Ticket No. "9672"

CHAPTER III.

With­out be­ing very deeply versed in ethnog­ra­phy, one may be strong­ly in­clined to be­lieve, in com­mon with many _sa­vants_, that a close re­la­tion­ship ex­ists be­tween the lead­ing fam­ilies of the En­glish aris­toc­ra­cy and the old­est fam­ilies of Scan­di­navia. Nu­mer­ous proofs of this fact, in­deed, are to be found in the an­ces­tral names which are iden­ti­cal in both coun­tries. There is no aris­toc­ra­cy in Nor­way, how­ev­er; still, though the democ­ra­cy ev­ery­where rules, that does not pre­vent it from be­ing aris­to­crat­ic to the high­est de­gree. All are equals up­on an ex­alt­ed plane in­stead of a low one. Even in the hum­blest hut may be found a ge­nealog­ical tree which has not de­gen­er­at­ed in the least be­cause it has sprung up anew in hum­ble soil; and the walls are adorned with the proud bla­zons of the feu­dal lords from whom these plain peas­ants are de­scend­ed.

So it was with the Hansens of Dal, who were un­ques­tion­ably re­lat­ed, though rather re­mote­ly, to the En­glish peers cre­at­ed af­ter Rol­lo's in­va­sion of Nor­mandy, and though rank and wealth had both de­part­ed they had at least pre­served the old pride, or rather dig­ni­ty, which be­comes all so­cial ranks.

It was a mat­ter of very lit­tle con­se­quence, how­ev­er. Whether he had an­ces­tors of lofty lin­eage or not, Har­ald Hansen was sim­ply a vil­lage inn-​keep­er. The house had come down to him from his fa­ther and from his grand­fa­ther, who were wide­ly known and re­spect­ed, and af­ter his death his wid­ow con­tin­ued the busi­ness in a way that elicit­ed uni­ver­sal com­men­da­tion.

Whether or not Har­ald had made a for­tune in the busi­ness, no one was able to say; but he had been able to rear his son Joel and his daugh­ter Hul­da in com­fort; and Ole Kamp, a son of his wife's sis­ter, had al­so been brought up like one of his own chil­dren. But for his un­cle Har­ald, this or­phan child would doubt­less have been one of those poor crea­tures who come in­to the world on­ly to leave it; and Ole Kamp evinced a tru­ly fil­ial de­vo­tion to­ward his par­ents by adop­tion. Noth­ing would ev­er sev­er the tie that bound him to the Hansen fam­ily, to which his mar­riage with Hul­da was about to bind him still more close­ly.

Har­ald Hansen had died about eigh­teen months be­fore, leav­ing his wife, in ad­di­tion to the inn, a small farm on the moun­tain, a piece of prop­er­ty which yield­ed very mea­ger re­turns, if any. This was es­pe­cial­ly true of late, for the sea­sons had been re­mark­ably un­pro­pi­tious, and agri­cul­ture of ev­ery kind had suf­fered great­ly, even the pas­tures. There had been many of those “iron nights,” as the Nor­we­gian peas­ants call them--nights of north-​east­er­ly gales and ice that kill the corn down to the very root--and that meant ru­in to the farm­ers of the Tele­mark and the Hardan­ger.

Still, what­ev­er Dame Hansen might think of the sit­ua­tion of af­fairs, she had nev­er said a word to any liv­ing soul, not even to her chil­dren. Nat­ural­ly cold and re­served, she was very un­com­mu­nica­tive--a fact that pained Hul­da and Joel not a lit­tle. But with that re­spect for the head of the fam­ily in­nate in North­ern lands, they made no at­tempt to break down a re­serve which was em­inent­ly dis­taste­ful to them. Be­sides, Dame Hansen nev­er asked aid or coun­sel, be­ing firm­ly con­vinced of the in­fal­li­bil­ity of her own judg­ment, for she was a true Nor­we­gian in that re­spect.

Dame Hansen was now about fifty years old. Ad­vanc­ing age had not bowed her tall form, though it had whitened her hair; nor had it dimmed the bright­ness of her dark-​blue eyes, whose azure was re­flect­ed in the clear orbs of her daugh­ter; but her com­plex­ion had tak­en on the yel­low hue of old parch­ment, and a few wrin­kles were be­gin­ning to fur­row her fore­head.

The madame, as they say in Scan­di­navia, was in­vari­ably at­tired in a full black skirt, for she had nev­er laid aside her mourn­ing since her hus­band's death. Be­low the shoul­der-​straps of a brown bodice ap­peared the long full sleeves of an un­bleached cot­ton chemise. On her shoul­ders she wore a small dark-​col­ored fichu that crossed up­on her breast, which was al­so cov­ered by the large bib of her apron. She al­ways wore as a head-​dress a close-​fit­ting black-​silk cap that cov­ered al­most her en­tire head, and tied be­hind, a kind of head-​dress that is rarely seen nowa­days.

Seat­ed stiffly erect in her wood­en arm-​chair, the grave host­ess ne­glect­ed her spin­ning-​wheel on­ly to en­joy a small birch­wood pipe, whose smoke en­veloped her in a faint cloud.

Re­al­ly, the house would have seemed very gloomy had it not been for the pres­ence of the two chil­dren.

A wor­thy lad was Joel Hansen. Twen­ty-​five years of age, well built, tall, like all Nor­we­gian moun­taineers, proud in bear­ing, though not in the least boast­ful or con­ceit­ed. He had fine hair, verg­ing up­on chest­nut, with blue eyes so dark as to seem al­most black. His garb dis­played to ad­mirable ad­van­tage his pow­er­ful shoul­ders, his broad chest, in which his lungs had full play, and stal­wart limbs which nev­er failed him even in the most dif­fi­cult moun­tain as­cents. His dark-​blue jack­et, fit­ting tight­ly at the waist, was adorned on the shoul­ders with epaulets, and in the back with de­signs in col­ored em­broi­dery sim­ilar to those that em­bel­lish the vests of the Bre­ton peas­antry. His yel­low breech­es were fas­tened at the knee by large buck­les. Up­on his head he wore a broad-​brimmed brown hat with a red-​and-​black band, and his legs were usu­al­ly in­cased ei­ther in coarse cloth gaiters or in long stout boots with­out heels.

His vo­ca­tion was that of a moun­tain guide in the dis­trict of the Tele­mark, and even in the Hardan­ger. Al­ways ready to start, and un­tir­ing in his ex­er­tions, he was a wor­thy de­scen­dant of the Nor­we­gian hero Rol­lo, the walk­er, cel­ebrat­ed in the leg­ends of that coun­try. Be­tween times he ac­com­pa­nied En­glish sports­men who re­pair to that re­gion to shoot the riper, a species of ptarmi­gan, larg­er than that found in the He­brides, and the jer­pir, a par­tridge much more del­icate in its fla­vor than the grouse of Scot­land. When win­ter came, the hunt­ing of wolves en­grossed his at­ten­tion, for at that sea­son of the year these fierce an­imals, em­bold­ened by hunger, not un­fre­quent­ly ven­ture out up­on the sur­face of the frozen lake. Then there was bear hunt­ing in sum­mer, when that an­imal, ac­com­pa­nied by her young, comes to se­cure its feast of fresh grass, and when one must pur­sue it over plateaus at an al­ti­tude of from ten to twelve thou­sand feet. More than once Joel had owed his life sole­ly to the great strength that en­abled him to en­dure the em­braces of these formidable an­imals, and to the im­per­turbable cool­ness which en­abled him to even­tu­al­ly dis­patch them.

But when there was nei­ther tourist nor hunter to be guid­ed through the val­ley of the Ves­fjord­dal, Joel de­vot­ed his at­ten­tion to the _soe­tur_, the lit­tle moun­tain farm where a young shep­herd kept guard over half a dozen cows and about thir­ty sheep--a _soe­tur_ con­sist­ing ex­clu­sive­ly of pas­ture land.

Joel, be­ing nat­ural­ly very pleas­ant and oblig­ing, was known and loved in ev­ery vil­lage in the Tele­mark; but two per­sons for whom he felt a bound­less af­fec­tion were his cousin Ole and his sis­ter Hul­da.

When Ole Kamp left Dal to em­bark for the last time, how deeply Joel re­gret­ted his in­abil­ity to dow­er Hul­da and thus avert the ne­ces­si­ty for her lover's de­par­ture! In fact, if he had been ac­cus­tomed to the sea, he would cer­tain­ly have gone in his cousin's place. But mon­ey was need­ed to start them in house­keep­ing, and as Dame Hansen had of­fered no as­sis­tance, Joel un­der­stood on­ly too well that she did not feel in­clined to de­vote any por­tion of the es­tate to that pur­pose, so there was noth­ing for Ole to do but cross the broad At­lantic.

Joel had ac­com­pa­nied him to the ex­treme end of the val­ley on his way to Bergen, and there, af­ter a long em­brace, he wished him a pleas­ant jour­ney and a speedy re­turn, and then re­turned to con­sole his sis­ter, whom he loved with an af­fec­tion which was at the same time fra­ter­nal and pa­ter­nal in its char­ac­ter.

Hul­da at that time was ex­act­ly eigh­teen years of age. She was not the _pi­ga_, as the ser­vant in a Nor­we­gian inn is called, but rather the _fro­ken_, the young la­dy of the house, as her moth­er was the madame. What a charm­ing face was hers, framed in a wealth of pale gold­en hair, un­der a thin linen cap pro­ject­ing in the back to give room for the long plaits of hair! What a love­ly form in­cased in this tight­ly fit­ting bodice of red stuff, or­na­ment­ed with green shoul­der-​straps and sur­mount­ed by a snowy chemisette, the sleeves of which were fas­tened at the wrist by a rib­bon bracelet! What grace and per­fect sym­me­try in the waist, en­cir­cled by a red belt with clasps of sil­ver fil­igree which held in place the dark-​green skirt, be­low which ap­peared the white stock­ing pro­tect­ed by the dain­ty point­ed toed shoe of the Tele­mark!

Yes, Ole's be­trothed was cer­tain­ly charm­ing, with the slight­ly melan­choly ex­pres­sion of the daugh­ters of the North soft­en­ing her smil­ing face; and on see­ing her one in­stant­ly thought of Hul­da the Fair, whose name she bore, and who fig­ures as the house­hold fairy in Scan­di­na­vian mythol­ogy.

Nor did the re­serve of a chaste and mod­est maid­en mar the grace with which she wel­comed the guests who came to the inn. She was well known to the world of tourists; and it was not one of the small­est at­trac­tions of the inn to be greet­ed by that cor­dial shake of the hand that Hul­da be­stowed on one and all. And af­ter hav­ing said to her, “_Tack for mad_” (Thanks for the meal), what could be more de­light­ful than to hear her re­ply in her fresh sonorous voice: “_Wed bekomme_!” (May it do you good!)