The sermon was simple and cordial, the singing pure; in a word, no dissonant tone came hither to disturb the devotion which the arrangement of divine service in Norway is so well adapted to call forth and maintain.[19]
Here Harald and Susanna called on heaven, from faithful and earnest hearts, to bless their sincere intention, in joy and in trouble on the earth, to love one another, and were declared by the congregation to be a pair.
Many people had come this day to church; and when the wedding-train returned homewards, many boats joined themselves to it, and followed it to the opposite shore with singing and loud huzzas.
But Susanna did not feel herself truly calm and happy till in Mrs. Astrid's quiet room she had bowed her forehead on her knee, and had felt her maternal hands laid in blessing upon her head. Her heart was so full of gratitude it seemed ready to burst.
"I have then a mother!" she exclaimed, as she embraced Mrs. Astrid's knees, and looked up to her with the warmest and most child-like affection;—"Ah! I am too happy, far too happy! God has given me, the poor solitary one, a home and a mother——"
"And a husband, too! Forget him not, I beseech! He too will be included!" said Harald, as he gently embraced Susanna, and also bent his knee before the maternal friend.
Mrs. Astrid clasped them both warmly in her arms, and said, with a still, inward voice, as she went with them to the window, whence was seen the beautiful dale in all its whole extent: We begin to-day together a new life, and we will together endeavour to make it happy. At this moment when I stand, surrounded by you, my children, and looking forward as it were into a beautiful future, I seem to myself so well to understand how that may be. We have not here the treasures of art; we have not the life of the great world, with its varying scenes to enliven and entertain us; but our lives need not therefore be heavy and earth-bound. We have Heaven, and we have—Nature! We will call down the former into our hearts and into our home, and we will inquire of the latter concerning its silent wonders, and through their contemplation elevate our spirits. By the flame of our quiet hearth we will sometimes contemplate the movements of the great world-drama, in order thereafter with the greater joy to return to our own little scene, and consider how we can best, each of us play out our part. "And I promise you beforehand," continued Mrs. Astrid, assuming a playful tone, "that mine shall not be, to make so long a speech as now."
But both Harald and Susanna joined in assuring Mrs. Astrid that she could not possibly speak too long.
"Well, well," said she kindly; "if you will sometimes listen to the old woman's preachings, she, on the other hand, will often be a child with you, and learn with you, and of you. I am at this moment equally curious about nature, and long to make a closer acquaintance with her. The thought of it throws a kind of vernal splendour over my autumn."
"And assuredly," said Harald, "the intercourse with nature operates beneficently, and with a youth-restoring power upon the human heart. I always remember with delight the words of Goethe, when in his eightieth year, he returned one spring from a visit in the country, sunburnt and full of gladness: 'I have had a conversation with the vine,' said he, 'and you cannot believe what beautiful things it has said to me.' Do we not seem here to behold a new golden age beam forth, in which the voices of nature become audible to the ear of man, and he in conversation with her to acquire higher wisdom and tranquillity of life?"