CHAPTER XI.

Magnhild and Roennaug came arm in arm out of the wood where Roennaug had finally been obliged to seek her friend, where so many confidences had been made, so much discussed and considered. They emerged into the open plain. How blue the haze about the mountains! And this was the frame for the pine forest, the surrounding heather, and the plain with Miss Roland and the child. The latter were sitting on blue and red rugs near the carriage. From this foreground the mother's eye wandered away more musingly than ever, and gained even stronger impressions of outline, light, color.

"The summer travels in Norway! The summer travels in Norway!" she kept saying to herself.

From the way in which she uttered these words it might be surmised that in the entire English vocabulary there was nothing which admitted of being repeated with such varied shades of meaning.

The two friends took a long ramble. Magnhild had become a new being to Roennaug, her individuality enriched, her countenance illumined and thus transformed. For nearly five years Magnhild had been secretly brooding over her lost vocation, and her lost love, those two sisters that had lived and died together. At length she had opened her heart to another; thus something had been accomplished.

The horses were now hitched to the carriage, and the party drove on. The noonday repose of nature was not disturbed by so much as the rumbling of the wheels, for the carriage wound its way slowly over the mountain slopes.

At the next post-station the following lines were found in the register:--

"There met us croaking ravens on our way: We knew that Evil this to us did bode; We made no off'rings, though, as on we rode, To angry gods--the mild are fall of doubt. Why should we care? One God to us feels kindly. He is with us! And Him we follow blindly:-- We laugh at all the omens round about."

These little verses began to affect the party like a chorus of birds.

But a joy to which we are unattuned is apt to jar; and here, moreover, the verses became prophetic, for the travelers had gone but a short distance when they gained a view of the church steeple on the heights where Magnhild's parents and brothers and sisters were buried, and of the stony ground in the mountain to the left where the home of her childhood had been situated.

This barren patch of stones always rose up distinctly in Magnhild's mind when she thought of her own life, whose long desert wastes seemed to lay stretched out before her like just such a heap of ruins. Here it faced her once more. It was some time before the consolation she had newly grasped could find expression, for she was haunted by so much that was unsolved, so much that was doubtful. She was now approaching the starting-point of the whole; from the brow of the hill the parsonage was visible.

It had been agreed that they should stop here. The carriage rolled down toward the friendly gard through an avenue of birch-trees. Roennaug was giving Miss Roland a most humorous description of the family at the parsonage when suddenly they were all terrified by having the carriage nearly upset. Just by the turn near the house-steps the coachman had driven against a large stone which lay with its lower side protruding into the road. Both Roennaug and Miss Roland uttered a little shriek, but when they escaped without an accident they laughed. To their delight Magnhild joined in their laughter. Trifling as had been the occurrence, it had served to rouse her. She was surprised to find herself at the parsonage. And this stone? Ah, how many hundred vehicles had not driven over it! Would it ever be removed, though? There stood old Andreas, old Soeren, old Knut? There, too, was old Ane, looking out! From the sitting-room came the sound of a dog's bark.

"Have they a dog?" asked Magnhild.

"If they have," replied Roennaug, "I will venture to say it came through its own enterprise."

Old Ane took the luggage, Roennaug the child, and the whole party was ushered through the passage into the sitting-room, where no one was found except the dog. He was a great shaggy fellow, who at the first kind word relinquished his wrath, and in a leisurely way went from one to the other, snuffing and wagging his tail, then sauntering back to the stove, lay down, fat and comfortable.

A creaking and a grating could now be heard overhead; the priest was rising from the sofa. How well Magnhild knew the music of those springs! The dog knew it too, and started up, ready to follow his master. But the latter, who was soon heard on the groaning wooden stairs, did not go out but came into the sitting-room, so the dog only greeted him, and wagging his tail went back to the stove, where he rolled over with a sigh after his excessive exertion.

The priest was unchanged in every possible particular. He had heard about Roennaug, and was glad to see her; his plump hands closed with a long friendly clasp about hers and with a still longer one about Magnhild's. He greeted Miss Roland and played with the child, who was in high glee over the unfamiliar objects in the room, especially the dog.

And when he had lighted his pipe and had seated the others and himself on the embroidered chairs and sofas, the first thing he must tell them (for it was just about a month since the matter had been successfully terminated) was that the "little girls" were provided for. There had been secured for each an annuity. It was really on the most astonishingly favorable terms. God in his inconceivable mercy had been so good to them. About the "Froeken" (so the former governess was usually called), they had had greater cause for anxiety. They had, indeed, thought of doing something for her, too, although their means would scarcely have sufficed to make adequate provision for her, and she had grown too unwieldy to support herself. But God in his inscrutable mercy had not forgotten her. She no longer needed an annuity. She had gone to make a visit at the house of a relative not many miles distant, and while there God had called her to Himself; the journey had been too much for her. This intelligence had reached the parsonage a few days before, and the priest was in great uncertainty as to whether a bridal couple would postpone their wedding for a few days.

"Thus it is, dear Magnhild, in life's vicissitudes," said he. "The one is summoned to the grave, the other to the marriage feast. Ah, yes! But what a pretty dress you have on, my child! Skarlie is truly a good husband to you. This cannot be denied."

The mistress of the house and her two daughters at length appeared. The moistened hair, the clean linen, the freshly ironed dresses, betokened newly-made toilets. They had not a word to say; the priest took charge of the conversation, they merely courtesied as they shook hands, and then, taking up their embroidery, sat down each on her own embroidered chair. One of the daughters, however, soon rose and whispered something to her mother; from the direction in which first her eyes then her mother's wandered, it might be concluded that she had asked whether the gauze covers should be removed from the mirror, the pictures, and the few plaster figures in the room. As the girl at once took her seat again, it must have been decided that the covers should not be removed.

"Tell me about the Froeken who is dead," said Magnhild.

With one accord the three ladies dropped their embroidery and raised their heads.

"She died of apoplexy," said the priest's wife.

They all sat motionless for a moment, and then the ladies continued their embroidery.

The priest rose to let the dog out. The animal departed with the appearance of being excessively abashed, for which the priest gave him much praise. Then followed a lengthy account of the dog's virtues. He had come to them three years ago, the Lord alone knew from where, and He alone knew why the dog had come to the parsonage; for the very next summer the animal had saved the "Froeken's" life when she was attacked on her accustomed walk to the church by Ole Bjoergan's mad bull.

The third great event, that old Andreas had cut his foot, was next detailed at quite as great length. The priest was just telling what old Andreas had said when he, the priest, was helping him to the couch, when the narrative was interrupted by an humble scratching at the door; it came, of course, from the dog. The corpulent priest rose forthwith to admit the animal, and bestowed on him kind words of admonition, which were accepted with a timid wagging of the tail.

The dog glanced round the room; observing that the eyes of the priest's wife manifestly rested with especial friendliness on him, he walked up to her, and licked the hand extended to him.

At this moment Magnhild rose, and abruptly crossing the floor to where the priest's wife sat, she stroked her hair. She felt that every one was watching her, and that the mistress of the house herself was looking up in embarrassed surprise,--and Magnhild was now powerless to explain what she had done. She hastened from the room. Profound silence reigned among those left behind.

What was it? What had happened? It was _this_: in the forenoon Magnhild had received a letter, as we know, and it had caused her to look with new eyes on the life at the parsonage.

The tedium seemed uplifted, and behind it she beheld a kindness and an innocence she had always overlooked. And she began to understand the character of that home.

There was not a word in the priest's narratives, from beginning to end, designed to call attention to the good he or any of his household had done. The listener was left to find this out for himself. But the dog had discovered it before Magnhild.

The dog returned thanks; had she ever done so? The thought had rushed over her with such force that it caused her to feel an irresistible impulse to express her gratitude. The universal astonishment caused by her effort to do so made her for the first time realize how unaccustomed her friends were to thanks, or indication of thanks from her, and she became frightened. This was the reason why she had left the room.

She took the road leading up toward the church, perhaps because it had just been mentioned. Her new views wholly absorbed her. Until now she had seen only the ludicrous side of the life at the parsonage. The members of the household had provoked, amused, or wearied her. But hitherto she had not been aware that what had just been praised in herself had been gained by her in this household whose influences had spread themselves protectingly over her soul, just as the embroidery was spread over the furniture in these rooms. Had all the weaknesses of the house served Skarlie as a means to ensnare her, in this same house she had acquired the strength wherewith to resist his power until the present time.

If she had lived here without forming close relations with any one, the fault lay not alone in the monotonous routine of the house: it was due chiefly to herself, for even in the days of her life at the parsonage she had wrapped herself up in dreams. It must have required all the forbearance by which the family were characterized to bring her, notwithstanding all this, to the point she had reached. In any other family she would have been shown the door--dull, awkward, thankless as she had been.

Yes, thankless! Whom had she ever thanked? Aye, there was one--him who had done her the most harm but also the most good; for him she loved. But this could scarcely be counted.

But whom else? Not Skarlie, although he had been incessantly kind to her, even he. Not Fru Bang, and how kind she had been! Not Roennaug; no, not Roennaug either.

She was appalled. For the first time in her life she held true communion with herself, and she had done little else all her life than commune with herself.

Now she comprehended, although once before she had been startled by a passing thought of the kind; now for the first time she comprehended what it must have been to Roennaug after having longed for so many years to tell her about the rich change in her own life, to show her her child, to bring her freedom and increased happiness; and then to find a person who did not even care to take the trouble to walk to the hotel, not a hundred steps distant, because, forsooth, it would necessitate her dressing herself.

She sat once more on the heights facing the ruins of the home of her parents; and she covered her face in shame.

From the thoughts to which this spot gave birth she did not escape until evening, weary in body and in soul.

When late in the evening she said good-night to Roennaug, she threw her arm round her, and leaned her head against hers. But words refused to come; they are not easily found the first time they are sought.