Part 61 (1/2)

But that is not hard, nor uncomfortable, when ye love somebody?' she added, her sweet eyes going back to Wych Hazel.

The girl shook her head.

'I never loved anybody, then. Unless mamma,' she answered.

'Lady, do ye know those words in your Bible--”He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty?” Giving up yourself to G.o.d will put ye just there! And then--”He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under His wings shalt thou trust.” '

It is one thing to hear these words sonorously read in church, or to run one's eye over them in a perfunctory manner. To see Gyda speak them, with the accent and air of one undeniably proving the truth of them, that was another thing.

'There may be yet a difficulty, Gyda,' said Rollo.

'What is't?'

'One may not know just how to get there, even after you have shewed the way.'

Rollo was not speaking lightly; but Gyda as she went back to her seat only answered,

'Ye can always ask.'

'Whom would you bid me ask, Gyda? I would about as lieve come to you as anybody, if I wanted counsel.'

'Give yourself to G.o.d, lad, and ye'll know there's but One to ask of. And there's but One before that, if ye want real help.'

There was a minute's pause; and then Rollo asked what Gyda had for him to do. 'Not yet,' she answered; and with that left the room. Rollo brought his chair to Wych Hazel's side.

'She is going to get you some supper,' he said, with a smile.

'No, it will be all for you,--and you will give me part of it.

I should think you would come here very often, Mr. Rollo.'

'Do you?' said he, looking pleased. 'That shews I did right to bring you here. Now you'll have a Norse supper--the first you ever had. Gyda is Norse herself, I told you; she is a Tellemarken woman. If we were in Norway now, there would be in the further end of this room two huge cribs, which would be the sleeping place for the whole family. Overhead would be fis.h.i.+ng nets hanging from the rafters, and a rack with a dozen or more rifles and fowling-pieces. On the walls you would see collars for reindeer, powder-horns and daggers. Gyda's spinning-wheel _is_ here, you see; and her stove, besides the fireplace for cooking. Her dairy is a separate building, after Norway fas.h.i.+on, and so is her summer kitchen, where I know she is this minute, making porridge. Can you eat porridge?'

'Truly I cannot say, Mr. Rollo. But I do not often ”thwart”

myself--as you may have observed. Does the absence of Norse blood make the fact doubtful?'

'Norse habit, say rather,' said Rollo, shaking his head; 'Norse habit, induced by Norse necessity. In many a Norwegian homestead you would get little besides porridge, often. But Gyda likes it, and so do I. At any rate, it is invariable for a Norse meal, in this house. It is one of the things which can be transplanted. Gyda would have enjoyed a row of reindeer's horns bristling along the eaves of her cottage; but I told her the boys of the Hollow would not leave them long if I set them there.'

'But you are half Danish,' said Wych Hazel. 'And was it for love of Denmark that you got your name?'

'Which name? If you please?'

'You know,' said Wych Hazel, with a shy blush, as if it were a sort of freedom for her to know and speak it, 'they call you, ”Dane Rollo.” '

'That's not my name, though,' said he, smiling. 'I am no further a Dane than being born in Copenhagen makes me so. I am half Norse, and a quarter German; Denmark has given me a nickname,--that's all.'

'Then, if we were in Norway and this a considerable farmhouse, we should have pa.s.sed through an ante-room filled with all sorts of things. Meal chests, and tools, and thongs of leather, skins of animals and wild birds, snow shoes and casks and little sledges. Do you know,' he went on, 'if this were not the land of my father, I could find it in my heart to go and live in the land of my mother. It is a n.o.ble land, and it is a fine people. Feudal law never obtained footing there; every landholder held under no superior; and so there is a manly, genial independence in all the country-side, not found everywhere else.'

He went on for some little time to give Wych Hazel pictures of the scenery, unlike all she had ever known. He knew and loved it well, and his sketches were given graphically. In the midst of this Gyda came in again; and Rollo broke off, and asked her, laughingly, if she had any 'fladbrod.'

'Fresh,' she said. 'Olaf, can't you get her some peaches?'

Rollo went off; and the old woman began to set her table with bowls and plates and spoons; an oddly carved little tub of b.u.t.ter, and a pile of thin brown cakes. Having done this, and Rollo not returning, on the contrary seeming to have found more than peach trees to detain him, for the sound of hammer was heard at intervals, the old woman came and stood by Wych Hazel again. The straw hat was off; and she eyed in a tender kind of way, wistful too, the fair young face.