“If you will just make a looking-glass of the Black Tarn,” said Oddo, “you will see that you have no business to carry such a face as yours to the seater. Erica will die of terror at you for the mountain-demon, before you can persuade her it is only you.”
“I was thinking,” observed one of the rowers, who relished the idea of going down to posterity in a wonderful story,—“I was just thinking that your wisest way will be to take a rest in my bed at Holberg’s, without anybody knowing, and shave yourself with my razor, and dress in my Sunday clothes, and so show yourself to your betrothed in such a trim as that she will be glad to see you.”
“Do so, Rolf,” urged Peder. Everybody said “Do so,” and agreed that Erica would suffer far less by remaining five or six hours longer in her present state of mind, than by seeing her lover look like a ghastly savage, or perhaps hearing that he was lying by the roadside, dying of his exertions to reach her. Rolf tried to laugh at all this: but he could not contradict it. He would not hear a word of any messenger being sent. He declared that it would only torment her, as she would not believe in his return till she saw him: and he dropped something about everybody being so wanted at home that nobody ought to stray.
All took place as it was settled in the boat. Before the people on Holberg’s farm had come in to breakfast, Rolf was snug in bed, with a large pitcher of whey by the bedside, to quench his still insatiable thirst. No one but the Holbergs knew of his being there; and he got away unseen in the afternoon, rested, shaven, and dressed, so as to look more like himself, though still haggard. Packing his old clothes into a bundle, which he carried with a stick over his shoulder, and laden with nothing else but a few rye-cakes, and a flask of the everlasting corn-brandy, he set forth, thanking his hosts very heartily for their care, and somewhat mysteriously assuring them that they would hear something soon, and that meantime they had better not have to be sought far from home.
As he expected, he met no one whom he knew. Nine-tenths of the neighbours were far away on the seaters, and of the small remainder, almost all were attending the bishop on the opposite shore of the lake. Rolf shook his head at every deserted farm-house that he passed, thinking how the pirates might ransack the dwellings, if they should happen to discover that few inhabitants remained in them but those whose limbs were too old to climb the mountain. He shook his head again when he thought what consternation he might spread through these dwellings by dropping at the doors the news of how near the pirate-schooner lay. It seemed to be out of the people’s minds now because it was out of sight, and the bishop had become visible instead. As for the security which some talked of from there being so little worth taking in the Nordland farm-houses,—this might be true if only one house was to be attacked, and that one defended: but half-a-dozen ruffians, coming ashore, to search eight or ten undefended houses in a day, might gather enough booty to pay them for their trouble. Of money they would find little or none; but in some families there were gold chains, crosses, and ear-rings, which had come down from a remote generation, or silver goblets and tankards. There were goats worth carrying away for their milk, and spirited horses and their harness, to sell at a distance. There were stores of the finest bed and table linen in the world; sacks of flour, cellars full of ale, kegs of brandy, and a mass of tobacco in every house. Fervently did Rolf wish, as he passed by these comfortable dwellings, that the enemy would cast no eye or thought upon their comforts till he should have given such information in the proper quarters as should deprive them of the power of doing mischief in this neighbourhood.
Leaving the last of the farm-houses behind, he ascended the ravine, and came out upon the expanse of rich herbage which Erica had trodden but a few days before. He thought, as she had done, of his own description of their journeying together to the seater, and of the delight with which she would leap from the cart to walk with him on the first sight of the waving grass upon the upland. His heart beat joyously at the thought, instead of mourning like hers. He was transported with happiness when he thought how near he was to her now, and on the eve of a season of delight,—a few balmy summer weeks upon the pastures, to be followed by his marriage. This affair of the pirates once finished, was ever man so happy as he was going to be? The thought made him spring as lightly through the tall grass that lay between him and the Black Tarn as the reindeer from point to point of the mountain steep.
The breeze blew in his face, refreshing him with its coolness, and with the fragrance of the birch, with which it was loaded. But it brought something else,—a transient sound which surprised Rolf,—voices of men, who seemed, if he could judge from so rapid a hint, to be talking angrily. He began to consider whom, besides Oddo, Erlingsen could have thought it safe or necessary to bring with him, or whether it was somebody met with by chance. At all events, it would be wisest not to show himself, and to approach with all possible caution. Cautiously, therefore, he drew near, keeping a vigilant watch all around, and ready to pop down into the grass on any alarm. Being unable to see any one near the tarn, he was convinced the talkers must be seated under the crags on its margin, and he therefore made a circuit, to get behind the rocks, and then climbed a huge fragment, which seemed to have been toppled down from some steep, and to have rolled to the brink of the water. Two stunted pines grew out from the summit of this crag, and between these pines Rolf placed himself, and looked down from thence.
Two men sat on the ground in the shadow of the rock: one was Hund, and the other must undoubtedly be one of the pirate crew. His dress, arms, and broken language all showed him to be so; and it was, in fact, the same man that Erica had met near the same place; though that she had had such an adventure was the last thing her lover dreamed of as he surveyed the man’s figure from above. This man appeared surly. Hund was extremely agitated.
“It is very hard,” said he, “when all I want is to do no harm to anybody,—neither to my old friends nor my new acquaintances,—that I cannot be let alone. I have done too much mischief in my life already. The demons have made sport of me;—it is their sport that I have as many lives to answer for as any man of twice my age in Nordland; and now that I would be harmless for the rest of my days—”
“Don’t trouble yourself to talk about your days,” interrupted the pirate; “they will be too few to be worth speaking of, if you do not put yourself under our orders again. You are a deserter; and as a deserter you go back with me, unless you choose to go as a comrade.”