Feats on the Fiord

by Harriet Martineau

"Yes," sighed Erica, "safe from the pirates. That was his answer when I begged him not to go so far down the fiord; but Rolf always had an answer when one asked him not to go into danger."

"Erica, you went one trip with me, and I know you are brave. Will you go another? Will you go to the islet and see what Rolf could have meant about being safe there?"

Erica brightened for a moment, and perhaps would have agreed to go; but Peder came in, and Peder said he knew the islet well, and that it was universally considered that it was now inaccessible to human foot, and that that was the reason why the fowl flourished there as they did in no other place. Erica must not be permitted to go so far down among the haunts of the pirates. Instead of this, her mistress had just decided that, as there were no present means of getting rid of Hund, and as Erica could not be expected to remain just now in his presence, she should set off immediately for the mountain, and request Erlingsen to come home.

Under Peder's urgency she made up her bundle of clothes, took in her hand her lure,[[3]] with which to call home the cattle in the evenings, bade her mistress farewell privately, and stole away without Hund's knowledge.

[[3]] The lure is a wooden trumpet, nearly five feet long, made of two hollow pieces of birch-wood, bound together throughout the whole length with slips of willow. It is used to call the cattle together on a wide pasture.

Wandering with unwilling steps farther and farther from the spot where she had last seen Rolf, Erica dashed the tears from her eyes, and looked behind her at the entrance of a ravine which would hide from her the fiord and the dwelling she had left. Thor islet lay like a fragment of the leafy forest cast into the blue waters, but Vogel islet could not be seen. It was not too far down to be seen from an elevation like this, but it was hidden behind the promontories by which the fiord was contracted. She looked behind her no more, but made her way rapidly through the ravine; the more rapidly because she had seen a man ascending by the same path at no great distance, and she had little inclination to be joined by a party of wandering Laplanders, still less by any neighbour from the fiord who might think civility required that he should escort her to the seater. This wayfarer was walking at a pace so much faster than hers that he would soon pass, and she would hide among the rocks beside the tarn at the head of the ravine till he had gone by.

Through the rich pasture Erica waded till she reached the tarn which fed the stream that gambolled down the ravine. The death-cold unfathomed waters lay calm and still under the shelter of the rocks which nearly surrounded them.

In the shadow of one of these rocks, Erica sank down into the long grass. Here she would remain long enough to let the other wayfarer have a good start up the mountain, and by that time she should be cool and tranquillised. She hid her face in the fragrant grass, and did not look up again till the grief of her soul was stilled. Then her eye and her heart were open to the beauty of the place which she had made her temple of worship, and she gazed around till she saw something that surprised her.

The traveller, who she had hoped was now some way up the mountain, was standing on the margin of the tarn, immediately opposite to her.

She sat up, and took her bundle and her lure, believing now that she must accept the unwelcome civility of an escort for the whole of the rest of the way, and thinking that she might as well make haste and get it over. The man approached and took his seat on the huge stone beside her, crossed his arms, made no greeting, but looked her full in the face.