Ticket No. "9672"

CHAPTER V.

Hul­da was con­sid­er­ably sur­prised at the per­sis­ten­cy with which Ole al­lud­ed in his let­ters to the for­tune that was to be his on his re­turn. Up­on what did the young man base his ex­pec­ta­tions? Hul­da could not imag­ine, and she was very anx­ious to know. Was this anx­iety due sole­ly to an idle cu­rios­ity on her part? By no means, for the se­cret cer­tain­ly af­fect­ed her deeply. Not that she was am­bi­tious, this mod­est and hon­est young girl; nor did she in look­ing for­ward to the fu­ture ev­er as­pire to what we call wealth. Ole's af­fec­tion sat­is­fied, and would al­ways sat­is­fy her. If wealth came, she would wel­come it with joy. If it did not come, she would still be con­tent.

This is pre­cise­ly what Hul­da and Joel said to each oth­er the day af­ter Ole's last let­ter reached Dal. They agreed per­fect­ly up­on this sub­ject, as up­on all oth­ers, by the way. And then Joel added:

“No; it is im­pos­si­ble, lit­tle sis­ter. You cer­tain­ly must be keep­ing some­thing from me.”

“Keep­ing some­thing from you!”

“Yes; for I can not be­lieve that Ole went away with­out giv­ing you some clew to his se­cret.”

“Did he say any­thing to you about it?”

“No; but you and I are not one and the same per­son.”

“Yes, we are, broth­er.”

“I am not Ole's be­trothed, at all events.”

“Al­most,” said the young girl; “and if any mis­for­tune should be­fall him, and he should not re­turn from this voy­age, you would be as in­con­solable as I would be, and your tears would flow quite as freely as mine.”

“Re­al­ly, lit­tle sis­ter. I for­bid you to even speak of such a thing,” replied Joel. “Ole not re­turn from his last voy­age to the great fish­ing banks! What can have put such an idea in­to your head? You sure­ly can not mean what you say, Hul­da!”

“No, cer­tain­ly not. And yet, I do not know. I can not drive away cer­tain pre­sen­ti­ments--the re­sult, per­haps, of bad dreams.”

“Dreams are on­ly dreams.”

“True, broth­er, but where do they come from?”

“From our­selves, not from heav­en. You are anx­ious, and so your fears haunt you in your slum­ber. Be­sides, it is al­most al­ways so when one has earnest­ly de­sired a thing and the time when one's de­sires are to be re­al­ized is ap­proach­ing.”

“I know it, Joel.”

“Re­al­ly, I thought you were much more sen­si­ble, lit­tle sis­ter. Yes, and more en­er­get­ic. Here you have just re­ceived a let­ter from Joel say­ing that the 'Viking' will re­turn be­fore the end of the month, and it is now the 19th of April, and con­se­quent­ly none too soon for you to be­gin your prepa­ra­tions for the wed­ding.”

“Do you re­al­ly think so, Joel?”

“Cer­tain­ly I think so, Hul­da. I even think that we have de­layed too long al­ready. Think of it. We must have a wed­ding that will not on­ly cre­ate a sen­sa­tion in Dal, but in all the neigh­bor­ing vil­lages. I in­tend it shall be the grand­est one ev­er known in the dis­trict, so I am go­ing to set to work im­me­di­ate­ly.”

An af­fair of this kind is al­ways a mo­men­tous oc­ca­sion in all the coun­try dis­tricts of Nor­way, par­tic­ular­ly in the Tele­mark, so that ev­ery day Joel had a con­ver­sa­tion with his moth­er on the sub­ject. It was on­ly a few mo­ments af­ter Dame Hansen's meet­ing with the stranger, whose mes­sage had so deeply ag­itat­ed her, and though she had seat­ed her­self at her spin­ning-​wheel as usu­al, it would have been plain to a close ob­serv­er that her thoughts were far away.

Even Joel no­ticed that his moth­er seemed even more de­spon­dent than usu­al, but as she in­vari­ably replied that there was noth­ing the mat­ter with her when she was ques­tioned on the sub­ject, her son de­cid­ed to speak on­ly of Hul­da's mar­riage.

“Moth­er,” he be­gan, “you, of course, rec­ol­lect that Ole an­nounced in his last let­ter that he should prob­ably re­turn to Dal in a few weeks.”

“It is cer­tain­ly to be hoped that he will,” replied Dame Hansen, “and that noth­ing will oc­cur to oc­ca­sion any fur­ther de­lay.”

“Do you see any ob­jec­tion to our fix­ing up­on the twen­ty-​fifth of May as the day of the mar­riage?”

“None, what­ev­er, if Hul­da is will­ing.”

“Her con­sent is al­ready giv­en. And now I think I had bet­ter ask you, moth­er, if you do not in­tend to do the hand­some thing on that oc­ca­sion?”

“What do you mean by the hand­some thing?” re­tort­ed Dame Hansen, with­out rais­ing her eyes from her spin­ning-​wheel.

“Why, I am anx­ious, if you ap­prove, of course, that the wed­ding should cor­re­spond with the po­si­tion we hold in the neigh­bor­hood. We ought to in­vite all our friends to it, and if our own house is not large enough to ac­com­mo­date them, our neigh­bors, I am sure, will be glad to lodge our guests.”

“Who will these guests be, Joel?”

“Why, I think we ought to in­vite all our friends from Moel, Ti­ness and Bam­ble. I will at­tend to that. I think, too, that the pres­ence of Help Bros., the shipown­ers, would be an hon­or to the fam­ily, and with your con­sent, I re­peat, I will in­vite them to spend a day with us at Dal. They are very fine men, and they think a great deal of Ole, so I am al­most sure that they will ac­cept the in­vi­ta­tion.”

“Is it re­al­ly nec­es­sary to make this mar­riage such an im­por­tant event?” in­quired Dame Hansen, cold­ly.

“I think so, moth­er, if on­ly for the sake of our inn, which I am sure has main­tained its old rep­uta­tion since my fa­ther's death.”

“Yes, Joel, yes.”

“And it seems to me that it is our du­ty to at least keep it up to the stan­dard at which he left it; con­se­quent­ly, I think it would be ad­vis­able to give con­sid­er­able pub­lic­ity to my sis­ter's mar­riage.”

“So be it, Joel.”

“And do you not agree with me in think­ing that it is quite time for Hul­da to be­gin her prepa­ra­tions, and what do you say to my sug­ges­tion?”

“I think that you and Hul­da must do what­ev­er you think nec­es­sary,” replied Dame Hansen.

Per­haps the read­er will think that Joel was in too much of a hur­ry, and that it would have been much more sen­si­ble in him to have wait­ed un­til Ole's re­turn be­fore ap­point­ing the wed­ding-​day, and be­gin­ning to pre­pare for it, but as he said, what was once done would not have to be done over again; be­sides, the count­less de­tails con­nect­ed with a cer­emo­ni­al of this kind would serve to di­vert Hul­da's mind from these fore­bod­ings for which there seemed to be no foun­da­tion.

The first thing to be done was to se­lect the bride's maid of hon­or. That proved an easy mat­ter, how­ev­er, for Hul­da's choice was al­ready made. The bride-​maid, of course, must be Hul­da's in­ti­mate friend, Farmer Helm­boe's daugh­ter. Her fa­ther was a promi­nent man, and the pos­ses­sor of a very com­fort­able for­tune. For a long time he had ful­ly ap­pre­ci­at­ed Joel's ster­ling worth, and his daugh­ter Siegfrid's ap­pre­ci­ation, though of a rather dif­fer­ent na­ture, was cer­tain­ly no less pro­found; so it was quite prob­able that at no very dis­tant day af­ter Siegfrid had served as Hul­da's maid of hon­or, Hul­da, in turn, would act in the same ca­pac­ity for her friend. This is the cus­tom in Nor­way, where these pleas­ant du­ties are gen­er­al­ly re­served for mar­ried wom­en, so it was rather on Joel's ac­count that Siegfrid Helm­boe was to serve Hul­da Hansen in this ca­pac­ity.

A ques­tion of vi­tal im­por­tance to the bride-​maid as well as to the bride, is the toi­let to be worn on the day of the wed­ding.

Siegfrid, a pret­ty blonde of eigh­teen sum­mers, was firm­ly re­solved to ap­pear to the best pos­si­ble ad­van­tage on the oc­ca­sion. Warned by a short note from her friend Hul­da--Joel had kind­ly made him­self re­spon­si­ble for its safe de­liv­ery--she im­me­di­ate­ly pro­ceed­ed to de­vote her clos­est at­ten­tion to this im­por­tant work.

In the first place, an elab­orate­ly em­broi­dered bodice must be made to in­case Siegfrid's charm­ing fig­ure as if in a coat of enam­el. There was al­so much talk about a skirt com­posed of a se­ries of jupons which should cor­re­spond in num­ber with the wear­er's for­tune, but in no way de­tract from her charms of per­son. As for jew­el­ry, it was no easy mat­ter to se­lect the de­sign of the col­lar of sil­ver fil­igree, set with pearls, the heart-​shaped ear-​rings, the dou­ble but­tons to fas­ten the neck of the chemisette, the belt of red silk or woolen stuff from which de­pend four rows of small chains, the fin­ger-​rings stud­ded with tiny ban­gles that tin­kle mu­si­cal­ly, the bracelets of fret­ted sil­ver--in short, all the wealth of coun­try fin­ery in which gold ap­pears on­ly in the shape of the thinnest plat­ing, sil­ver in the guise of tin and pearls, and di­amonds in the shape of wax and crys­tal beads. But what does that mat­ter so long as the _tout en­sem­ble_ is pleas­ing to the eye? Be­sides, if nec­es­sary, Siegfrid would not hes­itate to go to the el­egant stores of M. Benett, in Chris­tia­nia, to make her pur­chas­es. Her fa­ther would not ob­ject--far from it! The kind-​heart­ed man al­lowed his daugh­ter full lib­er­ty in such mat­ters; be­sides, Siegfrid was sen­si­ble enough not to draw too heav­ily up­on her fa­ther's purse, though ev­ery­thing else was of sec­ondary im­por­tance pro­vid­ed Joel would see her at her very best on that par­tic­ular day.

As for Hul­da, her anx­iety on the sub­ject was no less se­ri­ous, for fash­ions are piti­less, and give, be­sides, not a lit­tle trou­ble in the se­lec­tion of their wed­ding-​toi­let.

Hul­da would now be obliged to aban­don the long plaits tied with bright rib­bons, which had hereto­fore hung from un­der her co­quet­tish cap, the broad belt with fan­cy buck­les that kept her apron in place up­on her scar­let skirt, the gir­dle to which were ap­pend­ed sev­er­al small em­broi­dered leather cas­es con­tain­ing a sil­ver tea-​spoon, knife, fork, nee­dle-​case and scis­sors--ar­ti­cles which a wom­an makes con­stant use of in the house­hold.

No, on the fast ap­proach­ing day of the nup­tials, Hul­da's hair would be al­lowed to float down up­on her shoul­ders, and it was so abun­dant that it would not be nec­es­sary for her to have re­course to the jute switch­es used by Nor­we­gian girls less fa­vored by na­ture. In­deed, for her cloth­ing, as well as for her or­na­ments, Hul­da would on­ly be obliged to re­sort to her moth­er's big chest. In fact, these ar­ti­cles of cloth­ing are trans­mit­ted from mar­riage to mar­riage through all the dif­fer­ent gen­er­ations of the same fam­ily. So one sees reap­pear­ing again and again up­on the scene the bodice em­broi­dered in gold, the vel­vet sash, the skirt of striped silk, the gold chain for the neck, and the crown--the fa­mous Scan­di­na­vian crown--care­ful­ly pre­served in the most se­cure of all the chests, and made of paste­board cov­ered with em­bossed gilt pa­per, and stud­ded with stars, or gar­land­ed with leaves--that takes the place of the wreath of or­ange-​blos­soms worn by brides in oth­er Eu­ro­pean coun­tries.

In this case the crowned be­trothed, as the bride is styled, would cer­tain­ly do hon­or to her hus­band; and he would be wor­thy of her in his gay wed­ding suit: a short jack­et trimmed with sil­ver but­tons, silk-​em­broi­dered waist­coat, tight breech­es fas­tened at the knee with a bunch of bright rib­bons, a soft felt hat, yel­low top-​boots, and in his belt the Scan­di­na­vian knife--the dolknife--with which the true Nor­we­gian is al­ways pro­vid­ed.

Con­se­quent­ly, there was plen­ty to oc­cu­py the at­ten­tion of the young ladies for some time to come. Two or three weeks would bare­ly suf­fice if they wished to have ev­ery­thing in readi­ness be­fore Ole's re­turn; but even if Ole should ar­rive soon­er than he ex­pect­ed, and Hul­da should not be quite ready, she would not be in­con­solable, nor would he.

The last weeks of April and the first weeks of May were de­vot­ed to these mat­ters. Joel as­sumed charge of the in­vi­ta­tions, tak­ing ad­van­tage of the fact that his vo­ca­tion of guide gave him con­sid­er­able leisure at this sea­son of the year. One would have sup­posed that he had a large num­ber of friends in Bam­ble, for he went there very of­ten. He had al­ready writ­ten to Help Bros., invit­ing them to at­tend his sis­ter's wed­ding, and in ac­cor­dance with his pre­dic­tion, these wor­thy shipown­ers had prompt­ly ac­cept­ed the in­vi­ta­tion.

The fif­teenth of May came, and any day now they might ex­pect Ole to alight from his kar­iol, throw open the door, and shout in his hearty, cheer­ful voice:

“It is I! Here I am!”

A lit­tle pa­tience was all that was need­ed now, for ev­ery­thing was in readi­ness, and Siegfrid need­ed on­ly a word to ap­pear be­fore them in all her splen­dor.

The 16th and 17th passed, and still no Ole, nor did the post­man bring any let­ter from New­found­land.

“There is no cause for anx­iety, lit­tle sis­ter,” Joel said, again and again. “A sail­ing-​ves­sel is al­ways sub­ject to de­lays. It is a long way from St. Pierre-​Miquelon to Bergen. How I wish the 'Viking' were a steam­er and I the en­gine. How I would drive along against wind and tide, even if I should burst my boil­er on com­ing in­to port.”

He said all this be­cause he saw very plain­ly that Hul­da's un­easi­ness was in­creas­ing from day to day.

Just at this time, too, the weath­er was very bad in the Tele­mark. Vi­olent gales swept the high ta­ble-​lands, and these winds, which blew from the west, came from Amer­ica.

“They ought to have has­tened the ar­rival of the 'Viking,'” the young girl re­peat­ed again and again.

“Yes, lit­tle sis­ter,” replied Joel; “but they are so strong that they may have hin­dered its progress, and com­pelled it to face the gale. Peo­ple can't al­ways do as they like up­on the sea.”

“So you are not un­easy, Joel?”

“No, Hul­da, no. It is an­noy­ing, of course, but these de­lays are very com­mon. No; I am not un­easy, for there is re­al­ly not the slight­est cause for anx­iety.”

On the 19th a trav­el­er ar­rived at the inn, and asked for a guide to con­duct him over the moun­tains to the Hardan­ger, and though Joel did not like the idea of leav­ing Hul­da, he could not refuse his ser­vices. He would on­ly be ab­sent forty-​eight hours at the longest, and he felt con­fi­dent that he should find Ole at Dal on his re­turn, though, to tell the truth, the kind-​heart­ed youth was be­gin­ning to feel very un­easy. Still, he start­ed off ear­ly the next morn­ing, though with a heavy heart, we must ad­mit.

On the fol­low­ing day, at pre­cise­ly one o'clock, a loud rap re­sound­ed at the door of the inn.

“It is Ole!” cried Hul­da.

She ran to the door.

There, in a kar­iol, sat a man en­veloped in a trav­el­ing-​cloak, a man whose face was un­known to her.