“Oh, we are all coming,” said Wareham, raging at his fetters.
She looked at him with eyes surprised but twinkling, talked about London for a decent interval, and left the room. He scarcely expected to see her re-appear with the others in the hall, but she was there.
Whatever Stalheim may suffer from its visitors, it is magnificently placed, a height among heights. Straight in front the Naerodal cleaves the mountains, its conical Jordalshut dominating the rest, its lovely mist-drifts playing round the summits. Below, a silver flash darts through the greys, and slender falls leap down to join the river. Nor is this fine cleft the only outlet. As they strolled up a road to the left where was a broken foreground of shrub, boulders, and cut grass—made lively by magpies—the great valley through which they had passed the day before, opened, and swept away into purple gloom, until the eye reached the mountains behind, here shrouded in cloud, there uplifting snowy heights against the menacing darkness. There was a wildness, a grandeur, a savage desolation, such as they had not yet seen under the August skies of Norway.
At the end of the walk Wareham took credit to himself for his conduct. He was sure that he had been quite natural, had walked with Anne, talked with Anne, and looked at Anne, without betraying attraction. This satisfied his man’s code, which, once alarmed, is minute in such matters. He even avoided wishing her good-bye—marked slight; possibly, too marked. When the Ravenhills started, he dispatched his portmanteau in a carriole, and followed on foot.
It was a day of broken lights and flitting shadows; waterfalls rushed down on either side, and the beautiful salmon river, beryl-coloured, milky white, indigo, raced along by the road, and offered its counteracting life to what gloom there was. Wareham gave eager appreciation to the green flashing world through which he walked, his conscience was light, he enjoyed the smell of hay, snatched from steep roof-like patches of earth—the slender falls, scarcely more than silver threads, which leapt incredible heights to escape from their ice-prisons—the sweet pure air, the spring of turf at his feet. Far away in front the little carriages with their dun ponies spun along; presently a wild unkempt figure, carrying a sickle, and clad in scarlet jacket, broad hat, and knee-breeches, strode from a bushy path, a dog as wild as his master at his heels. Then a cottage or two with flowery roofs came in sight, a glimmer of fjord, and he was at Gudvangen. Mrs Ravenhill and Millie were standing outside Hansen’s primitive little inn when he reached it.
“I don’t know what you will say,” said Mrs Ravenhill, laughing. “Are you prepared to live in a deal box by the roadside? But Millie and I think it delightful.”
“Then I shall think it delightful too,” said Wareham. “One can always fish.”
Millie inquired if he had seen the waterfall.
“That little thing!”
“Speak respectfully, please! One of the highest in Europe, two thousand feet, with a jump of five hundred, isn’t to be dismissed in such a slighting tone.”