beamed with a candid, winning, boyish smile, which was very captivating in its own way, and which certainly had its effect on the old _bonde_, for his tone softened, though he said gravely--

"My acquaintance, young men, is never sought by any. Those who are wise, keep away from me. I love not strangers, it is best you should know it.

I freely pardon your trespa.s.s; take your leave, and go in peace."

The two friends exchanged disconsolate looks. There really seemed nothing for it, but to obey this unpleasing command. Errington made one more venture.

"May I hope, Mr. Guldmar," he said with persuasive courtesy, "that you will break through your apparent rule of seclusion for once and visit me on board my yacht? You have no doubt seen her--the _Eulalie_--she lies at anchor in the Fjord."

The _bonde_ looked him straight in the eyes. "I have seen her. A fair toy vessel to amuse an idle young man"s leisure! You are he that in that fool"s hole of a Bosekop, is known as the "rich Englishman,"--an idle trifler with time,--an aimless wanderer from those dull sh.o.r.es where they eat gold till they die of surfeit! I have heard of you,--a mushroom knight, a fungus of n.o.bility,--an ephemeral growth on a grand decaying old tree, whose roots lie buried in the annals of a far forgotten past."

The rich, deep voice of the old man quivered as he spoke, and a shadow of melancholy flitted across his brow. Errington listened with unruffled patience. He heard himself, his pleasures, his wealth, his rank, thus made light of, without the least offense. He met the steady gaze of the _bonde_ quietly, and slightly bent his head as though in deference to his remarks.

"You are quite right," he said simply. "We modern men are but pigmies compared with the giants of old time. Royal blood itself is tainted nowadays. But, for myself, I attach no importance to the mere appurtenances of life,--the baggage that accompanies one on that brief journey. Life itself is quite enough for me."

"And for me too," averred Lorimer, delighted that his friend had taken the old farmer"s scornful observations so good-naturedly. "But, do you know, Mr. Guldmar, you are making life unpleasant for us just now, by turning us out? The conversation is becoming interesting! Why not prolong it? We have no friends in Bosekop, and we are to anchor here for some days. Surely you will allow us to come and see you again?"

Olaf Guldmar was silent. He advanced a step nearer, and studied them both with such earnest and searching scrutiny, that as they remembered the real attraction that had drawn them thither, the conscious blood mounted to their faces, flushing Errington"s forehead to the very roots of his curly brown hair. Still the old man gazed as though he sought to read their very souls. He muttered something to himself in Norwegian, and, finally, to their utter astonishment, he drew his hunting-knife from its sheath, and with a rapid, wild gesture, threw it on the ground and placed his foot upon it.

"Be it so!" he said briefly. "I cover the blade! You are men; like men you speak truth. As such, I receive you! Had you told me a lie concerning your coming here,--had you made pretense of having lost your way, or other such shifty evasion, your path would never have again crossed mine. As it is,--welcome!"

And he held out his hand with a sort of royal dignity, still resting one foot on the fallen weapon. The young men, struck by his action and gratified by his change of manner and the genial expression that now softened his rugged features, were quick to respond to his friendly greeting, and the _bonde_, picking up and re-sheathing his hunting-knife as if he had done nothing at all out of the common, motioned them towards the very window on which their eyes had been so long and so ardently fixed.

"Come!" he said. "You must drain a cup of wine with me before you leave.

Your unguided footsteps led you by the wrong path,--I saw your boat moored to my pier, and wondered who had been venturesome enough to trample through my woodland. I might have guessed that only a couple of idle boys like yourselves, knowing no better, would have pushed their way to a spot that all worthy dwellers in Bosekop, and all true followers of the Lutheran devilry, avoid as though the plague were settled in it."

And the old man laughed, a splendid, mellow laugh, with the ring of true jollity in it,--a laugh that was infectious, for Errington and Lorimer joined in it heartily without precisely knowing why. Lorimer, however, thought it seemly to protest against the appellation "idle boys."

"What do you take us for, sir?" he said with lazy good-nature. "I carry upon my shoulders the sorrowful burden of twenty-six years,--Philip, there, is painfully conscious of being thirty,--may we not therefore dispute the word "boys" as being derogatory to our dignity? You called us "men" a while ago,--remember that!"

Olaf Guldmar laughed again. His suspicious gravity had entirely disappeared, leaving his face a beaming mirror of beneficence and good-humor.

"So you _are_ men," he said cheerily, "men in the bud, like leaves on a tree. But you seem boys to a tough old stump of humanity such as I am.

That is my way,--my child Thelma, though they tell me she is a woman grown, is always a babe to me. "Tis one of the many privileges of the old, to see the world about them always young and full of children."

And he led the way past the wide-open lattice, where they could dimly perceive the spinning-wheel standing alone, as though thinking deeply of the fair hands that had lately left it idle, and so round to the actual front of the house, which was exceedingly picturesque, and literally overgrown with roses from ground to roof. The entrance door stood open;--it was surrounded by a wide, deep porch richly carved and grotesquely ornamented, having two comfortable seats within it, one on each side. Through this they went, involuntarily brushing down as they pa.s.sed, a shower of pink and white rose-leaves, and stepped into a wide pa.s.sage, where upon walls of dark, polished pine, hung a large collection of curiously shaped weapons, all of primitive manufacture, such as stone darts and rough axes, together with bows and arrows and two-handled swords, huge as the fabled weapon of William Wallace.

Opening a door to the right the _bonde_ stood courteously aside and bade them enter, and they found themselves in the very apartment where they had seen the maiden spinning.

"Sit down, sit down!" said their host hospitably. "We will have wine directly, and Thelma shall come hither. Thelma! Thelma! Where is the child? She wanders. .h.i.ther and thither like a mountain sprite. Wait here, my lads, I shall return directly."

And he strode away, leaving Errington and Lorimer delighted at the success of their plans, yet somewhat abashed too. There was a peace and gentle simplicity about the little room in which they were, that touched the chivalrous sentiment in their natures and kept them silent. On one side of it, half a dozen broad shelves supported a goodly row of well-bound volumes, among which the time-honored golden names of Shakespeare and Scott glittered invitingly, together with such works as Chapman"s Homer, Byron"s "Childe Harold," the Poems of John Keats, Gibbon"s Rome, and Plutarch; while mingled with these were the devotional works in French of Alphonse de Liguori, the "Imitation," also in French,--and a number of books with t.i.tles in Norwegian,--altogether an heterogenous collection of literature, yet not without interest as displaying taste and culture on the part of those to whom it belonged.

Errington, himself learned in books, was surprised to see so many standard works in the library of one who professed to be nothing but a Norwegian farmer, and his respect for the st.u.r.dy old _bonde_ increased.

There were no pictures in the room,--the wide lattice window on one hand, looking out on the roses and pine-wood, and the other smaller one, close to the entrance door, from which the Fjord was distinctly visible, were sufficient pictures in themselves, to need no others. The furniture was roughly made of pine, and seemed to have been carved by hand,--some of the chairs were very quaint and pretty and would have sold in a bric-a-brac shop for more than a sovereign apiece. On the wide mantle-shelf was a quant.i.ty of curious old china that seemed to have been picked up from all parts of the world,--most of it was undoubtedly valuable. In one dark corner stood an ancient harp; then there was the spinning-wheel,--itself a curiosity fit for a museum,--testifying dumbly of the mistress of all these surroundings, and on the floor there was something else,--something that both the young men were strongly inclined to take possession of. It was only a bunch of tiny meadow daisies, fastened together with a bit of blue silk. It had fallen,--they guessed by whom it had been worn,--but neither made any remark, and both, by some strange instinct, avoided looking at it, as though the innocent little blossoms carried within them some terrible temptation.

They were conscious of a certain embarra.s.sment, and making an effort to break through it, Lorimer remarked softly--

"By Jove, Phil, if this old Guldmar really knew what you are up to, I believe he would bundle you out of this place like a tramp! Didn"t you feel a sneak when he said we had told the truth like men?"