Ticket No. "9672"

CHAPTER IV.

Ole Kamp had been ab­sent a year; and as he said in his let­ter, his win­ter's ex­pe­ri­ence on the fish­ing banks of New­found­land had been a se­vere one. When one makes mon­ey there one rich­ly earns it. The equinoc­tial storms that rage there not un­fre­quent­ly de­stroy a whole fish­ing fleet in a few hours; but fish abound, and ves­sels which es­cape find am­ple com­pen­sa­tion for the toil and dan­gers of this home of the tem­pest.

Be­sides, Nor­we­gians are ex­cel­lent sea­men, and shrink from no dan­ger. In the num­ber­less fiords that ex­tend from Chris­tiansand to Cape North, among the dan­ger­ous reefs of Fin­land, and in the chan­nels of the Lof­fo­den Is­lands, op­por­tu­ni­ties to fa­mil­iar­ize them­selves with the per­ils of ocean are not want­ing; and from time im­memo­ri­al they have giv­en abun­dant proofs of their courage. Their an­ces­tors were in­trepid mariners at an epoch when the Hanse mo­nop­olized the com­merce of north­ern Eu­rope. Pos­si­bly they were a tri­fle prone to in­dulge in pira­cy in days gone by, but pira­cy was then quite com­mon. Doubt­less com­merce has re­formed since then, though one may per­haps be par­doned for think­ing that there is still room for im­prove­ment.

How­ev­er that may be, the Nor­we­gians were cer­tain­ly fear­less sea­men; they are to-​day, and so they will ev­er be. Ole Kamp was not the man to be­lie his ori­gin; be­sides, he had served his ap­pren­tice­ship un­der his fa­ther, who was the mas­ter of a Bergen coast­ing ves­sel. His child­hood had been spent in that port, which is one of the most fre­quent­ed in Scan­di­navia. Be­fore he ven­tured out up­on the open sea he had been an un­tir­ing fish­er in the fiords, and a fear­less rob­ber of the sea-​birds' nests, and when he be­came old enough to serve as cab­in-​boy he made a voy­age across the North Sea and even to the wa­ters of the Po­lar Ocean.

Soon af­ter­ward his fa­ther died, and as he had lost his moth­er sev­er­al years be­fore, his un­cle Har­ald Hansen in­vit­ed him to be­come a mem­ber of his fam­ily, which he did, though he con­tin­ued to fol­low the same call­ing.

In the in­ter­vals be­tween his voy­ages he in­vari­ably spent his time with the friends he loved; but he made reg­ular voy­ages up­on large fish­ing ves­sels, and rose to the rank of mate when he was but twen­ty-​one. He was now twen­ty-​three years of age.

When he vis­it­ed Dal, Joel found him a most con­ge­nial com­pan­ion. He ac­com­pa­nied him on his ex­cur­sions to the moun­tains, and across the high­est ta­ble-​lands of the Tele­mark. The young sailor seemed as much at home in the fields as in the fiords, and nev­er lagged be­hind un­less it was to keep his cousin Hul­da com­pa­ny.

A close friend­ship grad­ual­ly sprung up be­tween Joel and Ole, and quite nat­ural­ly the same sen­ti­ment as­sumed a dif­fer­ent form in re­spect to the young girl. Joel, of course, en­cour­aged it. Where would his sis­ter ev­er find a bet­ter fel­low, a more sym­pa­thet­ic na­ture, a warmer and more de­vot­ed heart? With Ole for a hus­band, Hul­da's hap­pi­ness was as­sured. So it was with the en­tire ap­proval of her moth­er and broth­er that the young girl fol­lowed the nat­ural prompt­ings of her heart. Though these peo­ple of the North are un­demon­stra­tive, they must not be ac­cused of a want of sen­si­bil­ity. No! It is on­ly their way; and per­haps their way is as good as any oth­er, af­ter all.

So it came to pass that one day, when all four of them were sit­ting qui­et­ly to­geth­er, Ole re­marked, with­out any pream­ble what­ev­er:

“An idea oc­curs to me, Hul­da.”

“What is it?”

“It seems to me that we ought to mar­ry.”

“I think so too.”

“And so do I,” added Dame Hansen as cool­ly as if the mat­ter had been un­der dis­cus­sion for some time.

“I agree with you,” re­marked Joel, “and in that case I shall nat­ural­ly be­come your broth­er-​in-​law.”

“Yes,” said Ole; “but it is prob­able that I shall on­ly love you the bet­ter for it.”

“That is very pos­si­ble.”

“We have your con­sent, then?”

“Up­on my word! noth­ing would please me bet­ter,” replied Joel.

“So it is de­cid­ed, Hul­da?” in­quired Dame Hansen.

“Yes, moth­er,” replied the girl, qui­et­ly.

“You are re­al­ly will­ing?” asked Ole. “I have loved you a long time, Hul­da, with­out say­ing so.”

“And I you, Ole.”

“How it came about, I re­al­ly do not know.”

“Nor I.”

“But it was doubt­less see­ing you grow more beau­ti­ful and good day by day.”

“That is say­ing a lit­tle too much, my dear Ole.”

“No; I cer­tain­ly ought to be able to say that with­out mak­ing you blush, for it is on­ly the truth. Didn't you see that I was be­gin­ning to love Hul­da, Dame Hansen?”

“I sus­pect­ed as much.”

“And you, Joel?”

“I was sure of it.”

“Then I cer­tain­ly think that you ought to have warned me,” said Ole, smil­ing.

“But how about your voy­ages, Ole?” in­quired Dame Hansen. “Won't they seem in­tol­er­able to you af­ter you are mar­ried?”

“So in­tol­er­able that I shall not fol­low the sea any more af­ter my mar­riage.”

“You will not go to sea any more?”

“No, Hul­da. Do you think it would be pos­si­ble for me to leave you for months at a time?”

“So this is to be your last voy­age?”

“Yes, and if we have tol­er­able luck, this voy­age will yield me quite a snug lit­tle sum of mon­ey, for Help Bros. have promised me a share in the prof­its.”

“They are good men,” re­marked Joel.

“The best men liv­ing,” replied Ole, “and well known and high­ly re­spect­ed by all the sailors of Bergen.”

“But what do you ex­pect to do af­ter you cease to fol­low the sea, my dear Ole?” in­quired Hul­da.

“I shall go in­to part­ner­ship with Joel in his busi­ness, I have pret­ty good legs, and if they are not good enough, I will im­prove them by go­ing in­to reg­ular train­ing. Be­sides, I have thought of a plan which will not prove a bad one per­haps. Why can't we es­tab­lish a mes­sen­ger ser­vice be­tween Dram­men, Kongs­berg and a few oth­er towns in the Tele­mark Com­mu­ni­ca­tion now is nei­ther easy nor reg­ular, and there might be mon­ey in the scheme. Be­sides, I have oth­er plans, to say noth­ing of--”

“Of what?”

“Nev­er mind, now. I will tell you on my re­turn. But I warn you that I am firm­ly re­solved to make my Hul­da the hap­pi­est wom­an in the coun­try. Yes, I am.”

“If you but knew how easy that will be!” replied Hul­da, of­fer­ing him her hand. “Am I not that al­ready, and is there a home in all Dal as pleas­ant as ours?”

Dame Hansen hasti­ly avert­ed her head.

“So the mat­ter is set­tled?” asked Ole, cheer­ful­ly.

“Yes,” replied Joel.

“And set­tled be­yond re­call?”

“Cer­tain­ly.”

“And you feel no re­gret, Hul­da?”

“None what­ev­er, my dear Ole.”

“I think, how­ev­er, that it would be bet­ter not to ap­point the day for your mar­riage un­til af­ter your re­turn,” re­marked Joel.

“Very well, but it will go hard with me if I do not re­turn in less than a year to lead Hul­da to the church at Moel, where our friend, Pas­tor An­der­sen, will not refuse to make his best prayer for us!”

And it was in this way that the mar­riage of Hul­da Hansen and Ole Kamp had been de­cid­ed up­on.

The young sailor was to go aboard his ves­sel a week lat­er; but be­fore they part­ed the lovers were for­mal­ly be­trothed in ac­cor­dance with the touch­ing cus­tom of Scan­di­na­vian coun­tries.

In sim­ple and hon­est Nor­way lovers are al­most in­vari­ably pub­licly be­trothed be­fore mar­riage. Some­times the mar­riage is not sol­em­nized un­til two or three years af­ter­ward, but one must not sup­pose that the be­trothal is sim­ply an in­ter­change of vows which de­pend on­ly up­on the hon­esty of the par­ties in­ter­est­ed. No, the obli­ga­tion is much more sa­cred, and even if this act of be­trothal is not bind­ing in the eyes of the law, it is, at least, so re­gard­ed by that uni­ver­sal law called cus­tom.

So, in this case, it was nec­es­sary to make ar­range­ments for a cer­emo­ny over which Pas­tor An­der­sen should pre­side. There was no min­is­ter in Dal, nor in any of the neigh­bor­ing ham­lets. In Nor­way they have what they call Sun­day towns, in which the min­is­ter re­sides, and where the lead­ing fam­ilies of the parish as­sem­ble for wor­ship. They even lease apart­ments there, in which they take up their abode for twen­ty-​four hours or more--time to per­form their re­li­gious du­ties--and peo­ple re­turn from the town as from a pil­grim­age.

Dal, it is true, boast­ed of a chapel, but the pas­tor came on­ly when he was sum­moned.

Af­ter all, Moel was not far off, on­ly about eight miles dis­tant, at the end of Lake Tinn, and Pas­tor An­der­sen was a very oblig­ing man, and a good walk­er; so the wor­thy min­is­ter was in­vit­ed to at­tend the be­trothal in the twofold ca­pac­ity of min­is­ter and fam­ily friend. The ac­quain­tance was one of long stand­ing. He had seen Joel and Hul­da grow up, and loved them as well as he loved that young sea-​dog, Ole Kamp, so the news of the in­tend­ed mar­riage was very pleas­ing to him.

So Pas­tor An­der­sen gath­ered to­geth­er his robe, his col­lar, and his prayer-​book, and start­ed off for Dal one misty, moisty morn­ing. He ar­rived there in the com­pa­ny of Joel, who had gone half-​way to meet him, and it is need­less to say that his com­ing was hailed with de­light at Dame Hansen's inn, that he had the very best room in the house, and that the floor was fresh­ly strewn with twigs of ju­niper that per­fumed it like a chapel.

At one o'clock on the fol­low­ing day the lit­tle church was thrown open, and there, in the pres­ence of the pas­tor and a few friends and neigh­bors, Ole and Hul­da solemn­ly promised to wed each oth­er when the young sailor should re­turn from the last voy­age he in­tend­ed to make. A year is a long time to wait, but it pass­es all the same, nor is it in­tol­er­able when two per­sons can trust each oth­er.

And now Ole could not, with­out good cause, for­sake her to whom he had plight­ed his troth, nor could Hul­da re­tract the promise she had giv­en to Ole; and if Ole had not left Nor­way a few days af­ter the be­trothal, he might have prof­it­ed by the in­con­testable right it gave him to vis­it the young girl when­ev­er he pleased, to write to her when­ev­er he chose, walk out with her arm in arm, un­ac­com­pa­nied by any mem­ber of the fam­ily, and en­joy a pref­er­ence over all oth­ers in the dances that form a part of all fetes and cer­emonies.

But Ole Kamp had been obliged to re­turn to Bergen, and one week af­ter­ward the “Viking” set sail for the fish­ing banks of New­found­land, and Hul­da could on­ly look for­ward to the let­ters which her be­trothed had promised to send her by ev­ery mail.

And these im­pa­tient­ly ex­pect­ed let­ters nev­er failed her, and al­ways brought a ray of hap­pi­ness to the house which seemed so gloomy af­ter the de­par­ture of one of its in­mates. The voy­age was safe­ly ac­com­plished; the fish­ing proved ex­cel­lent, and the prof­its promised to be large. Be­sides, at the end of each let­ter, Ole al­ways re­ferred to a cer­tain se­cret, and of the for­tune it was sure to bring him. It was a se­cret that Hul­da would have been glad to know, and Dame Hansen, too, for rea­sons one would not have been like­ly to sus­pect.

Dame Hansen seemed to have be­come even more gloomy and anx­ious and ret­icent than ev­er, and a cir­cum­stance which she did not see fit to men­tion to her chil­dren in­creased her anx­iety very con­sid­er­ably.

Three days af­ter the ar­rival of Ole's last let­ter, as Dame Hansen was re­turn­ing alone from the saw-​mill, to which place she had gone to or­der a bag of shav­ings from the fore­man, Lengling, she was ac­cost­ed near her own door by a man who was a stranger in that part of the coun­try.

“This is Dame Hansen, is it not?” he in­quired.

“Yes; but I do not know you,” was the re­ply.

“That doesn't mat­ter,” re­joined the man. “I ar­rived here on­ly this morn­ing from Dram­men, and am now on my way back.”

“From Dram­men?” re­peat­ed Dame Hansen, quick­ly.

“You are ac­quaint­ed, I think, with a cer­tain Mon­sieur Sand­go­ist, who lives there?”

“Mon­sieur Sand­go­ist!” re­peat­ed Dame Hansen, whose face paled at the name. “Yes, I know him.”

“Ah, well! When Mon­sieur Sand­go­ist heard that I was com­ing to Dal, he asked me to give his re­spects to you.”

“Was that all?”

“And to say to you that it was more than prob­able that he would pay you a vis­it next month. Good health to you, and good-​evening, Dame Hansen.”