Feats on the Fiord

by Harriet Martineau

"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 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.

All took place as it was settled in the boat. Before the people on a neighbour'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 neighbours 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 farmhouse 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 farmhouses—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 earrings, 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.

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, Elringsen 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 anyone 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."

"And what might I expect that your orders would be, if I went with you?"