Ticket No. "9672"

CHAPTER XIV.

The day that Sylvius Hogg left Bergen proved an event­ful one at the inn.

Af­ter the pro­fes­sor's de­par­ture the house seemed de­sert­ed. It al­most seemed as if the kind friend of the young Hansens had tak­en away with him, not on­ly the last hope, but the life of the fam­ily, and left on­ly a char­nel-​house be­hind him.

Dur­ing the two days that fol­lowed no guests pre­sent­ed them­selves at the inn. Joel had no oc­ca­sion to ab­sent him­self, con­se­quent­ly, but could re­main with Hul­da, whom he was very un­will­ing to leave alone with her own thoughts.

Dame Hansen seemed to be­come more and more a prey to se­cret anx­iety. She seemed to feel no in­ter­est in any­thing con­nect­ed with her chil­dren, not even in the loss of the “Viking.” She lived a life apart, re­main­ing shut up in her own room, and ap­pear­ing on­ly at meal-​time. When she did ad­dress a word to Hul­da or Joel it was on­ly to re­proach them di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly on the sub­ject of the lot­tery-​tick­et, which nei­ther of them felt will­ing to dis­pose of at any price. Of­fers for the tick­et con­tin­ued to pour in from ev­ery cor­ner of the globe. A pos­itive ma­nia seemed to have seized cer­tain brains. Such a tick­et must cer­tain­ly be pre­des­tined to win the prize of one hun­dred thou­sand marks--there could be no doubt of it, so said ev­ery one. A per­son would have sup­posed there was but one tick­et in the lot­tery, and that the num­ber of it was 9672. The Manch­ester man and the Bosto­ni­an were still at the head of the list. The En­glish­man had out­bid his ri­val by a few pounds, but he, in turn, was soon dis­tanced by an ad­vance of sev­er­al hun­dred dol­lars. The last bid was one of eight thou­sand marks--and it could be ex­plained on­ly as the re­sult of pos­itive mad­ness, un­less it was a ques­tion of na­tion­al pride on this part of an Amer­ican and an En­glish­man.

How­ev­er this may have been Hul­da re­fused all these of­fers, and her con­duct ex­cit­ed the bit­ter dis­ap­proval of Dame Hansen.

“What if I should or­der you to sell this tick­et? Yes, or­der you to sell it,” she said to her daugh­ter one day.

“I should be very sor­ry, moth­er, but I should be obliged to refuse.”

“But if it should be­come ab­so­lute­ly nec­es­sary, what then?”

“But how can that be pos­si­ble?” asked Joel.

Dame Hansen made no re­ply. She had turned very pale on hear­ing this straight­for­ward ques­tion, and now with­drew, mut­ter­ing some in­co­her­ent words.

“There is cer­tain­ly some­thing wrong,” re­marked Joel. “There must be some dif­fi­cul­ty be­tween moth­er and Sand­go­ist.”

“Yes, broth­er, we must be pre­pared for some se­ri­ous com­pli­ca­tions in the fu­ture.”

“Have we not suf­fered enough dur­ing the past few weeks, my poor Hul­da? What fresh catas­tro­phe threat­ens us?”

“How long Mon­sieur Sylvius stays!” ex­claimed Hul­da, with­out pay­ing any ap­par­ent heed to the ques­tion. “When he is here I feel less de­spon­dent.”

“And yet, what can he do for us?” replied Joel.

What could there have been in Dame Hansen's past that she was un­will­ing to con­fide to her chil­dren? What fool­ish pride pre­vent­ed her from re­veal­ing to them the cause of her dis­qui­etude? Had she any re­al cause to re­proach her­self? And on the oth­er hand, why did she en­deav­or to in­flu­ence her daugh­ter in re­gard to Ole Kamp's tick­et, and the price that was to be set up­on it? Why did she seem so ea­ger to dis­pose of it, or rather, to se­cure the mon­ey that had been of­fered for it? Hul­da and Joel were about to learn.

On the morn­ing of the 4th Joel es­cort­ed his sis­ter to the lit­tle chapel where she went ev­ery morn­ing to pray for the lost one. Her broth­er al­ways wait­ed for her, and ac­com­pa­nied her back to the house.

That day, on re­turn­ing, they both per­ceived Dame Hansen in the dis­tance, walk­ing rapid­ly in the di­rec­tion of the inn. She was not alone. A man was walk­ing be­side her--a man who seemed to be talk­ing in a loud voice, and whose ges­tures were ve­he­ment and im­pe­ri­ous.

Hul­da and her broth­er both paused sud­den­ly.

“Who is that man?” in­quired Joel.

Hul­da ad­vanced a few steps.

“I know him,” she said at last.

“You know him?”

“Yes, it is Sand­go­ist.”

“Sand­go­ist, of Dram­men, who came here dur­ing my ab­sence?”

“Yes.”

“And who act­ed in such a lord­ly way that he would seem to have moth­er, and us, too, per­haps, in his pow­er?”

“The same, broth­er; and he has prob­ably come to make us feel his pow­er to-​day.”

“What pow­er? This time I will know the ob­ject of his vis­it.”

Joel con­trolled him­self, though not with­out an ev­ident ef­fort, and fol­lowed his sis­ter.

In a few mo­ments Dame Hansen and Sand­go­ist reached the door of the inn. Sand­go­ist crossed the thresh­old first; then the door closed up­on Dame Hansen and up­on him, and both of them en­tered the large par­lor.

As Joel and Hul­da ap­proached the house the threat­en­ing voice of Sand­go­ist be­came dis­tinct­ly au­di­ble. They paused and lis­tened; Dame Hansen was speak­ing now, but in en­treat­ing tones.

“Let us go in,” re­marked Joel.

Hul­da en­tered with a heavy heart; Joel was trem­bling with sup­pressed anger and im­pa­tience.

Sand­go­ist sat en­throned in the big arm-​chair. He did not even take the trou­ble to rise on the en­trance of the broth­er and sis­ter. He mere­ly turned his head and stared at them over his spec­ta­cles.

“Ah! here is the charm­ing Hul­da, if I'm not mis­tak­en,” he ex­claimed in a tone that in­censed Joel even more deeply.

Dame Hansen was stand­ing in front of the man in an hum­ble al­most cring­ing at­ti­tude, but she in­stant­ly straight­ened her­self up, and seemed great­ly an­noyed at the sight of her chil­dren.

“And this is her broth­er, I sup­pose?” added Sand­go­ist.

“Yes, her broth­er,” re­tort­ed Joel.

Then, ad­vanc­ing un­til with­in a few steps of the arm-​chair, he asked, brusque­ly:

“What do you want here?”

Sand­go­ist gave him a with­er­ing look; then, in a harsh voice, and with­out ris­ing, he replied:

“You will soon learn, young man. You hap­pen in just at the right time. I was anx­ious to see you, and if your sis­ter is a sen­si­ble girl we shall soon come to an un­der­stand­ing. But sit down, and you, too, young wom­an, had bet­ter do the same.”

Sand­go­ist seemed to be do­ing the hon­ors of his own house, and Joel in­stant­ly not­ed the fact.

“Ah, ha! you are dis­pleased! What a touchy young man you seem to be!”

“I am not par­tic­ular­ly touchy that I know of, but I don't feel in­clined to ac­cept ci­vil­ities from those who have no right to of­fer them.”

“Joel!” cried Dame Hansen.

“Broth­er, broth­er!” ex­claimed Hul­da, with an im­plor­ing look.

Joel made a vi­olent ef­fort to con­trol him­self, and to pre­vent him­self from yield­ing to his de­sire to throw this coarse wretch out of the win­dow, he re­tired to a cor­ner of the room.

“Can I speak now?” in­quired Sand­go­ist.

An af­fir­ma­tive sign from Dame Hansen was all the an­swer he ob­tained, but it seemed to be suf­fi­cient.

“What I have to say is this,” he be­gan, “and I would like all three of you to lis­ten at­ten­tive­ly, for I don't fan­cy be­ing obliged to re­peat my words.”

That he spoke like a per­son who had an in­dis­putable right to his own way was on­ly too ev­ident to each and ev­ery mem­ber of the par­ty.

“I have learned through the news­pa­pers,” he con­tin­ued, “of the mis­for­tune which has be­fall­en a cer­tain Ole Kamp--a young sea­man of Bergen--and of a lot­tery-​tick­et that he be­queathed to his be­trothed, Hul­da Hansen, just as his ship, the 'Viking,' was go­ing down. I have al­so learned that the pub­lic at large feels con­vinced that this will prove the for­tu­nate tick­et by rea­son of the pe­cu­liar cir­cum­stances un­der which it was found. I have al­so learned that some very lib­er­al of­fers for the pur­chase of this tick­et have been re­ceived by Hul­da Hansen.”

He was silent for a mo­ment, then:

“Is this true?” he added.

He was obliged to wait some time for an an­swer to this ques­tion.

“Yes, it is true,” replied Joel, at last. “And what of it, if you please?”

“These of­fers are, in my opin­ion, the re­sult of a most ab­surd and sense­less su­per­sti­tion,” con­tin­ued Sand­go­ist, “but for all that, they will con­tin­ue to be made, and to in­crease in amount, as the day ap­point­ed for the draw­ing ap­proach­es. Now, I am a busi­ness man my­self, and I have tak­en it in­to my head that I should like to have a hand in this lit­tle spec­ula­tion my­self, so I left Dram­men yes­ter­day to come to Dal to ar­range for the trans­fer of this tick­et, and to beg Dame Hansen to give me the pref­er­ence over all oth­er would-​be pur­chasers.”

Hul­da was about to make Sand­go­ist the same an­swer she had giv­en to all of­fers of this kind, though his re­marks had not been ad­dressed di­rect­ly to her, when Joel checked her.

“Be­fore re­ply­ing, I should like to ask Mon­sieur Sand­go­ist if he knows to whom this tick­et be­longs?” he said haugh­ti­ly.

“To Hul­da Hansen, I sup­pose.”

“Very well; then it is to Hul­da Hansen that this ap­pli­ca­tion should be ad­dressed.”

“My son!” hasti­ly in­ter­posed Dame Hansen.

“Let me fin­ish, moth­er,” con­tin­ued Joel. “This tick­et be­longed orig­inal­ly to our cousin, Ole Kamp, and had not Ole Kamp a per­fect right to be­queath it to his be­trothed?”

“Un­ques­tion­ably,” replied Sand­go­ist.

“Then it is to Hul­da Han­son that you must ap­ply, if you wish to pur­chase it.”

“So be it, Mas­ter For­mal­ity,” re­tort­ed Sand­go­ist. “I now ask Hul­da to sell me this tick­et Num­ber 9672 that Ole Kamp be­queathed to her.”

“Mon­sieur Sand­go­ist,” the young girl an­swered in firm but qui­et tones, “I have re­ceived a great many of­fers for this tick­et, but they have been made in vain. I shall say to you ex­act­ly what I have said to oth­ers. If my be­trothed sent me this tick­et with his last farewell up­on it it was be­cause he wished me to keep it, so I will not part with it at any price.”

Hav­ing said this Hul­da turned, as if to leave the room, ev­ident­ly sup­pos­ing that the con­ver­sa­tion so far as she was con­cerned had been ter­mi­nat­ed by her re­fusal, but at a ges­ture from her moth­er she paused.

An ex­cla­ma­tion of an­noy­ance had es­caped Dame Hansen, and Sand­go­ist's knit­ted brows and flash­ing eyes showed that anger was be­gin­ning to take pos­ses­sion of him.

“Yes, re­main, Hul­da,” said he. “This is not your fi­nal an­swer. If I in­sist it is be­cause I cer­tain­ly have a right to do so. Be­sides, I think I must have stat­ed the case bad­ly, or rather you must have mis­un­der­stood me. It is cer­tain that the chances of this tick­et have not in­creased be­cause the hand of a ship­wrecked sea­man placed it in a bot­tle and it was sub­se­quent­ly re­cov­ered; still, the pub­lic sel­dom or nev­er rea­sons, and there is not the slight­est doubt that many per­sons de­sire to be­come the own­ers of it. They have al­ready of­fered to pur­chase it, and oth­er of­fers are sure to fol­low. It is sim­ply a busi­ness trans­ac­tion, I re­peat, and I have come to pro­pose a good trade to you.”

“You will have some dif­fi­cul­ty in com­ing to an un­der­stand­ing with my sis­ter, sir,” replied Joel, iron­ical­ly. “When you talk busi­ness to her she replies with sen­ti­ment.”

“That is all idle talk, young man,” replied Sand­go­ist. “When my ex­pla­na­tion is con­clud­ed you will see that how­ev­er ad­van­ta­geous the trans­ac­tion may be to me it will be equal­ly so to her. I may al­so add that it will be equal­ly so to her moth­er, Dame Hansen, who is per­son­al­ly in­ter­est­ed in the mat­ter.”

Joel and Hul­da ex­changed glances. Were they about to learn the se­cret Dame Hansen had so long con­cealed from them?

“I do not ask that this tick­et shall be sold to me for what Ole Kamp paid for it,” con­tin­ued Sand­go­ist. No! Right or wrong, it has cer­tain­ly ac­quired an in­creased fi­nan­cial val­ue, and I am will­ing to make a sac­ri­fice to be­come the own­er of it."

“You have al­ready been told that Hul­da has re­fused much bet­ter of­fers than yours,” replied Joel.

“In­deed!” ex­claimed Sand­go­ist. “Much bet­ter of­fers, you say. How do you know?”

“What­ev­er your of­fer may be, my sis­ter re­fus­es it, and I ap­prove of her de­ci­sion.”

“Ah! am I deal­ing with Joel or Hul­da Hansen, pray?”

“My sis­ter and I are one,” re­tort­ed Joel. “It would be well for you to be­come sat­is­fied of this fact, as you seem to be ig­no­rant of it.”

Sand­go­ist shrugged his shoul­ders, but with­out be­ing at all dis­con­cert­ed, for like a man who is sure of his ar­gu­ments, he replied:

“When I spoke of the price I was will­ing to pay for the tick­et, I ought to have told you that I could of­fer in­duce­ments which Hul­da Hansen can hard­ly re­ject if she takes any in­ter­est in the wel­fare of her fam­ily.”

“In­deed?”

“Yes, and it would be well for you, young man, to un­der­stand, in your turn, that I did not come to Dal to beg your sis­ter to sell me this tick­et. No, a thou­sand times no.”

“For what, then?”

“I do not ask for it, I de­mand it. I will have it.”

“And by what right?” ex­claimed Joel, “and how dare you, a stranger, speak in this way in my moth­er's house?”

“By the right ev­ery man has to speak as he pleas­es, and when he pleas­es, in his own house,” re­tort­ed Sand­go­ist.

“In his own house?”

Joel, in his in­dig­na­tion, stepped threat­en­ing­ly to­ward Sand­go­ist, who, though not eas­ily fright­ened, sprung hasti­ly out of his arm-​chair. But Hul­da laid a de­tain­ing hand up­on her broth­er's arm, while Dame Hansen, bury­ing her face in her hands, re­treat­ed to the oth­er end of the room.

“Broth­er, look at her!” whis­pered the young girl.

Joel paused sud­den­ly. A glance at his moth­er par­alyzed him. Her very at­ti­tude re­vealed how en­tire­ly Dame Hansen was in this scoundrel's pow­er.

Sand­go­ist, see­ing Joel's hes­ita­tion, re­cov­ered his self-​pos­ses­sion, and re­sumed his for­mer seat.

“Yes, in his own house,” he con­tin­ued in a still more ar­ro­gant voice. “Ev­er since her hus­band's death, Dame Hansen has been en­gag­ing in un­suc­cess­ful spec­ula­tions. Af­ter los­ing the small for­tune your fa­ther left at his death, she was obliged to bor­row mon­ey of a Chris­tia­nia banker, of­fer­ing this house as se­cu­ri­ty for a loan of fif­teen thou­sand marks. About a year ago I pur­chased the mort­gage, and this house will con­se­quent­ly be­come my prop­er­ty--and very speed­ily--if I am not paid when this mort­gage be­comes due.”

“When is it due?” de­mand­ed Joel.

“On the 20th of Ju­ly, or eigh­teen days from now,” replied Sand­go­ist. “Then, whether you like it or not, I shall be in my own house here.”

“You will not be in your own house here un­til that date, even if you are not paid at that time,” re­tort­ed Joel, “and I for­bid you to speak as you have been do­ing in the pres­ence of my moth­er and sis­ter.”

“He for­bids me--me!” ex­claimed Sand­go­ist. “But how about his moth­er--what does she say?”

“Speak, moth­er!” cried Joel, ap­proach­ing Dame Hansen, and en­deav­or­ing to re­move her hands from her face.

“Joel, my broth­er,” ex­claimed Hul­da. “I en­treat you, for my sake, to be calm.”

Dame Hansen bowed her head up­on her breast, not dar­ing to meet her son's search­ing eyes. It was on­ly too true that she had been en­deav­or­ing to in­crease her for­tune by rash spec­ula­tions for sev­er­al years past. The small sum of mon­ey at her dis­pos­al had soon melt­ed away, and she had been obliged to bor­row at a high rate of in­ter­est. And now the mort­gage had passed in­to the hands of this Sand­go­ist--a heart­less and un­prin­ci­pled man--a well-​known usurer, who was hearti­ly de­spised through­out the coun­try. Dame Hansen, how­ev­er, had seen him for the first time when he came to Dal to sat­is­fy him­self in re­gard to the val­ue of the prop­er­ty.

This was the se­cret that had weighed so heav­ily up­on her. This, too, ex­plained her re­serve, for she had not dared to con­fide in her chil­dren. This was the se­cret she had sed­ulous­ly kept from those whose fu­ture she had blight­ed.

Hul­da scarce­ly dared to think of what she had just heard. Yes, Sand­go­ist was in­deed a mas­ter who had the pow­er to en­force his will! The tick­et he wished to pur­chase would prob­ably be worth noth­ing a fort­night hence, and if she did not con­sent to re­lin­quish it cer­tain ru­in would fol­low--their house would be sold over their heads, and the Hansen fam­ily would be home­less and pen­ni­less.

Hul­da dared not even glance at Joel, but Joel was too an­gry to pay any heed to these threats. He could think on­ly of Sand­go­ist, and if the man con­tin­ued to talk in this way the im­petu­ous youth felt that he should not be able to con­trol him­self much longer.

Sand­go­ist, see­ing that he had once more be­come mas­ter of the sit­ua­tion, grew even more ar­ro­gant and im­pe­ri­ous in his man­ner.

“I want that tick­et, and I in­tend to have it,” he re­peat­ed. “In ex­change for it I of­fer no fixed price, but I promise to ex­tend the mort­gage for one--two, or three years--Fix the date your­self, Hul­da.”

Hul­da's heart was so deeply op­pressed with an­guish that she was un­able to re­ply, but her broth­er an­swered for her.

“Ole Kamp's tick­et can not be sold by Hul­da Hansen. My sis­ter re­fus­es your of­fer, in spite of your threats. Now leave the house!”

“Leave the house,” re­peat­ed Sand­go­ist. “I shall do noth­ing of the kind. If the of­fer I have made does not sat­is­fy you I will go even fur­ther. In ex­change for the tick­et I of­fer you--I of­fer you--”

Sand­go­ist must cer­tain­ly have felt an ir­re­sistible de­sire to pos­sess this tick­et--or at least he most have been con­vinced that the pur­chase would prove a most ad­van­ta­geous one to him, for he seat­ed him­self at a ta­ble up­on which lay pen, ink, and pa­per, and a mo­ment af­ter­ward he added:

“Here is what I of­fer.”

It was a re­ceipt for the amount of Dame Hansen's in­debt­ed­ness--a re­ceipt for the amount of the mort­gage on the Dal prop­er­ty.

Dame Hansen cow­ered in her cor­ner, with hands out­stretched, and eyes fixed im­plor­ing­ly on her daugh­ter.

“And now give me the tick­et,” cried Sand­go­ist, “I want it to-​day--this very in­stant. I will not leave Dal with­out it”

As he spoke he stepped hasti­ly to­ward the poor girl as if with the in­ten­tion of search­ing her pock­ets, and wrest­ing the tick­et from her.

This was more than Joel could en­dure, es­pe­cial­ly when he heard Hul­da's star­tled cry of “Broth­er! broth­er!”

“Get out of here!” he shout­ed, rough­ly. And see­ing that Sand­go­ist showed no in­ten­tion of obey­ing, the young man was about to spring up­on him, when Hul­da hasti­ly in­ter­posed.

“Here is the tick­et, moth­er,” she cried.

Dame Hansen seized it, and as she ex­changed it for Sand­go­ist's re­ceipt her daugh­ter sunk, al­most faint­ing, in­to an arm-​chair.

“Hul­da! Hul­da! Oh, what have you done?” cried Joel.

“What has she done,” replied Dame Hansen. “Yes, I am guilty--for my chil­dren's sake I wished to in­crease the prop­er­ty left by their fa­ther, but in­stead I have re­duced them to pover­ty. But Hul­da has saved us all. That is what she has done. Thank you, Hul­da, thank you.”

Sand­go­ist still lin­gered. Joel per­ceived the fact.

“You are here still,” he con­tin­ued, rough­ly. And spring­ing up­on Sand­go­ist he seized him by the shoul­ders and hus­tled him out-​of-​doors in spite of his protests and re­sis­tance.