“Ah, bairn! I was indeed forgetful, but I have been so short a time away, that I cannot think the fairies have had leisure left them in which to do mischief to you.”
“Don’t be too sure, mother; I did hear a noise of something hopping about by the churn, and may be you won’t get any butter to-morrow; and are you quite sure I am just the same as when you left me? You know this,” touching her own twisted side, “came of my being left on Yule e’en by myself.” Tronda spoke jestingly, of course, but her light words carried a sad pang to the mother’s heart.
Folding her arms about the little thin figure, Doya said, whisperingly, “If the fairies took my child that night, or if they brought this life-trouble to her, I dare not repine, for who could be to us what loving, patient, unselfish, sickly Tronda is?”
Tronda knew that there were serious thoughts expressed in those words of pleasantry, so she let the Yule joke pass by, and nestling closer to the loving bosom above her, the child asked: “Tell me how it really happened, dear mother; I want so much to know, for although it’s all nonsense about the fairies or trows hurting me, still—I should—like to—know.”
“How old is my little girl?” Doya answered. “Let me see, thirteen past in September, and not so large as most bairns are at ten; but more than thirteen, aye, more than twenty, in mind and feeling. I have never spoken of my sorrows to any one, but I think my daughter can be my sympathizing friend, so she shall hear it all. It was just ten years ago, on that awful stormy Yule even, of which you have heard folks talk. I was happy then, for your father was kind, my little ones were healthy and beautiful, and I had never looked upon sin in its darker aspects. My little Tronda shall know all the story. On that wild Yule even I had put you and Rassmie to bed, and was hushing Hermann on my knee, when I was startled by hearing a succession of shrieks, which seemed borne to my ear on the wings of an exultant storm fiend. With the baby in my arms, I ran to the door and looked out into the mirkness—just such a night as this,” and Doya shivered, even by the glowing fire; “a tempest of wind, bright gleaming moonlight, and flying clouds. Again and again that dreadful cry arose, and, forgetful of everything, I flew down the slope and stood upon the beach. It was covered with bits of wreck—tables, chairs, trunks, hammocks. Near these, up to his waist in the roaring sea, I found your father. Above us, on the height, gleamed a gigantic fire of peat, and among the surf, close beside me, floated unresistingly the blood-stained form of a sailor—”
“Oh! mother, don’t tell me more of that. I know, I know; it is all plain now!”
“Yes,” Doya said, in a dreamy apathetic tone; “it’s all plain; you know now what I knew then. Hours afterwards I returned to the house, with Hermann still innocently sleeping on my bosom, and I discovered that in my absence you had waked up, and finding yourself alone, had tried to get out of bed, and in so doing had fallen against something on the floor, where I found you lying helpless and almost unconscious. It was not trows—no, Tronda; on that Yule e’en it was not trows that came to injure you—it was a fiend—your own flesh and blood!”
The poor feeble girl shrank away in meek terror from the sudden fierceness of Doya’s words and gesture. She had never seen her gentle, patient mother in that mood before, but it passed away, and a long painful silence fell upon them both.
Loudly and hoarsely roared the winter gales around the cottage. Sometimes their stormy voices rose defiantly above the boom of the breaking wave. Sometimes they clamoured fiercely against the chafing surge, whose anger they had awakened. Oftentimes they moaned and mourned among the heather, or hurled the “drifting veil” of snow before their impatient pinions deep into some dimpled valley; and you might well have deemed that evil spirits were wandering unfettered over the world, for the sweet Christmas heralds could not have bent their bright brows to earth in such a fearful hour. But still, musing and silent, sat Doya Henderson and her deformed child; and the minutes passed into hours, and both were so engrossed with dismal thoughts and forebodings that they never seemed to miss the presence of Rassmie and Hermann. But the same dark demon to whom power had been given over land and sea and human heart—that same “foul fiend” was reigning to-night as then; and again was brought to Doya’s ear the wail of bitterest mortal agony. You might almost have thought that she expected it, for when that awful cry rang out on the night air, Doya did not start or look surprised, her face just paled, and she dropped on her knees beside Tronda, whose trembling figure had sought that attitude which instinct teaches us to adopt when we turn to God in our hours of helplessness and woe.
“Pray, mother; pray!” cried the girl. “Pray for father; oh! let it be for him more than all.”