The Modern Vikings

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

I

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.”