CHAPTER XII

Ørlygur and Bagga rode quietly through the mist over the hills from the station to Bolli. There was no need for haste. They rode side by side, keeping close together, holding each other’s hands in a clasp that seemed as if it were never to end.

They spoke but little. Each felt, in absence, that there was so much to say. But, on the surface, they were yet as strangers to each other in this, that it was not easy to speak of little trivial things. There was so much that they had not yet known; and their minds were full of a silent, happy longing and anticipation.

Yet they rode there together in the mist, as if it were but natural that they should—as if they already belonged to each other—were already one heart and one soul.

The mist that wrapped them seemed a light and kindly thing.

They did not think how life had played with them but a few hours back, like pawns in a game, or how the mist of the present hour was but a pause while life determined what the next move should be. They rode side by side, holding each other’s hand. And neither felt the vaguest glimmer of doubt as to the other’s will—the other’s love. Both felt that nothing in life could part them now. And the thought of death was far away.

They rode together over the hills, two grey figures in the mist. But there was sunshine in their souls.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

  1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.
  2. Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed.