As we gasped with the heat, and pondered over the scrambled meal at Jaakkima, we listened to the strangely sad but entrancing singing of a number of peasants in the next waggon, all bound like ourselves for Sordavala, although they were really rehearsing for the Festival, while we were drowsily proceeding thither merely as spectators.
How they flirted those two on the bridge outside our carriage. Spite of the hard outlines of her face, and her peculiarly small Finnish eyes, the maiden managed to ogle and smile upon the guard standing with his hands upon the rail; so slender was the support, that it seemed as if he might readily fall off the train and be killed by the wheels below. The flirtation was not only on her side, for presently he took her hand, a fat little round hand, with a golden circle upon one of the fingers, which denoted betrothal or marriage, and pressed it fondly. We could not understand their Finnish speech; but there is a language comprehensible to all, in every clime. That the pair were in love no one could for a moment doubt, and that they heeded nothing of those quaint old Finnish chants, distinctly audible from the opposite carriage, was evident, for they talked on and on.
We passed Niva; here and there the waters of a lake glinted in the sunshine, or a river wound away to the sea, strewn with floating wood, as though its waters were one huge raft.
The singing ceased; save the merry laugh of the Finnish girl, nothing but the click-cluck-click of the wheels was audible. The guard leaned over her, whispered in her ear, then, as if yielding to some sudden impulse, pressed her to his heart; and, still to the accompaniment of that endless click-cluck-click, implanted a kiss on her full round lips. For a moment they stood thus, held in warm embrace, muttering those sweet nothings which to lovers mean all the world.
Suddenly the door behind them opened, and one of the singers, nervous and excited from the long practice of his national airs, came upon the bridge to let the gentle zephyrs cool his heated brow.
All smiles, this sunburnt blonde, whose hair fell in long locks, cut off straight, like the ancient saints in pictures, stood before us—his pink flannel shirt almost matching the colour of his complexion.
In a moment all was changed; his happy smile vanished into a glance of deadly hate, the colour fled from his face, leaving him ashy-pale, fire literally shot from his eyes as he gazed upon his affianced bride; but he did not speak.
His hand violently sought his belt, and in a moment the long blade of one of those Scandinavian puukko—knives all peasants use—gleamed in the sunshine. For an instant he balanced it on high, and then, with a shriek more wild than human, he plunged the blade deep down into his betrothed's white breast.
Like a tiger the guilty guard sprang upon him; madly they fought while the girl lay still and senseless at their feet, a tiny stream of blood trickling from her breast.
Northern rage once roused is uncontrollable; and there, on the bridge of the moving train, those two men struggled for mastery, till—yes, yes—the light railing gave way, and together the hater and the hated fell over the side, and were cut to pieces by the wheels.