The Modern Vikings

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

I

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 capercailzie8 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.”