Part 9 (1/2)

”She wove him a wreath of all flowers round: 'All I have found.'

She wept, but she gathered and wove on still: 'Take all you will.'

Without a word he took it, and fled across the hill.

'On Midsummer Day,' etc.

”She wove on, bewildered and out of breath: 'My bridal wreath.'

She wove till her fingers aweary had grown: 'Now put it on.'

But when she turned to see him, she found that he had gone.

'On Midsummer Day,' etc.

”She wove on in haste, as for life and death, Her bridal wreath; But the Midsummer sun no longer shone, And the flowers were gone; But though she had no flowers, wild fancy still wove on.

'On Midsummer-Day There is dancing and play; But now I know not whether she weaves her wreath or nay.”[18]

It was his own intense melancholy that called forth the first image of love that glided so gloomily through his soul. A twofold longing,--to have some one to love and to become something great,--blended together and became one. At this time he was working again at the song, ”Over the lofty mountains,” altering it, and all the while singing and thinking quietly to himself, ”Surely I will get 'over' some day; I will sing until I gain courage.” He did not forget his mother in these his thoughts of roving; indeed, he took comfort in the thought that as soon as he got firm foothold in the strange land, he would come back after her, and offer her conditions which he never could be able to provide for her at home. But in the midst of all these mighty yearnings there played something calm, cheering, refined, that darted away and came again, took hold and fled, and, dreamer that he had become, he was more in the power of these spontaneous thoughts than he himself was aware.

There lived in the parish a jovial man whose name was Ejnar Aasen. When he was twenty years old he had broken his leg; since then he had walked with a cane; but wherever he came hobbling along, there was always mirth afoot. The man was rich. On his property there was a large nut-wood, and there was sure to be a.s.sembled, on one of the brightest, pleasantest days in autumn, a group of merry girls gathering nuts. At these nutting-parties he had plenty of feasting for his guests all day, and dancing in the evening. For most of these girls he had been G.o.dfather; indeed, he was the G.o.dfather of half the parish; all the children called him G.o.dfather, and from them every one else, both old and young, learned to do so.

G.o.dfather and Arne were well acquainted, and he liked the young man because of the verses he made. Now G.o.dfather asked Arne to come to the nutting-party. Arne blushed and declined; he was not used to being with girls, he said.

”Then you must get used to it,” replied G.o.dfather.

Arne could not sleep at night because of this; fear and yearning were at war within him; but whatever the result might be, he went along, and was about the only youth among all these girls. He could not deny that he felt disappointed; they were neither those he had sung about, nor those he had feared to meet. There was an excitement and merriment, the like of which he had never known before, and the first thing that struck him was that they could laugh over nothing in the world; and if three laughed, why, then, five laughed, simply because those three laughed.

They all acted as though they were members of the same household; and yet many of them had not met before that day. If they caught the bough they were jumping after, they laughed at that, and if they did not catch it, they laughed at that, too. They fought for the hook to draw it down with; those who got it laughed, and those who did not get it, laughed also. G.o.dfather hobbled after them with his cane, and offered all the hindrance in his power. Those whom he caught laughed because he caught them, and those whom he did not catch laughed because he did not catch them. But they all laughed at Arne for being sober, and when he tried to laugh, they laughed, because he was laughing at last.

They seated themselves finally on a large hill, G.o.dfather in the centre, and all the girls around him. The hill commanded a fine outlook; the sun scorched; but the girls heeded it not, they sat, casting nut-husks and sh.e.l.ls at one another, giving the kernels to G.o.dfather. He tried to quiet them at last, striking at them with his cane, as far as he could reach; for now he wanted them to tell stories, above all, something amusing. But to get them started seemed more difficult than to stop a carriage on a hill-side. G.o.dfather began himself. There were many who did not want to listen; for they knew already everything he had to tell; but they all ended by listening attentively. Before they knew what they were about, they sat in the centre, and each took her turn in following his example as best she could. Now Arne was much astonished to find that just in proportion to the noise the girls had made before was the gravity of the stories they now told. Love was the chief theme of these.

”But you, Aasa, have a good one; I remember that from last year,” said G.o.dfather, turning to a plump girl with a round, pleasant face, who sat braiding the hair of a younger sister, whose head was in her lap.

”Several that are here may know that,” said she.

”Well, give it to us anyway,” they begged.

”I will not have to be urged long,” said she, and, still braiding, she told and sang, as follows:--

”There was a grown-up youth who tended cattle, and he was in the habit of driving his herds upward, along the banks of a broad stream. High up on his way, there was a crag which hung out so far over the stream, that when he stood on it he could call out to any one on the other side. For on the other side of the stream there was a herd-girl whom he could see all day long, but he could not come over to her.

'Now, tell me thy name, thou girl that art sitting, Up there with thy sheep, so busily knitting?'

he asked, over and over again, for many days, until at last one day there came the answer,--

'My name floats about like a duck in wet weather;-- Come over, thou boy in the cap of brown leather.'

”But this made the youth no wiser than before, and he thought he would pay no further heed to the girl. This was not so easy, though, for, let him drive the cattle where he would, he was always drawn back to the crag. Then the youth grew alarmed, and called over:--

'Well, who is your father, and where are you biding?

On the road to the church I have ne'er seen you riding.'

”The youth more than half believed her, in fact, to be a hulder.[19]