Katharine Frensham: A Novel

by Beatrice Harraden

"I should be one of those," Katharine said. "I should always yearn to return."

"I remember your saying you would like to bring all the broken-hearted exiles home," he said.

"Yes," she said, "I would."

"You have a heart of pity," he said, turning to her.

"I am sorry for those who have lost their country," she said. "I have seen them suffer. If I were a millionaire, I would find out some of the worst cases, and give them back their country and the means to enjoy it, or the opportunity of dying in it."

So they talked or were silent as the mood seized them. They were happy, and frankly glad to be together alone. They left the bridge, passed along the main road, through fragrant fir-woods, and came to a most picturesque spot where two rivers, one of them the glacier-river, met and rushed on together as one. They crossed this long bridge, and found themselves on the other side of the main valley. Here they looked back and could discern the big Solli Gaard, perched proudly on the opposite mountain-ridge. Then their way lay along the easy road by the winding river. It retreated from them, returned, retreated. The sun jewelled the clear part of it with diamonds, and the strange milky glacier part of it with opals. Finally it left them, and they could scarcely reconcile themselves to its departure, but strolled back once more to enjoy its gracious company. But at last they said farewell to it, and went on to the old brown church, at the back of which they expected, from Bedstemor's instructions, to find the steep path leading up to Peer Gynt's stue. They halted, to see the sunburnt old church, and to rest. Katharine was struck by its beautiful proportions. Rough and without any features of special architectural interest, it presented a harmony in itself which was arresting. She made the remark; and Clifford, who knew many things about the North, was able to tell her that this was characteristic of the Norwegian churches of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The date of this church was the middle of the eighteenth century. It was rather a rich, well-cared-for church from a Norwegian point of view, and it was full of interest for strangers. The painted and decorated pews, with the rich peasants' names in floriated design, attracted Katharine. The Sollis' pew was, of course, one of them. The pulpit was elaborately carved, and was painted and gilded in generous fashion. There was a rood-screen which bore the arms of Norway, painted also in flamboyant style; and a shelf on the top supported eight or ten figures of personages in Scripture lore, with their symbols. Some of these figures were almost grotesque. It was difficult to believe that they were of the same recent date as the church. The altarpiece, the Last Supper, carved and painted, bore the date 1740; yet in conception it looked like a piece of work from the Middle Ages, and Dutch in character. Quainter still were the weird pictures hanging on the walls, all of them gifts of pious people. The subjects were of course religious ones: Jacob wrestling with the Angel, the Passage of the Red Sea, the Garden of Gethsemane. They all dated back to the early part of the eighteenth century, and were most primitive in idea and execution, testifying silently, not only to the piety of the donors, but to the uninfluenced isolation of the interior of Norway. One of them had the inscription, "To the honour of God and for the ornament of the church is this picture given by a rich and pious girl at a cost of three dollars of the realm!"

Katharine and Clifford examined these queer things, and finally sat down in the Sollis' grand pew. The world was beginning to be even as this old brown church—empty, save for them. He was thinking, as he sat by her side, how little she, with her free, open-hearted nature, could guess at the grim and almost insurmountable difficulties of a prisoner of silence like himself. She would never know how many times he had tried to begin the story which he wished passionately to tell her. But each time that he had failed, he at least knew that he was gaining courage. He did not realise that Katharine had retreated into herself since that anxious day at the Skyds-station; for Mrs Stanhope's words up at the Saeter had been echoing in her ears. She was not the woman to allow her own impulses to be checked by the opinion of Mrs Stanhope. Her most accentuated feeling about Mrs Stanhope was indignation; nevertheless, the malignant words of that bigot had engendered a vague shyness in Katharine's mind, which held her back from helping Clifford. And also, she was passing through a phase of emotional passiveness, which Nature, in her wisdom, insists on, after any great and generous giving out of sympathy, love, and anxious concern. At such moments even the most reckless spendthrifts of self can give nothing. They wait. And if no one ministers to them, they pass out into the darkness of the night to find recovery. So Katharine waited; and they sat on together in the Sollis' decorated pew, cut off from the outside world, and silent. The moment of liberty did not come to the prisoner then in the old brown church. It almost came, but not quite.

When they left the church, they took the steep path accurately described by Bedstemor. It was steep and rough, and Clifford turned to help Katharine over some of the difficult bits; but she was as active as he, and not at all breathless. She was astonished that there should be no easier road than this one up to several old Gaards which they skirted in their ascent. It seemed impossible for the farm-people to bring any heavy loads up or down such a rough path. Clifford told her that it was characteristic of the Norwegians of a previous generation.

"In former days," he said, "they made a road, any kind of road, straight to their goal, over and through any difficulties. The Sorenskriver thinks it a bad sign that they now make easy and circuitous ones. He would like this uncompromising one. He would think that there still remained some of the old rugged stubbornness in the Norwegian character, and some of its simple hardihood."

"We can tell him about it," Katharine said, smiling at the thought of the Sorenskriver. She was thinking what great good luck they had had in getting off without him!