The young man colored with indignation.
"You do not know our muscles, stranger; neither do you comprehend our scorn for money won by cowardice," he said coldly.
And, without another word, he proceeded to burden himself with the disabled traveler, who, after making a feeble resistance, yielded himself to his fate.
This scene occurred on the frozen surface of the Gulf of Bothnia. A party of Italians, weary of their own luxurious clime, had come to these northern regions in hope of stirring their blood by adventures and perils. Several ladies of the party remained at Upsala in tolerable comfort, while their husbands and brothers, expecting to find the gulf a smooth and glassy expanse, hastened to cross it in sledges in pursuit of a new sensation. With great difficulty they procured sledges and horses with their drivers, from the country about Grisselhamn, a little town whence they proposed to set out on the expedition. It was also necessary to provide themselves with huge coats of bearskin, before encountering the cutting blasts to which these foreigners were unaccustomed.
Thus equipped, the party set forth in high spirits. Instead, however, of smooth surface over which they had expected to glide as on the wings of the wind, they soon found, to their dismay, that they were toiling over a rough and dangerous series of masses of ice, by means of which they were jolted and bruised to the last degree of endurance. Again and again they were thrown from the sledges, whence they went rolling in all directions. To add to their dismay, the horses, fancying these strange objects on the ice to be veritable bears, became every moment more and more unmanageable, and one of them, wild with terror, at length took flight. Several of the occupants of the sledge drawn by this horse were scattered along the way, and were gradually rescued by their fellow-travelers. He who remained at the mercy of the terrified horse, kept his seat with the utmost difficulty, and watched, with anxiety, every motion of his sturdy young driver, Olaf Stein, whose strength seemed to be giving way. Mile after mile they flew over the jagged ice-field in awful silence; awaiting at last in breathless suspense the fate that seemed inevitable. When both were thrown violently from the sledge they lay insensible on the ice, while the horse, now left to himself, rushed onward and was heard of no more.
Olaf was the first to recover, and by his aid, his companion was also so far restored as to attempt to rise to his feet. But what was his distress to find that one of his ankles was fractured, and that he must sink back again to the hard and icy bed on which he had already lain until almost benumbed.
It was at this point that he was generous enough to concern himself for the safety of his guide, while hopeless of his own; and that Olaf, with equal generosity, resolved to rescue him or perish in the attempt.
The task he had assumed was severe. They were quite off the usual track; night was approaching, and the cold becoming intense. He toiled on in a sturdy kind of patience, almost instinctively taking the right direction, until at length he had the joy of finding himself on the track whence the terror-stricken horse had diverged. Very shortly, the other sledges came in sight, and the party made the best of its way back to Grisselhamn. The injured traveler was made as comfortable as was possible under the circumstances, and Olaf was sent to Upsala to bring thence his wife, with her maid. The poor fellow had himself sustained a severe injury when thrown from the sledge, and was also exhausted by his toilsome homeward route. But he set forth at once on the journey to Upsala without a word, and under his escort, those he sought returned with him to Grisselhamn. Fortunately, he was not as entirely ignorant of the Italian language as were his new charge of the Dalecarnian speech. He had wandered repeatedly so far as the northern part of Italy in order to dispose of various little articles of his own handiwork, as well as those of his neighbors. His share of the profits of these adventures had enabled him to purchase the horse he had just lost, and by whose means he supported himself. This, therefore, seemed an inauspicious moment for falling in love, and of proposing to himself to take a wife. But love being a sentiment not particularly subject to order and rule, poor Olaf had to yield to his fate. This fate was black-eyed, and brown, and its name was Viola, and she who possessed these attractions was the little maid whose duty it now was to take charge of her master, with such aid as Olaf could render. Nursing was new business to the hardy young peasant, but he was glad of occupation, and thankful for a task that kept him near Viola. She, on her part, felt supreme contempt for black eyes, from the moment she met the first kind glance from Olaf's blue ones; if he proved an awkward nurse, why, there was all the more for her to teach him. Besides, it was not long before she discovered the severe contusion he had received in his fall, and felt it absolutely necessary to take his aching shoulder under her charge, and to treat it with a vast deal of needed and a vast deal of needless compassion and care. Though his nature was honest as the day, Olaf for once was willing to make the very most of his bruises, since Viola was thus led to pour out upon him such floods of pity as would soon lead to love. When, therefore, the fractured ankle was healed, and the Italian party ready to return home, and Olaf was pressed to ask what favor he would wish in return for his services, it is not so strange, considering what human nature is, that all he asked was permission to make a Swede of the little brown maiden who, in his eyes, was the only maiden on earth.
Her mistress, a spoiled child of fortune, received this proposal with indignation; said she could not live without Viola, who knew all her ways, and for whom she had done so much, and that, at least, she could not spare her until their return to Italy. When her husband overruled all these objections by reminding her that he owed his life to Olaf, she ceased open argument and resorted to secret strategy.
"How do you expect to live in this villainous climate, you silly child?" cried she, when Viola, with downcast eyes, owned her wish to do so. "You will absolutely perish with the cold. Then think what food you will have to eat! Instead of grapes, and melons, and figs, you will have that abominable bread made of bran mixed with bark and resin! I tasted a bit of it one day, and the very thought of it sickens me. You think Olaf will provide you with flour? Nonsense! And then to sit and spin, spin and knit, knit from morning till night! Why, even the very children in their cradles are taught to work, and I have seen them, myself, knitting all the way to school. What do you say? That you are never so happy as when at work? And that work for one you love will be sweet! You cannot really pretend that you love that great clumsy fellow with his round face like the full moon, and his breeches and knee-buckles, and odd little caps. Now, Viola, that is actually too absurd! Think, now, there was young Oglio, who had such a passion for you; think of the cruelty of forsaking him for this stranger."