Frances Peard (continued 3)

“Oh, British arrogance! However, I do not wish it. Uniformity is always dull, and I would rather suffer shame from my own ignorance than have all the world patted down to one dead level. There is dignity in the unknown. When I hear these men talk, I can’t help imagining that what they say would be worth hearing, if I could only understand, though probably it is about nothing more valuable than as to how many gulden they may get for their hay, if, indeed, any of them ever sell anything. Do ask them that.”

“I can’t,” Wareham confessed. “My conversation is chiefly made up of nouns and notes of interrogation.”

“Well, what have you extracted?”

“Both are married. One has four children, who walk five kilometres to school every day of their lives. The other has a son, of course in America. He is a wood-carver, and hopes by the sale of his work to lay by enough to take him to Chicago.”

Anne’s eyes sparkled.

“Tell him I will buy a great deal. As soon as I meet my money again,” she added, laughing. “Am I not to be allowed to assist?”

“I have nothing to do with your purchases,” Anne said quietly. “I dare say you want something for your friends at home. Have you a great many?”

Wareham blurted out—“I have no greater friend than Hugh Forbes.” Why he said it he could not tell. He had been forcing himself ever since they started to keep Hugh’s image in mind, and his name leapt suddenly to his lips. Anne did not look discomposed.

“He is a very good fellow,” she said, after a momentary hesitation.

“Yet you would not marry him?”

“It has puzzled you? It puzzled no one else. Blanche Martyn will tell you she knew how it must be from the first.”

“Why?” asked Wareham, leaning forward with his arms on his knees, and staring at the bottom of the boat.

“You should ask her, not me. The accused is not bound to criminate herself.”

“The accused! Good heavens, do you suppose!” he began passionately, then by a great effort stopped. Anne was looking at him through half-closed eyes.

“However,” she went on, as if he had not spoken, “I will let you hear her explanation. She thinks I am a flirt.”

“She is a detestable woman.”

“Oh, no; and I believe her to be right. I told you just now that I had no sense of colour; well, I have a worse confession to make. I have no heart.”

“One is as true as the other,” Wareham protested stoutly. She shook her head.

“Possibly it may come. But as yet I am without it.”

“You forget. You gave me another reason.”

“That I did not care for him sufficiently. It surprised you. It might be a proof that what I tell you is no more than the truth. For it would be difficult to conceive any one more lovable.”

Wareham’s own heart agreed, but refused to accept the conclusion.

“Really,” she said, “it was this charm of his which opened my eyes to my own want. I meant to marry, and so long as I did not dislike the man, would not trouble myself to think I need give him more. Suddenly I discovered I liked him too much to let him find himself in that position, and released him. It was the best act in my life, and it has alienated the friends who were most worth keeping.”

Wareham’s hopes met this dash of ice-cold water with a gallant effort for his friend. He turned pale, but muttered—

“You do not know yourself. You may love him yet.”

“Never. All that I felt was that I could not feel.”

She spoke with conviction, and the conviction roused traitors in his own heart, who repeated the sweet assurance again and again. As for her saying that she could not feel, he laughed the notion to scorn. Had he but the chance, he would teach her to feel, batter at her heart till it awoke with an ache to find itself captured. The danger was that before this happened his honour might have to hang its head, disgraced, for the frank confidence she showed seemed to bring her nearer and nearer, and made waiting harder. He hoped he had strength to be silent, for he dared not attempt to argue with her. With an abrupt movement he motioned to one of the men to cease rowing, and took his place. The strong regular play of the muscles came like a relief, but the other man, forced to a quicker stroke, presently remonstrated. Wareham asked whether it were impossible to sail, quicker movement seeming imperative. He knew what the answer must be when he put the question, for not a breath of wind stirred the glass of the fjord. After he had rowed for one man some time he relieved the other; if it had been possible he would have liked to have had it all on his shoulders. Anne said to him at last—

“You are putting such energy into your work that it tires me to look at you. Does half-an-hour more or less really mean so much?”

He laid down the oars, and came across the boat to her side.

“It means nothing, except that I felt the need of a spurt. We are close to Utne, where we should find a decent inn. Had you not better stop there and rest? You want food by this time.”

“I would rather not stop. I have been eating biscuits, and you might as well follow my example.”

“Suppose Mrs Martyn has waited?”

Anne meditated.

“Let us row near the shore. If any one belonging to us is there, they will see and make signs. But there will be no one.”

There was not. Wareham would gladly have hailed Mrs Martyn, yet was conscious of a throb of delight when the pretty little village lay behind them. They were by this time in more open water, and the depression which had fastened on him fled away.

“What are your commands about your picnic?” he asked, smiling.

“Find out from the men if there is any place where we can land and boil some water.” This took some time and a little guessing. Finally—

“I believe they say there is an island,” said Wareham.

“I am sure there is.”

“We should reach it in an hour.”

He spent the hour in blissful dreams which, having been once routed, now trooped merrily back. Anne was generally silent, but when she spoke it was with the same friendly ease she had shown throughout the day, and she made no complaints of fatigue. Indeed, he classed her as a heroine when he reflected that she had uttered nothing in the shape of a grumble. Would not most women have indulged in something of the sort? Wareham liked to believe that they would, and exalted her accordingly for her forbearance. It was evening by the hours, and they were well in the Sogne fjord, when Anne pointed out the island towards which the boat was directed.

“Do you see?”

“I see a rock.”

“And what else would you have in mid-water? If we can but find something to burn!”

“I believe there is a hut,” said Wareham, curving his hands into a telescope.

“A solitary! Only this was wanted.” Anne’s face was radiant.

“He may drive us away.”

“A man? Oh, no!” she laughed serenely.

Her confidence proved well-founded, for the Sogne fisherman, who leaped down the rocks to give the boat a helping hand, gave them a grave welcome. He was a wild figure with his scarlet jacket, brown breeches, and light hair under a broad hat. Anne looked at him appreciatively.

“I could not have dressed him better myself—for the piece,” she said. “How odious I am to say so! It is one of the snares of over-civilisation that, instead of the theatre suggesting nature, nature suggests the theatre. This is all so natural that I feel we ought to be applauding.”

She was stiff with sitting. Wareham gave her his hand to help her from the boat, and the light touch of her fingers thrilled him.

The island was no more than a rock, with scant herbage; a few goats and a dog shared it with the man; a boat was drawn up at one shelving point, and the low hut was formed of heaped pieces of rock and roofed with waving grass. There was no chimney; a hole in the roof sufficed for the smoke to pass through. Anne was as excited as a child. She unpacked her tine, and spread their meal on a rock. Wareham had to act as interpreter, and ask that a peat or two might be set ablaze to provide them with hot water; the man’s good-will did not reach the point of making him hurry, but he watched Anne’s quick deft movements with amusement. When all was ready they sat down together. Anne had brought a little tea-pot and two cups, Wareham a bottle of wine, which the men drank out of a rough mug; he could not give up the pleasure of letting Anne pour out tea for himself. It was a very frugal meal, added to, though it was, by dried fish; and when it was finished, she dispensed tobacco to the three men. It seemed she detested the smell; Wareham suggested their walking round the island until the pipes had been smoked. She hesitated, finally agreed.

They scrambled round to the western side, a filmy glory spread over the heavens, interrupted only by the swoop of a grey vapourish cloud. As it had been all along, what the waters saw they gave back again, so that the golden suffusion reached to their very feet. The near reflections were now dark.

“To live here alone! Can you conceive it?” Anne exclaimed.

“Not for one of us; but with so thin a population, solitude probably is second nature.”

“Solitude would require thought, and thought culture.”

“Work might take its place. Work here must be incessant. Relax it, and you die.”

“Why not? What makes it worth while to live? Would any one miss him?”

“Depend upon it, he has a world of his own, but, why—”

He stopped suddenly. Anne looked at him in surprise.

“Why?” she repeated.

He had caught himself on the point of rushing into more personal speech, and the jerk with which he pulled himself up made him awkward.

“Why should we not ask him? For one thing, I imagine he does not stay in winter. He is only here for the fishing.”

“Oh, winter! The very idea is terrible. Yet I should like to see this country in its own snow and ice. Warmly wrapped, I can fancy it bearable, even enjoyable.”

“Yes. Cold is the rich man’s luxury.” He answered her mechanically, his thoughts flying impatiently to Hugh, picturing him receiving the letter, answering it. Anne looked at him in surprise, reading trouble in his face.

“Never a luxury to me,” she said. “And it is growing cold now. Don’t you think we may start?”

The red-coated fisherman put aside all thought of payment. Wareham had difficulty in making him accept a very trifling sum. He stood watching them, and, for a time, as long as they looked back, they saw him blackly silhouetted against the clear sky. Anne had wrapped herself in her furs; the great open fjord gradually paled, the sound of the oars seemed to grow louder; it was like a dream to Wareham, with something of the bondage, the confusion, and the fret of a dream, yet with its strange delight as well. Once or twice he and Anne exchanged words, once or twice he took the oars again; outlines grew vague, it was not dark overhead, but they felt as though they were rowing on into the night. Suddenly Anne looked up.

“The bottom of the boat is wet. Is that right?”

Wareham bent down and uttered an exclamation, for water was certainly oozing in, and under cover of the dusk had been unnoticed, until Anne moved her foot and touched it. He called one of the men, who made an examination.

“Is it a leak?” she asked presently.

Wareham spoke quietly.

“There is a cork acting as a plug, and it appears to be rotten. But you need not be alarmed.”

“I am not alarmed. What shall you do? Try to land?”

There was a consultation.

“The men say we should gain very little. It is twelve o’clock, and Balholm is as near as any other place, so that they advise our going on. Of course one of us will keep close watch, and bale out what water comes in; also have something ready to serve as a plug. But I am afraid it adds to your discomfort.”

“Oh no, I shall be admiring your resources. Don’t leave me useless. Would you like me to act like the boy at the Dutch dyke?”

“I am sure you would,” said Wareham, in a low voice which silenced her.

It was not very easy to find materials for the plug. Anne handed him her gloves, and he abstracted one, but was afraid of discovery if he kept the other. A felt hat belonging to one of the men was rolled as tightly as possible, and held ready; at the same time the men insisted that the cork should not be removed until absolutely necessary, and one was told off to bale and watch.

“All the sensations I imagined are going to be provided for us in miniature,” said Anne, with a laugh. “A desert island, and a leaky boat in mid-ocean. Mr Wareham, you are a conjuror!”

“May the conjuring land you finally and safely at Balholm!”

“After which!” She laughed again.

Silence fell on them once more. One man was scooping up the water in the tin mug; it gurgled under his hand, and the splash of throwing it over followed. The fjord, in the clear semi-darkness, stretched into infinite distances, a wisp of cloud sailed slowly overhead, a pettish breeze blew chilly against Anne’s cheek. She called across to Wareham—“There is a little wind. Can’t we sail?”

“These fjords are treacherous. I dare not. You are not cold?”

She was, but she would not let him know it. It seemed to her that the quantity of water in the boat increased, but they laughed at her offer to assist in the baling. At the end of half-an-hour Wareham changed places with the man who was dipping. The change threw him again close to Anne, and facing her; it struck him that she looked alarmingly white.

“You are exhausted?” he asked anxiously. “You don’t know how strong I am.”

“I can’t get them to quicken stroke. They are steady, but slow.”

“Patience, patience!” He saw that she was smiling at him.

“You need not preach patience to me,” he said, in a low voice. “So far as I am concerned, I should be very well pleased to go on like this for ever.”

“There might be worse things,” said Anne dreamily, and his head swam. He was silent because he dared not speak; his thoughts leapt forward to the time when he might call her his own; meanwhile surely this was the very bliss of misery! It was she who spoke next. “It is lighter,” she said. “I verily believe the day is breaking.”

Wareham consulted his watch.

“Yes, and in an hour we reach Balholm.”

“Cork and all?”

“I think so.”

“Tell me. Have we been in danger?”

“Not since you found it out, and we have had something ready. If it had suddenly given way, matters might have been different; but as it is, we have nothing to fear beyond the discomfort of a wet boat.”

“And I suppose there will be some one about. Mr Grey calls this the Land of the Always-up.”

“I suppose so. At any rate, we will get them up at Kviknaes’. Perhaps Mrs Martyn will have thought of you sufficiently to order a room to be kept for you. You ought to see Balholm now.”

“There is too much mist.”

Gradually this light mist melted, light laughed out, a wind swept the mountains and left them clear; everything was bathed in silvery radiance, the colours were delicate, the air vigorous and keen. Anne shivered.

“It is like one’s lost youth,” she said.

Her lost youth! Wareham lifted a look of reproach, but circumstances had come to the aid of his faltering resolution, since scooping water from the bottom of a boat is fatal to the sentimental view. Anne at last began to laugh at him.

“I am sure your back aches,” she said.

“You may be sure. There is lost youth if you like,” he answered, straightening himself, and stretching.

She advised him to change with a rower, but he would not. It was something to be near her, though he suffered for it twice over. And the strong heart of the morning showed his hopes in stouter aspect. Hugh would see that his cause was desperate, and generosity would not suffer him to wreck another life with his own. Before he left, Wareham had treated his friend’s crushed heart with severity or lightness as need arose, now he allowed it to have been serious enough, but as serious as his—never! Nevertheless, he could not indulge undisturbed in the wild dreams of happiness which flitted through his head, for with them Hugh’s face intruded itself.

And—the letter!

They were near the landing-place at Balholm, and fronted by the mountain with the strange cleft in its snowy summit. Mountain, field, the few red-roofed houses, the outstanding pier, were bathed in the glory of the sun, now hastening upwards. One or two figures stood looking at the oncoming boat.

Wareham flung a glance over his shoulder.

“They are expecting us,” he said, “you see.”

A shout came to them across the water—another. A thought startled him, he looked eagerly at Anne. She had her eyes fixed on the shore, some agitation had crept into them, and for a minute she did not speak.

“Who is it?” asked Wareham hoarsely, without turning round.

“It is Mr Forbes.”

“Impossible!”

“See for yourself.”

Chapter Ten.

The Inconvenience of Two Heroes.

At its best, the unexpected is apt to come off awkwardly, and here was more than one awkward element. When hearing distance was reached, they found that Hugh was speaking volubly—

“Are you all right? No one suffered? What a nuisance for you both! Bring the boat a little further on, Dick, and Miss Dalrymple will land more comfortably. Are you all right?” anxiously again.

“My dear fellow, we’re in a water-logged boat,” Wareham called out, not sorry that his words were truer than they would have been five minutes ago, for with his attention elsewhere a good deal of water had leaked in.

“Horrors!” cried Hugh, pressing forward, and ready to jump in to the rescue. “Is Miss Dalrymple wet?”

“I’m afraid so.” Wareham was cool again outwardly. “Here, take this rope. Now, Miss Dalrymple, your foot here—so. You are cramped? Do not hurry. We shall not be swamped just yet.”

He managed to put his hand for her to tread on, while Hugh eagerly helped her. In another moment men and all had scrambled on shore, and Hugh was shaking hands violently with his friend.

“I never was more annoyed than to hear what had happened, but I felt certain you’d come on, and have been on the look-out all night. They shouldn’t have left you. It was too bad. Miss Dalrymple, are you sure you are not cold?”

“I am sure of nothing,” said Anne, speaking for the first time. “May I inquire what extraordinary chance brought you to this place?” She looked rather amused than vexed.

“I heard you were here.”

“How?”

“Wareham, like a good fellow, telegraphed.”

Anne darted a look at him. He stood helpless. Explanation was impossible. She said only—“Oh!”

“Of course I couldn’t be certain where I should strike across you,” Hugh went on, “so I came straight up in the steamer, and asked as I came along. Some other friends of yours are here. They seemed awfully cut up about you. But pray, pray come at once to the hotel. I have made them keep coffee and cold meat ready, and your room is all right. Dick will see about those fellows.”

He swept her away. Wareham stared after them, dumb wretchedness gnawing at his heart. Complications gathered round him. Anne might naturally resent what had the appearance of an act of treachery; and was this the end of the fair dream which had floated with him along the clear waters of the fjord? He stood reduced, insignificant, before Hugh’s assertive energy. Of her his last view as she walked lightly away was a side-face turned inquiringly towards Hugh.

Wareham’s mood might be painted black—of the blackest. If virtue does not always meet with a reward, she expects it, and grows huffy at non-fulfilment. He felt he had behaved well towards Hugh; an occasional slip of the tongue should not count in comparison with the many times that he had bridled it, and each of these times was quick to multiply itself. By dint of looking back he convinced himself that Hugh’s debt to him was great.

It was one way of discharging it to be waiting at Balholm, at three o’clock in the morning, to hand Miss Dalrymple out of the boat!

The men paid, and left to make the boat water-tight, Wareham walked slowly up the short incline towards the inn. He lingered, from an irritable disinclination to see Anne and Hugh together again; but before he reached the door, Hugh came out to meet him like a bolt. He seized Wareham’s hand and wrung it.

“My dear old fellow,” he cried exultingly, “was ever anything in the world so amazingly lucky! I might have knocked about the country for a week without tumbling up against them, and of all the blessed moments for a man to arrive, just when she was a bit sore at their want of care!”

As Hugh paused to contemplate his good fortune, Wareham thrust in a question.

“What on earth made you go in for such a”—he would have liked to have said “preposterous,” but left it out—“hurricane dash across the seas?”

“What else would you have expected when I had your telegram? Wasn’t I just wild to get word with her again? And saw no chance of it. Look here, what food there is, is waiting for you in there. Come and eat. I’ve got to talk to some one about it all, and I’m not so unreasonable as to harangue a hungry man.”

“More sleepy than hungry.”

“Well, you must eat before you turn in.”

“Has Miss Dalrymple had some food?” Hugh laughed joyously.

“Do you suppose I didn’t see that she had all she wanted? It’s gone up to her room, of course. She’s got to pay that tribute to Mrs Grundy. Here you are; now what’ll you have? Here’s the landlord himself. Beer, sausage, kippered salmon, marmalade, coffee?”

Wareham made a selection; Hugh rattled on, helping himself meanwhile.

“I believe I’m as hungry as you are. Meat in this country is uneatable—or was yesterday,” he added, with an exulting fling at his own change of mood; “but I can’t understand that it isn’t the orthodox breakfast-time. I suppose one must go to bed, but I shan’t sleep—not a wink. I say, old fellow, it was awfully good of you to send me that telegram—awfully. And now you’ve seen Anne—”

“Anne? Is she Anne again?”

“She’s never been anything else in my heart. Now you’ll understand. Enough to throw a man off his balance, wasn’t it?—to think of losing her. She’s splendid. And to tell you the truth, I’ve been fretting myself with the idea she might be annoyed at seeing me here at her heels.”

“Well?”

“Try the salmon? No? You’d better. What was I saying? Oh, I believe she was rather pleased than otherwise. Women are not to be counted on. They’ll fight you, but they like to be taken by storm.”

Wareham agreed with a groan, thinking of himself in the boat. Hugh went on—

“She didn’t seem a bit vexed. But as I said before, I couldn’t have chosen a better moment if I’d waited a year. Selfish pig, that Mrs Martyn. I don’t believe she cared one halfpenny. Those other people, Ravenstones, Ravenhills—what are they called?—were twice as feeling. The mercy was that it was you, old fellow, and no other man, who was with her.”

It was impossible to keep back a sharp “Why?”

Hugh laughed.

“You’ve never seen me a prey to the yellows, but I can imagine myself in their clutches. Another man would have meant possibilities. No, I’m grateful.”

Wareham had a horrible impulse to cry out, “Fool!” and this to his friend. Instead of it, he said—“You’d better bottle up your gratitude till you know it’s due.” He would have liked to let out more, but how?

“I’m not afraid. And I tell you what, I’m glad for another reason. You can’t have seen her for all these hours without understanding something of her charm. Where are your prejudices now? But I won’t reproach you. You’ve done me too good a turn. By Jove, it’s hard work waiting, even if only a few hours!”

He had his elbows on the table, his chin in his hands. Wareham pushed back his chair and stared at him with something of the feeling of a man who, worsted, yet will look his fate in his face. He knew his age—eight-and-twenty—but never before had he seen him as the very incarnation of youth. It could be read in every line, in the twist of his shoulders, in the spring of his thick wavy hair, in the attitude, half comical, half petulant. He was tall, and his shoulders prognosticated size; fair as a northerner, and clean-faced; grey-eyed and wide-mouthed. Wareham, with thirty not long left behind him, felt an absurd envy of his three years’ advantage. He stood up suddenly.

“Look here, Hugh, I’m done. I’m going to bed.”

“All right, old fellow. You do look a bit seedy. Shall I come up and see that they’ve treated you properly? Say the word, and I will.”

“For heavens sake, no.”

“You’d rather tumble in at once? Good. I haven’t said half there is in my head, but I dare say you think it’ll keep. I don’t know what I’ll do. Lie down, I suppose; but there’s a bath-house out there on the pier, and I feel more like a swim. You won’t try that instead?”

“Bed,” said Wareham laconically.

“Bed it is, then. I’d better show the way in this rabbit-warren. You’re close to me.”

“Kviknaes will come. He and I are old friends.”

It was difficult to shake off Hugh’s good-will. Wareham had no inclination for sleep, but imperative need to be alone, to meet these disjointed fancies which had neither sense nor sequence, yet threatened mastery. Kviknaes, smiling hospitably as though four o’clock in the morning were the usual hour for receiving guests, showed him his little room, the same as he had had there once before. It looked out on the great fjord, now lying in sunniest radiance. Evidently Hugh, from the next room, had spied the boat coming over the waters, and timed his own departure to the landing-place. Wareham decided, with a grim smile, that Anne doubtless credited him with a night watch on the shore.

This was the first consolatory reflection, and it was petty enough.

It allowed entrance, however, to others. His mind was like an American house with the valves for hot and cold air both open; cold and heat rushed in in brisk emulation. Out of sight of Hugh, out of hearing his transports, with the shining waters before him across which he and she had floated, he wondered at his own sudden dejection, and rated it as cowardly. The world’s veriest fledgeling would have borne himself more bravely. Say that Hugh was there, say that Anne encountered him without displeasure, what did that prove? Did he expect her to frown, to hurl reproach? He eluded that second speech of hers in the boat, which had fallen icily; he went back to her confession that Hugh bored her. That had seemed to him decisive. A woman does not marry the man who bores her, except for cogent reasons, which he would not hold of possible weight with Anne. He bored her, she had flung up her engagement and fled. There was the long and short of it. Nothing was altered, and out jumped a hundred excellent little arguments protesting that nothing ever should alter.

But the worst of these Jack-in-the-box puppets is that a very little sends them in again. Opportunity—golden opportunity—had been his, when his hands were tied; would she ever come again? How was Anne to know what point of honour checked words, looks? If she did know—there was the rub!—would she accept it as valid reason? Down, dismally down, went the poor puppets, one after the other. She would not, she could not!

If that had been all! But he knew that he was turning his back upon the worst difficulty.

What would happen when the unconscious Hugh received that letter which was off on its travels after him, and which sooner or later must come into his hands. What should he do? Forestall it? Stand aside and wait?

Regrets, forebodings scourged him. If he had spoken he might have won her. Faith to his friend—which he could not have failed in without being false to himself—had probably lost her. And in spite of all, there was that in the situation which might cause Hugh to think him a traitor.

The varying sensations of the day had battered him into a condition more nearly approaching exhaustion than he knew. Sleep came before he had formed plans for his waking, and he was only aroused by Hugh thundering at his door.

“Slept well? So have I. Like a top. Come along down to the bath-house.”

Wareham dispatched him with promise to follow. Waking, as often happens, had brought decision, so that he shook himself free of the foggy doubts which beset him a few hours before. There could be no question of Hugh’s prior rights. He had nothing to do but to stand aside, and hold his tongue. As for the letter, it must be left to its fate. Long before it reached Hugh, that impetuous young man would have carried or lost the day, and Wareham had sufficient faith in his friend’s warm-heartedness to believe that he would understand, too. That, for the moment, was of greater consequence. He walked slowly down to the pier of black piles, where a red-tiled building is picturesquely perched, revolving other people’s possible actions. They are wheels which we can drive with fewer jolts than our own. And the pure fresh air, the sparkling gaiety of the morning had their effect. They intoxicated Hugh. Wareham, who had a stronger head, felt their influence more subtly. Thoughts of escape had fluttered before him; now he would have none of them. Stand aside he must, but from where he stood he could see and measure, and that alone was an incalculable advantage.

Chapter Eleven.

Catechisms.

Breakfast was going on, and merrily, to judge from the rush of voices which met Wareham when he opened the door. His friends were there together, and a place was kept for him next the Ravenhills; opposite were Mrs Martyn, Anne, and Hugh. As he took his seat, Mrs Martyn spoke across the table.

“Pretty proceedings, Mr Wareham!”

“They did not cause you disturbance?” he asked, with a simulated anxiety which sent round a smile.

“Nothing serious. I believed either of you equal to the task of looking after the other. Which took the lead?”

Anne’s clear voice struck in—

“We shared. I claim the suggestion of dinner at Gudvangen. Mr Wareham was too much overwhelmed by the misadventure to preserve his presence of mind.”

“But that was before starting. I can’t conceive how you survived so many hours!” Wareham perceived that the incident of the island had not been offered to Mrs Martyn’s consideration. His heart congratulated itself. Hugh’s indignation rushed in pointedly.

“It’s true enough that Miss Dalrymple wanted something by the time she got here.” He muttered to Anne—“Much she had ready for you!”

“I think you were to be envied,” Mrs Ravenhill said. “The fjord was so beautiful that I hated being carried through it at a rush. And night here is little more than a quiet day.”

“Only too short,” agreed Anne. “The sun was upon us before it seemed possible.”

Wareham’s prescribed attitude of bystander did not preclude his sucking in these little, sweets of comfort with delight. But Mrs Martyn had not done with him.

“What were the charms of Gudvangen, Mr Wareham, which made you so oblivious?”

“Poor Gudvangen! If you speak of it in that tone, I shall believe it was you who bribed, the captain to start an hour earlier than his right time.”

Millie put in a fluttering word.

“It was a delightful place.”

“To Mr Wareham’s companions.” Malice lurked in Mrs Martyn’s sentences. Millie coloured, Anne sat indifferent, Hugh it was who answered.

“No wonder. But I get so called over the coals for want of punctuality that I vow I can’t help being tickled that Wareham should be the sinner. How was it? Had a brown study got over him, Miss Dalrymple: Or did anybody fall asleep?”

“I think we were all to blame,” said Mrs Ravenhill kindly. “We should have made sure that every one was on board. To tell the truth, I did not for a moment believe that we had really started.”

Anne spoke again, languidly.

“Is not the subject threadbare? You will force Mr Wareham or me into invention of adventures, since there is nothing real to relate that we can flatter ourselves would interest you.”

The we and ourselves fell delightfully on Wareham’s ears.

“My dear Anne, you don’t do yourselves justice. Mr Forbes is dying to know how you were occupied when you should have been at the steamer.”

Anne lifted her eyebrows.

“Mr Forbes?” she said questioningly.

He hurried to disclaim.

“Not I. I am only glad you had Wareham to look after you.” Under his breath he grumbled, “Confound her!”

Why might he not be left alone? His own resources would carry him like the trustiest steed through the tilting which he foresaw ahead, but to be forced into a position he had no mind for, to be treated as though he were a jealous ass, and so thrust against Anne’s susceptibilities, was sure to irritate her. If a wish could have swept Mrs Martyn out of Norway, she would have found herself at this moment in England again. Wareham, equally irritated, knew that it was for him to speak.

“It was simple enough,” he said. “We had strolled out of sight or hearing of the steamer, believing that she would not start for an hour and a half. At the end of an hour we found you had all flown. We wanted Colonel Martyn to look us up.”

“Yes. Tom is always ready to undertake other people’s business,” said Mrs Martyn, helping herself to marmalade.

“Do you expect him to-day?” Mrs Ravenhill put in, conscious that her neighbour would prefer a change of subject.

“To-night at latest. Unless missing steamers should be in the air.”

She looked meaningly at Wareham. He turned to Millie.

“Have you thought out any plans for to-day?”

“We meant to explore the place a little this morning, and go to Fjaerland by the evening steamer. It is a pity we can’t sleep there and see the glaciers, but as it is we must just go up the fjord and down again. Mother was out early this morning.”

“Sketching?”

“Yes. She likes it immensely here.”

“And you?”

“Not so well as Gudvangen. But it is very nice, and”—regretfully—“it is so near the end!”

“How?”

Millie sighed. That he should have forgotten that they were to start for England on Friday, and this was Tuesday! But no ill-humour crept into her voice.

“You know we go to Bergen to-morrow night, then home.”

“I had forgotten,” said Wareham, staring at his plate. “Isn’t it a very short stay?”

“Only a fortnight. But that I can hardly believe.”

“Nor I.”

“I suppose you will go further north, with the Martyns?” hazarded Millie.

He said abruptly, “I know nothing,” and checked her.

Their opposite neighbours rose and departed, Hugh flinging an ecstatic look at Wareham as he went. Wareham’s spirits sank to mute misery. Anne’s side allusions had been kindly, but she had not dropped one direct word for him to live upon, and fear of letting honour slip must prevent his seeking it. He writhed under the thought that she yet believed him to have summoned Hugh, and a hundred voices within him seeming to clamour for the right to put this one thing straight, he found it hard to silence them.

Breakfast over, Mrs Ravenhill and Millie vanished, giving him to understand that the sketch had to be finished.

“But I dare say we shall soon meet again,” Mrs Ravenhill said, “for here again there is not much choice of roads, and I am sitting humbly by the roadside.”

Wareham went off like a moth to get close to what hurt him.

She was not to be seen, however, nor Hugh either, so that though he was not scorched, he suffered from another kind of smart, and it did not soothe him to drop upon Mrs Martyn seated in one of the many balconies. He would have escaped, but she saw and captured him.

“I want to speak to you, Mr Wareham; pray come and sit down. We shall all be starting out in an hour’s time. Meanwhile, here we may have a few minutes’ peace.”

He could not excuse himself, and sat down reluctantly.

“I am not going to scold you about yesterday,” she said, “although I think you will allow I might.”

“You do not accuse me, I hope, of premeditation?”

She professed not to be certain, but glancing at Wareham’s face, dropped her attempt at jocularity.

“I dare say it was Anne’s fault. She is astonishingly wilful.”

“I thought I had made it clear that the mistake was all my own. You must be well aware that Miss Dalrymple had the right to be excessively annoyed.”

Mrs Martyn smiled.

“Anne would not trouble herself about talk, if that is what you mean. She has proved herself absolutely indifferent. She will do the same here.”

Spite of himself, he looked up eagerly.

“Yes. Of course I speak of young Forbes. Her friends will not thank me when they hear that I have allowed him to tack himself on to us.”

The traitor in Wareham mentally blessed these friends, though his better instincts forced him to say—

“Why? Hugh is an only son, his father a baronet, and he what the world calls a good match.”

Mrs Martyn turned her large fair face towards him, and raised her eyebrows.

“Middling. No objection was made when Anne said she would marry him. But she let matters go too far, even for her, this time, and naturally they won’t be pleased to have it all over again. Mr Forbes says you telegraphed to him. I wish you had left it alone.”

“Pray don’t think I telegraphed to him to come. It was the last thing I desired.”

“I should have imagined so,” said Mrs Martyn dryly.

Wareham bit his lip.

“One must keep a promise.”

“Must one?”

“You will allow that the manner in which Miss Dalrymple broke off her engagement was maddening for my friend? Not an interview, not a word, only complete annihilation of all that had passed. Of course, from her own point of view, she may have been justified. I say nothing of blame.”

Mrs Martyn smiled. Wareham had seldom found his own temper so tried as in this interview. He felt as if her great hat had an irritating personality, and crushed him.

“You may know, or you may not know, that the blow to him was so serious that it brought me back from India.”

“Isn’t there such a thing as a ricochet?” asked Mrs Blanche innocently, so innocently that the innocence tickled him.

“I am afraid there is,” he admitted with candour. “Shall I go on?”

“Oh, by all means. You had just landed from India?”

“Miss Dalrymple allowed Hugh no communication. He could not even find out where she went when she left London. It seemed to me that he had a right to learn her reasons for dismissal, and I assured him when I quitted him that he should hear from me if I had any news of her whereabouts.”

“I could not have believed that Lady Dalrymple’s servants were so above suspicion.” Mrs Martyn heaved a sigh at recollection of her own.

He went on to say that finding Miss Dalrymple had crossed in the same boat with himself, he telegraphed to Hugh from Stavanger. He knew of no other course he could have taken. And he descanted on it, intending all to be told to Anne. He finished up by repeating that no idea of Hugh’s coming had crossed his mind.

“I dare say not. Magnanimity has limits,” she murmured.

Thinking it well to turn a deaf ear, he added that he had written a letter of some importance to Mr Forbes from Stalheim.

“From Stalheim?” She appeared to meditate, looking at her own hands, which were very small. Then her question flashed out.

“Was it to say you were in love with Anne?”

Wareham had got himself in hand by this time. He bowed.

“That or anything else you please, Mrs Martyn.”

She asked whether the letter had reached Hugh.

“How should it? He left England immediately after my telegram, and there has been no time.”

Mrs Martyn looked out at the fjord, but Wareham saw her shoulders shaking. Tragedy was uppermost with him, and at this proof of heartlessness he thought appreciatively of Millie’s padded glass. She turned round, however, demurely composed.

“Won’t it be a little inconvenient, by and by?”

He gazed loftily over her head.

“I don’t know that we are immediately concerned with my letter. That, at any rate, cannot be accused of bringing Hugh.”

“I wish something would take him away again. I had not the smallest intention of being mixed up with one of Anne’s complicated affairs,” cried Mrs Martyn.

The speech jarred.

“If his presence is disagreeable to Miss Dalrymple, she can certainly send him off. He will have had his explanation. Perhaps it will prove the shortest way out of the difficulty.”

This laid him open to an embarrassing question, “What difficulty?” Fortunately for Wareham, she did not wait for an answer before putting another. “Are you a writer of books?”

“I can’t deny it?”

“Yet read a woman’s nature no better! Anne will not send him off.”

“Accept him, then.”

“Nor accept him.”

“Paddles!”

“If you had studied the genus as you should for your profession, Mr Wareham, you would not find the riddle hard to solve. Anne likes Mr Forbes enough to like to have him about her, but she would not marry him, because she could not endure fetters. Now she salves her conscience by thinking that she has done her best to give him time to recover; you and fate have baffled her, and she—will enjoy herself.”

He forced himself to say quietly—

“You describe a—”

“Flirt. Anne would not deny it if you charged her.”

Her words in the boat were recalled by a reluctant memory; with them came the charm of her voice, her smile, more powerful than words. He started up, and stood leaning against the railing of the balcony.

“It comes to this. You and I read differently. I think you unjust to your friend, you hold me a fool. Of the two, I prefer the rôle of fool. But whichever turns out right, I don’t see that we can do anything except wait, for it is certainly Miss Dalrymple who must tell Hugh to go or stay. Unless you have that authority?”

“I!” She shook her head. “Anne’s chaperons are dummies, they don’t interfere. Besides, I couldn’t be bothered. I don’t even know why I have talked to you, except that A one and Mr Forbes will not be amusing companions this morning.”

Wareham was cheered by the touch of feminine spite in this speech, the more so as he had seen Hugh cross the garden forlornly. He inquired what might be Mrs Martyn’s plans for the future.

“I suppose my husband will return to-day, and then I shall insist upon going as far as Vadheim to-morrow night. Do you mean to come with us to the Geiranger? You had better, for I can’t be responsible for your friend.”

“Thanks. But I shall get back this week.” Decision had stepped in so promptly that there was no time for regret to interpose, although she hung helplessly on his skirts. Mrs Martyn raised her eyebrows.

“You go with the Ravenhills? They mean to secure berths in the Ceylon, which is expected here to-day.”

“I dare say that will suit me.”

When he left her he would not seek Hugh, but went to the little office from whence letters are dispensed, with a feeble dream of lighting upon his own. Failing in this he betook himself to the road, and presently came upon Mrs Ravenhill sketching, and Millie enticing half-a-dozen small children away from her mother by means of barley-sugar. The girls hushed themselves with awe and delight, the boy, all one broad laugh, flourished sticky fingers, and threatened to descend upon the paper, in spite of reproachful cries of “Daarlig Olaf!” At sight of Wareham he fled.

“And I breathe,” said Mrs Ravenhill.

“But he was much the nicest,” declared Millie. “All the grown-up people are so grave, that it is a comfort to see one having a good time while he is young. He was not really so very naughty, though his sisters were dreadfully scandalised. Think of their all living in those lovely cottages!”

And indeed the group of houses which Mrs Ravenhill was drawing made a perfectly harmonious note of colour. The sky delicate broken grey, the hill behind, grey also, running down in fine outline; against this a group of houses, red-roofed one or two, timber-pitched another, gabled, white-plastered, jutting out, running back, and set in waving emerald rye. Where the rye ended, long flowery grass began, and grew down to the foot of the bank where the children were playing. A woman with a white handkerchief on her head, and carrying two pails with a yoke, came down the little path which the thick grass hid from view; the swift-driven clouds cast swift soft shadows, the air was sweet with hay-making.

Wareham was in the state of mind when this soothed, because it seemed apart from the world of men and women, as represented by Mrs Martyn. He had gone to her feeling that the dearest part of him was sacredly wrapped up and invisible, and with shaking shoulders she had plucked it forth, and given him to understand that she knew all about it. The man must be more than usually magnanimous who does not chafe at insight from which he suffers. Here were women who made no pretence at insight. With them he felt healthfully at ease. And so scaly-strong is the coating behind which we flatter ourselves we are entrenched, that nothing could have more amazed him than to know that Millie, simple soul, read through him as easily as, and more truly than Mrs Martyn. He said suddenly at last—

“How do you return to England, Mrs Ravenhill?”

“Not as we came.” She shuddered. “The Ceylon tourist steamer will be here to-day. I am told that she is an old P. and O., and very comfortable, and that we can get berths in her.”

“But you don’t go on board to-day?” Brace himself he must, but hardly to the extent of leaving so abruptly.

“No. We shall meet her at Bergen on Friday.”

He asked to be allowed to take their berths, and let fall something to the effect that if there was another to spare, he might secure it for himself.

“You will have had a short holiday.” Mrs Ravenhill added a little vermilion to her roofs, and sighed hopelessly over the flowery grass. Millie tried to check her heart’s throb.

“You come to Fjaerland to-day?” she hazarded.

They were all to go, it appeared, and Wareham agreed eagerly. What did it matter so long as he refrained from a word? Of course he would go. He sunned himself in the anticipation.

Chapter Twelve.

An Air with Variations.

The day had passed with little to mark it to Wareham, to whom events meant a word from Anne. They met at early dinner as they had met at breakfast, and again he had to content himself with indirect speeches. In the afternoon the Ceylon came in and anchored; Wareham went off and secured three berths. He felt himself a model friend, but this did not prevent his looking forward eagerly to the evening. Colonel Martyn was the next to arrive.

At six o’clock came the Gudvangen steamer, which was to take them to Fjaerland. Anne and Colonel Martyn were the last to come on board, Hugh fuming impatiently until they appeared. He surrounded her with solicitude.

“I almost gave you up. I thought you had changed your mind.”

“If I had?”

She tossed the words at him as she passed.

“We might have taken a boat and repeated yesterday,” said Hugh daringly.

“I hate repetitions.”

Wareham heard and chuckled. But where is your woman’s consistency? The next moment she had given her young lover a smile which put the other man’s blood into a fever. Hugh looked round at him radiantly. Mrs Martyn eyed him with an experienced glance expressive to Wareham of “You see!” He walked away.

When he came back the group had been enlarged by several of the other people from the inn, who were making the same little voyage. An elderly man, with a keen clever face, held forth to Mrs Martyn, and Wareham was not ill-pleased to note that the lady showed signs of discomfiture. He interrogated her closely, would have chapter and verse with her statements, and ruthlessly fastened on the futility of certain vague expressions in which she took refuge. Wareham stood for a minute receiving broken sentences from the group, except when Anne spoke, upon which the other voices faded into indistinctness.

“Nothing in Norway to compare with Scotland.”

“Well, I don’t know. There’s good—”

“Didn’t you hear? She is expected to-morrow, and great preparations—”

“Horrible food!”

Then a voice like a bell.

“I half wish we were going home in her, she looks so big and so roomy.”

Only the foolishness of love could make music out of this every-day remark, but to his ear it sounded in sweet relief to the clatter of the others. So sad is the eclipse of friendship before the greater light, that he was conscious of a wish to swing Hugh out of his place by her side, and stand there himself. Had not he had his chance and failed? To be swaggering round, and playing dog in the manger, was an unworthy solace. To be compelled to hover near with a heart full of yesterday, was to munch ashes. For let philosophers say what they will, the past is at best unsatisfying food, but a past which has no more substance than hope unfulfilled, chokes you with its dusty remembrances. Wareham went restlessly about the vessel, talking to the red-faced burly captain of the Kommodoren, to any one: wherever he went he saw Hugh’s spirited figure, Anne’s pale clear-cut profile, and these two only. At last, as he was speaking to an elderly lady with a sweet kind face, he surprised her by quitting her suddenly. Opportunity had come, and he flew to Anne’s side.

“At last!” he cried, and had to check his exultation. “I thought I should never be allowed to speak to you alone!”

“After yesterday you could scarcely complain of that difficulty.” Anne was smiling, her eyes were half-shut.

“Yesterday!” He made an impatient gesture.

She asked whether it was so long ago?

“Half a lifetime,” he answered boldly, and had a wild fancy that a tremulous colour just crept into her cheek. But she hastened to inquire whether he did not find the scenery very fine?

“I have not seen it.”

“Where have your eyes been?”

“On my heart,” would have been a true answer. He pressed it back and muttered, “I have been wanting to say a word, but Hugh monopolised you.”

“Your friend. You should have been satisfied. But tell me what you wanted so much to say?”

“You heard his greeting. Did you imagine that I had told him to come out?”

“It surprised me.”

“Pray let me hear that you thought better of me than to believe it.”

“Better? Do you not present yourself as a symbol of friendship? And friendship is held to condone blunders.” She spoke teasingly.

“No, no. I telegraphed—” Suddenly he found it hard to explain why he had telegraphed. “He had a right to an explanation.” The words came out apologetically.

“And you were the deus ex machinâ. I told you you were a symbol of friendship.”

Coldness was in her voice, and Wareham, reader of hearts, believed he understood why she was dissatisfied.

“I have offended you. I read it in your eyes when you saw Hugh,” he said dismally.

“Oh, Hugh, Hugh!” She made the exclamation with impatience, and frowned.

He would have given worlds to ask why, if she were displeased, she did not dismiss her young lover, but dared not. Then she slowly let drop four words which set his blood leaping in wild bounds. “You might help me.”

Heavens, what did the words, the look she turned on him, mean? Reproach, encouragement, were both there. He stood stupidly, stunned by the delicious shock; conscience faltered, passion rushed to the attack. This appealing to him, this, as it were, holding out her hand—bliss!—ecstasy! Conscience panted out desperately, “And Honour?” and, once having thrust in her word, stood firm.

Wareham felt as if in that minute he had lived a year. When he spoke his voice was hoarse, his face white.

“I cannot,” he said. “It rests with yourself.”

She was looking at him, and her face did not change, nor did she speak. They stood silent, fronting the mountains, and presently Hugh’s voice sounded cheerfully behind them.

“I can’t find your parasol, Miss Dalrymple. Mrs Martyn thinks you must have left it behind.”

“Ask her whether it is not her umbrella she wants,” had been Mrs Martyn’s exact words, for neither sun nor rain was likely to trouble them. These he did not repeat. He was sharp enough to guess that he had been disposed of for a motive, but hugged the thought that it was merely caprice which had served this purpose. For caprice he was prepared, resolved that it should not put him out of countenance. An indefinite presentiment kept Wareham on the watch. It was a nothing, yet it had fallen on a crucial moment. How would she behave to Hugh? The next moment, Anne turned, smiling carelessly.

“I am ashamed to have troubled you, and for what seemed an absurdity. Who wants a parasol at such an hour? It is that I am a baby, and like something in my hand.” Hugh was for starting off again. “No, no, no more errands. You may sit here and tell me about the Standishs’. When did you see them? Have they gone abroad? Mary wrote a line to me before we left England, but she told me nothing of their plans.”

“And they knew nothing of yours,” stammered Hugh the happy, afraid of uttering anything which carried the ghost of a reproach. Mary Standish was to have been their bridesmaid.

Wareham would hear no more. He wheeled round and departed, with not a word of thanks to cast at conscience, though she had saved him from a scrape. Going forward, he stood moodily watching the pallor creep over the vast snowfield which runs along the western side of the fjord, and from which glaciers like pale ghosts crawl down to the water. At Fjaerland itself there was a short stoppage, people came on board who had tramped to the Suphelle glacier, and were enthusiastic over its beauties to those who had not seen it.

And now, in going back, the glories of the sunset touched each opening fjord with strange variety of effect and contrast. One had wild and menacing clouds sweeping on with threat of storm; in another the mountains lay in indescribable calm against a clear daffodil sky; a third again was radiant with light, and crowned with floating rosy clouds. Voices hushed themselves, the ripple of the water grew more insistent, lovely reflections trembled downwards. By and by a green promontory was passed, and Balholm stood hospitably alight.

“Nine o’clock,” sighed Colonel Martyn, with disconsolate acceptance of his fate, the high tea which he hated. Meantime the professor had asked Mrs Martyn—who piqued herself upon her facts—if she knew the number of square miles covered by the snow-area at which they had been gazing.

She had an impression it was five hundred.

“An impression!” He was scornful. Women’s knowledge invariably consisted of impressions. Mrs Martyn, who liked to be rude herself, was always crushed by retaliation in the same coin. She escaped, and clung to Mrs Ravenhill.

“My dear, protect me! That man is a bear. He can never have been used to any society at all. Everything that I say to him he contradicts flatly, and comes out with the most disagreeable speeches! I daren’t say a word. He frightens me. And why does he choose me—poor, inoffensive me?”

Anne, as she walked up from the landing-place, got hold of Millie.

“You are really going to break away to-morrow? I envy you.”

“I am sorry,” Millie said simply. “There is so much more which I want to see.”

Anne answered her abruptly—

“It is like everything else. Life is just an air with variations, and you get sick of the air. I am tired of mountains and fjords. More tired of hearing people cry, ‘How beautiful!’”

“When they say it of yourself?”

“Most of all. Yet when it doesn’t come, I miss it.” She laughed.

“Ah, I can’t help you,” Millie returned.

“What is it you want?”

“To be what I am not—what I never shall be.”

They were at the door. Anne ran up-stairs, Millie dropped her defensive armour with a sigh. She had somehow expected, and dreaded, that when Anne spoke of their leaving, she would allude to Wareham. Now that she had not done so, she was disappointed.

Wareham was caught by Hugh Forbes as he went out of the saal.

“Come for a turn, old fellow,” he besought. “There are a hundred things I want to say to you.”

“Hadn’t you better go after Miss Dalrymple?” said Wareham sharply.

“She won’t let me. Says she’s had enough of me for to-day.”

Hugh laughed, and Wareham hesitated. Self-flattery murmured that possibly she had intended this half-hour for him, and the thought fell sweet as honey drops. But away from her charm, her beauty, conscience was not to be beguiled. Avaunt, tempter! Step forth, honour! Dull paths are safest, and the dullest of all dull paths appeared this walk with Hugh, Anne left behind in a balcony overlooking shining waters.

They were out, with Hugh anxiously asking why he must go to-morrow?

“Its an awful nuisance,” he burst out, “and I do think it’s hard on a fellow to be left unsupported just at this ticklish point. You could be of untold good—you have been already, of that I’m certain. Anne likes you, and likes to talk of you. Now a great blundering fellow might have done a lot of mischief. Crammed me down her throat, or tried to cut me out. I vow I wouldn’t have trusted any one but you yesterday in the boat. When I heard that she was coming along with some man, I was awfully cut up, I can tell you; and Mrs Martyn never let out who it was. Just like the woman! It was Miss—what’s she called?—Ravenstone who cleared me up. Why don’t you take to that little girl? A good soul, with a heart of gold, and a dimple. I’ve heard you say you loved dimples, and, upon my soul, I never saw a prettier.”

Wareham’s irritated exclamation was restrained by the recollection that here was the very suggestion which he had intended for Hugh himself, presented topsy-turvily. He was forced to laugh.

“Arrange matters for yourself, only leave me out of the pattern, for I don’t harmonise.”

Hugh rushed into farther confidences, but owned that he was in a funk.

“If I could but imagine what upset the coach last time,” he complained, “I’d take good care to avoid it again; but I give you my word you know as much as I do. She won’t speak of it, won’t listen, won’t so much as drop me a hint; and to think of her bolting again puts me in such a devil of a fright that I daren’t hold on to the subject. Now, Dick, if you’d stay and sound her a bit, I should be awfully obliged to you.”

That or any other subject. His heart jumped like a hungry dog, grateful for a bone. He had to recall himself to his resolve.

“Can’t.”

“Don’t tell me you’re not your own master.”

“No man is his own master that has set his shoulder to the wheel.”

“Well”—Hugh walked on, revolving—“there are twenty-four hours yet; you may get a chance in that time.”

Wareham was stung into exclamation.

“You don’t know what you’re asking!”

“I know exactly; and it isn’t much for a clever fellow like you. You can understand that when I go pottering round, she sees exactly what’s coming, and shies. As likely as not, she doesn’t want to hurt my feelings—”

“Oh, your feelings! She didn’t show much regard for your feelings when she flung you over!” cried Wareham savagely.

“No, but look here, old fellow, you mustn’t be so prejudiced. It was natural enough when you didn’t know her, and I shan’t forget what you did for me in those black days, but I did think that once you were thrown with her you would have your eyes opened, and appreciate her.”

Wareham looked queerly at him.

“How do you know I don’t?”

“Because then you wouldn’t blame her. And I believe you’d stick to me now. At first I could think of nothing but that I was near her again, and could look at her; but finding out how gingerly I’ve got to move, makes me uneasy. If you were here you’d give me a wrinkle or two. Come, Dick, think better of it.” Hugh decapitated an inoffensive ox-daisy as he spoke. “You needn’t expect to put me off with talk of business. Don’t I know most of your affairs?”

“Not all.” Wareham’s voice had grown gentler. “Hugh, do you remember my telling you that I had written a letter?”

“To me?”

“Yes.”

“I recollect. It had slipped my memory.”

“I wish I could prevent its ever reaching you.”

Hugh burst into his cheery laugh.

“That’s what I feel sometimes when I’ve sent off an epistle to the pater. But you don’t suppose anything you said to me would make me cut up rough?”

“When you’ve got it you’ll understand why I go,” the other went on, unheeding.

“Mysteries, mysteries!”

It must be owned that Wareham thought his speech would have thrown a little light. He breathed hard, and his face flushed. Hugh went on—

“I know you’ve thought hard things of Anne. But, old fellow, you’ve never failed me yet; and that’s why I want you now. You could say what I can’t say myself.”

“What one can’t say oneself had better remain unsaid.” Something in the tone penetrated, and gave the young man a tinge of uneasiness.

“You don’t mean that you think—” He stopped aghast.

Wareham answered with a hand on the valve. If his words were to fly, it should not be on a wrong tack.

“What?”

“That, after all, I’ve no chance?”

“Heavens, man, how should I think such a thing! I know nothing of what you have said to her, or she to you. You’ve got your opportunity—what more do you want? Go in, and win.”

“All right, old fellow,” Hugh said good-humouredly. “May you be a true prophet. Anyway, don’t be put out about your letter. I’ve a thick skin, as you’ve proved before now. And if it bores you to stop, go. Only if you do get the chance before leaving, and if you can get her to give you a bit of explanation, it may make matters smoother. Isn’t there some old Viking or other buried about here? Well, we’ll go back.”

As they returned they found signs of festivity about the rival inn; Balholm sat round the walls of the saal, and in the centre a picturesque musician played the Hardanger fiddle; the wild piercing sounds, half savage, half plaintive, penetrated the night. Wareham stood at the door after Hugh had left him, held by some spell for which he could not account. The music conjured up strange imaginings—the silence of the mountains encompassed lonely fjords; pallid snowflakes chased each other into clefts, where they lay shrouding the rock; winds whistled through cowering trees, and in a moment the cruel howl of a wolf rose menacingly above the other sounds. The tragedies of the country had found a voice in the wild, almost discordant, instrument. Wareham stood absorbed, staring at the ground. When the music stopped, he looked up uncertainly. Hay sweetened the air, golden light still lingered in the sky, yet he shivered. The landlord came out. Wareham gave him a gulden for the musician, and walked slowly back to his own quarters.

Chapter Thirteen.

Persuasion.

The next day the wreathing mists which lightly swept the mountains had gathered moisture enough to descend in thick rain. It fell continuously, but was still so vapourish that there was as much white as grey everywhere, and the sun behind the clouds suffused them with dazzling light.

The broad fjord presented enchantingly ethereal and aerial effects. A grey veil blurred the heights on its other side, but here and there a mysterious gleam of whiteness shot out from their snowy summits, radiantly piercing the gloom. Silvery lights fell across the faint grey of the waters, which changed to opal nearer shore, and took in places a clear transparent emerald-green. A rough ridge of stone walled in a small harbour, and here were boats drawn up, black, green, white, sharp points of contrast to the delicate half-tones beyond.

The covered balconies of the inn were thronged with dissatisfied travellers, casting gloomy glances at the falling rain.

“Detestable climate,” muttered Colonel Martyn, pulling up his coat collar. He added to Wareham, “You’re a lucky fellow to be getting out of it. I wish I could.”

“Don’t be absurd, Tom,” his wife retaliated. “The weather at home is infinitely worse.”

“I don’t see it.”

“You are like the ostrich. You bury your head.”

The professor lifted his from a newspaper, with the sniff of a war-horse.

“My dear Mrs Martyn, you don’t credit that ridiculous fable?”

She raised her hands imploringly.

“Take it. I yield. The professor has got possession of a hundred harmless illustrations, which he puts to the torture, and then gibbets.”

“To be worth anything an illustration should be accurate.”

Anne went to the rescue.

“We may struggle after truth, but accuracy—! Half-an-hour hence, and unprepared, I defy the professor to repeat this conversation without an error.”

“Facts, facts!”

“Facts come to us thick with paint. Who will describe the view before us? One person says ‘Beastly weather,’ another is eloquent on the loveliness of silver-grey. What, then?”

“The fact remains that it rains,” said the professor, with a bow. He was forbearing to Anne.

“Not a drop.” Hugh turned round from contemplation, his laugh vigorous and infectious.

“The ostrich is forfeit,” confessed the professor gallantly. “To some eyes it appears that he buries his head, others behold him running upright. He is gone, and science with him. Am I forgiven?”

“You never asked me that question,” said Mrs Martyn.

“My dear lady, you never gave me the opportunity.”

While they laughed, Anne made a scarcely-perceptible sign to Wareham. He came close.

“What takes you back in such a hurry to England?”

He hesitated.

“Is it business which I should not understand?”

“Business which I can’t explain, would be nearer the truth.”

She leaned forward, dropping her eyes.

“Mr Forbes says that all his endeavours to keep you have been in vain. Are you inexorable? I believe we are going to the finest part of Norway. But perhaps you are afraid of another contretemps such as that of Monday?”

His head whirled; he dared not look at her. In an odd, strained voice he muttered something which sounded like “Perhaps.” She took no notice, but went on lightly—

“You need not have any fear. You will be amply protected. With Colonel Martyn of the party, I defy any one to be late for anything.”

He kept his eyes fixed on the opal waters, and stood up as stiffly as if he had to receive the shock of a charge. Who to look at him would have guessed that he felt as if all were lost? The ages have at least taught man to keep his face like a mask.

“You are very good. Hugh will—will look after you. It is impossible for me to stay.”

He stammered, he did not know what he said, but he had not yielded, he was sure he had not yielded.

The victor is too often represented as a fine fellow, marching away self-contentedly to the sound of his own trumpets. Much more frequently he is bruised and battered, nobody giving him so much as a cheer; while his own discontented ideal scornfully holds up a mirror that he may not deceive himself with vain imaginings. This a hero!—Poor mud-bespattered figure! Just scraped through a conflict without utter overthrow, standing upright, it may be, but in what condition! Nothing to be proud of here. No subject for triumphal arches or laurel wreaths, which, indeed, became ludicrous even in imagination. Fit only to creep away, bind up his wounds as best he may, and cleanse himself from the mud-stains, and say as little as possible of what has happened. And yet a victor.

Wareham wandered about that day, seeing little of the others, and especially avoiding Hugh. The misty rain continued, grey and silver predominated everywhere about the fjord, but the mountains behind the little village reared purple glooms into the cloud regions, and the greens were vivid. The whole party were to go on board the steamer which came in at seven or eight in the evening, and to separate at Vadheim at one in the morning.

By the time they started the rain had ceased, and there were clear lights about, though no gorgeous pomp of sunset. A chill was in the air, suggesting wraps, and if adventurous spirits made excursions to the upper deck, they soon retreated to the heap of luggage which offered seats and comparative shelter. Anne had taken up a position between the professor and the elderly lady. Hugh could not get at her, and mooned about disconsolate. He went to Mrs Martyn, at last, in sheer despair; she laughed at him.

“How many days has your satisfaction lasted, Mr Forbes? And do not copy-books assure us that happiness is a shy goddess? Be indifferent. That is your only chance of cajoling her to stay.”

“As well say, be some one else. Won’t you help me?”

“I would not if I could. Anne is charming as she is. Married, I don’t know which would be the most miserable—she or her husband.”

“I would risk it.”

“Of course. Because you have lost your head. I should not wonder if the professor would risk it too.”

Hugh began to laugh.

“You will be saying as much of Wareham in a minute.”

“Do you mean that he owns to it?” asked Mrs Martyn innocently.

His laugh grew hilarious.

“No, no, no. The bare idea is too comic. I have never known him smitten. He will not even consent to stay on with us, though Anne asked him herself.”

“And you have asked him also, no doubt?”

“In vain, though! I have never known him so stiff. If it had been any one else, I should have suspected the attraction of Miss Ravenhill’s dimple.”

Mrs Martyn gazed at him admiringly.

“How clear-sighted you men are!” she cried.

Hugh disclaimed modestly.

“Not we, for you women often puzzle us. But if I didn’t know Wareham, I don’t know who should. He’s been better than a brother to me, stuck by me, and pulled me through a lot. Oh, hang that old man! If he’s going to monopolise Anne, I’ll have a smoke meanwhile. You’re coming down to the feed, Mrs Martyn? May I choose your places?”

“Leave that to Mr Wareham,” she called after him, with a laugh.

Wareham sat with the Ravenhills at the other table of the narrow cabin. Anne’s voice behind him sounded in his ears, so that he heard little else, and gave himself the luxury of silence that he might listen to the dear sounds. Mrs Ravenhill found him a dull companion, and raised her eyebrows to Millie to indicate her opinion while she praised the salmon. Youth had ousted age, and Hugh was at Anne’s elbow, with irreverent jests upon the professors dread of the cabin. The steamer had anchored off a little village, to disembark a company of unkempt soldiers, and was rolling steadily, to the discomfort of more than one.

“I looked into the ladies’ cabin,” said Anne. “It is not to be faced, and I shall spend the night on deck.”

“I too. But the night is not very long.”

“True. I had forgotten. We land at one. Are you really coming with us?”

“What else on earth should I do?”

“That is easily answered. Go home with your friend. Are you not his fidus Achates? Don’t you think it base to desert him?”

He dropped his voice into rapture.

“You don’t expect me to prefer his society to yours!”

Mrs Martyn, who had quick ears, bestowed a mental smile on the one-sidedness of friendship. Anne looked at him calmly, and remarked—

“You are an extraordinary boy.”

He flushed and asked her not to call him a boy. She answered that she thought him younger now than ever before. “It is only a boy that would have shown so much rashness.”

“How?”

“In hurling yourself upon us, as you have done. Unasked, except by your faithful friend.”

Threat lurked in her voice, and terrified him into instant humbleness.

“Forgive me.”

“If I do, it is because you are what you disclaim, and not quite responsible. The real offender should have remained to take care of you.”

“I don’t need him, if you won’t laugh at me too cruelly. Besides, do you know that Dick is only three years my senior! Upon my honour, that’s all.”

She made no remark on this, but changed her note to one more serious, and therefore more alarming.

“Your coming with us is certain to revive talk—hush!—and I do not wish that to happen. While you were here with another the fact was not so pointed, but I did not realise that Mr Wareham proposed to leave you altogether on our hands, and I do not like it.”

“He will go,” Hugh said gloomily. He began to see Wareham’s departure in a menacing light. “You know he told you so!”

“Oh, me, me!—Am I his friend? When he gave you wise advice, did he not treat me in the light of a baleful ogress? However, there is no more to be said, for if he will not make so small a concession for you—”

Her tones betrayed annoyance. Hugh’s heart descended to his boots, and he mentally resolved upon another and stronger argument with Wareham.

His path would not be strewn with roses, he began to see; at any rate, if the roses were there, thorns also gave plentiful promise. And he could not understand Wareham, on whom he would have counted for staunch support in these prickly ways. Poor Hugh, whose lights were steady but not brilliant, felt himself unable to comprehend either his friend or Anne. At times she suffered his hope to sail like a kite, straining at its cord, then with a jerk down came the poor flutterer, and dragged helplessly on the ground. Up again, he forgot the downfall, and was as unprepared as ever for disaster.

It was cold, sharply cold, on deck. People began to prepare for sleep. Mrs Martyn betook herself to the ladies cabin; Mrs Ravenhill and Millie stretched themselves on the ground in a small corner at the head of the companion ladder. Anne barricaded herself amongst the small luggage, and warned off Hugh, who wandered round disconsolate.

There was still clear light in the sky, though the horizontal layer of clouds had grown dark, almost black. Black, too, were the low hills which rose on either side of the broad Sogne; here and there a single light gleamed out of the solitude; now and then a bubble of laughter broke from a group on the deck. Hugh went in pursuit of Wareham, and found him in the forepart of the vessel talking to a Norwegian gentleman on the politics which were causing upheaval in the country. When he at last walked away, Wareham remarked to his friend—

“Individually they are a strong nation, but our overgrown world now requires quantity at the back of quality. Besides, they have no young men.”

“Why?”

“Emigration. The passion for their country remains, but only as a sentiment. It does not bring them back to starve for her.”

“They would be fools if it did,” commented Hugh.

“True. But it requires fools to do great things. However, my Norwegian is not quite of my opinion. He thinks the struggle with nature’s physical forces so tremendous that it exhausts the energy of the people. In old days it flung them southward to conquer more promising lands. This is no longer possible, and he holds that they must for the present content themselves with crossing the seas and growing rich by the work of their brains. The worst is that the men who return do not bring back the fine qualities they took.”

“You are interested in them?”

“They seem to me among the best people in the world.”

“But you have seen so little!”

“One day I must come back.”

“Look here, Dick, what a fellow you are!” Hugh exclaimed remonstrantly. “There’s nothing to take you home, and you won’t stop, when you might be of the greatest possible use to me. Anne is beginning to cut up rough, because she thinks my staying on with them alone looks marked. Do think better of it. You’re not tied to those other people.”

“I can’t be uncivil to them.”

“I claim you before them.”

Wareham sighed wearily.

“Haven’t we gone through it all? I tell you I know what I am about.”

“That letter. It has something to do with that letter, I’ll swear it has! And what rubbish! As if anything you said could ever come between us. Out with it, man; let’s hear this mighty matter. Then perhaps you’ll stay and study your Norwegian in peace.”

“My Norwegian must wait. The Ceylon has me fast booked.”

Hugh was put out.

“I never knew you so stiff!” he cried, with vexation in his tone.

“You must take my word that I have reasons.”

“At any rate, you might give me one.” Wareham was silent. Hugh kicked at a rope.

“What on earth can I say to Anne?”

“You might be satisfied with your position,” the other man went on, disregarding. “A week ago you would have thought it bliss.”

“So it is.” Hugh rose on wings. “But if ever you’d been in love, you’d understand that the uncertainty is awfully trying. After what happened once, I shan’t have a minute’s peace until we’re married. Now, when she might have let me say something, she has sent me off.”

Wareham was understood to mutter that no one could assist Hugh but Hugh himself.

“Oh, I know, I know! Only I want to keep her pleased.”

Three weeks before his friend would have flung out that if he couldn’t effect this preliminary he had better step aside and leave the lady to please herself. Three weeks, however, had changed, if not his opinions, at least his power of advancing them. Silence was again his refuge. And Hugh meandered on.

“Perhaps old Martyn will say a good word for me. Suppose Anne says I am not to go on with them!”

“Can’t you take your dismissal?”

“No!” Hugh flung out the word with such energy that a passing sailor looked round to see whether the quarrel was serious. Wareham recognised and admired the tenacity.

“You’ve grip,” he admitted. “It would take less to put me off.”

The young man made no answer. They were nearing a landing-place, the usual group stood there, only that at this hour they were dark shadows, now and then flashed upon by a moving light; two boys in fur caps carried great plates of wild strawberries. Hugh bought a couple, with promise that the steamer should bring back the plates. He dashed off with them to Anne, and was back in a moment.

“Happy hit, she likes them! But she wants you to come, too.”

Wareham hesitated—went—with a shrug at his own weakness. Anne pushed a camp stool in front of her.

“Sit there. Mr Forbes, please carry some to Mrs Ravenhill. They are delicious.”

As he went off obediently, Wareham said—“You are unkind.”

“No; he is pleased. He thinks you are sure to say something in his favour, and jumps at the opportunity.”

“Is that why you sent for me?”

“To hear your counsel—yes. As it is you who have planted me in this quandary, you had better at least tell me what you would advise?”

“That I leave to your own heart.” He was conscious that prudence would have touched the string more lightly.

“You are so uncomplimentary as to have forgotten what I told you, and not so long ago. I don’t own the thing. At all events, it is of the smallest.”

“So is what we see of the moon,” said Wareham, pointing to a slender crescent.

Anne smiled, for a woman who talks of heartlessness does so to be contradicted.

“Well, it appears to me that you put forth little on behalf of your friend.”

“One doesn’t praise the people one loves.” He dared not look at her, but her nearness thrilled him, and he had not thought to be thus together again in the mysterious dusk of a northern night. She was silent for a time; when she spoke it was to say slowly—

“If you tell me that you honestly wish it, I may—perhaps—”

But he had started up impatiently.

“Good heavens, am I your guide? I have nothing to do with it. I wash my hands of all!” He added with a strong effort, “Let me say that you could not choose a better fellow, and that he loves you with his whole heart.”

“How big is that?” Anne demanded, in a mocking tone.

The question jarred. He loved, but did not like her so well as before. “You, at any rate, have no reason to doubt its generosity,” he answered gravely. “And one thing I will ask of you—do not cause unnecessary pain.”

“The situation is none of my creating. Give me credit at least for having done my utmost to avoid painful positions. You, or fate, have baffled me, yet now you refuse to interfere, and I do not pretend to answer for myself.”

She pushed away the plate of strawberries, and leaned back among the rugs and furs, her face pale in the half light, her voice cold. Wareham was still standing, when Hugh came back and glanced from one to the other.

“Have you persuaded him?” he inquired.

“Mr Wareham?” said Anne carelessly. “I should not venture to attempt it.”

“Time’s nearly up,” Hugh announced. “In a quarter of an hour we shall be at Vadheim, and Colonel Martyn wants to know if you have seen the brown rug?”

“Tell him it is here,” she said, with a little eagerness; and Hugh was turning away when Wareham stopped him.

“Stay,” he said. “I will go.”

He did not return. Lights shone out ahead of them, and there was a stir in the vessel, and an uprising of sleepers, for this is the point where those bound for Northern Norway leave the Sogne. The professor’s voice was heard, acutely insistent. Colonel Martyn came to look for Anne and his rug. The lights resolved themselves into illuminated windows of a square inn, and, with no movement about it, this midnight illumination had an almost spectral effect.

A procession of good-byes followed.

“Good-bye, Mr Wareham,” said Mrs Martyn, with a laugh. “High ideals may be very fine things, but they don’t pay, and you had better have stayed.”

“Lucky man, with a tender chop in sight!” muttered her husband.

As Anne passed out she turned a smiling face towards Wareham, but if he had feared or hoped for a farewell word, he was disappointed. She said no more than “Good-night,” and put a warm hand into his. He had prepared himself for words, but silence knocked aside his defences.

“We are friends?” he asked eagerly.

She lifted her eyebrows, still smiling.

“I should never reach your ideal of friendship. Keep it for Mr Forbes.”

Hugh pressed in from behind, laden with bundles.

“Here’s everything, as far as I can see, but if you find anything, Dick, leave it with Bennett in Bergen. You’re a villain, not to come along with us.” Then, in a whisper, “Wish me well, old fellow!”

He had only time to spring on shore, the vessel backed slowly away from the pier, the figures faded into darkness, the spectral inn presented its squares of steady light. Wareham stood watching, then, with something like a groan, turned away, and flung himself down where Anne had sat among the luggage.

Chapter Fourteen.

“Over the Water wi’ Ane.”

As the fjord widens into open sea, the hills sink into insignificance, and the steamer makes her way between clustering islands, rocky and barren; but on nearing Bergen the scenery again gains dignity, and Bergen itself, lying on a promontory between two harbours, and overshadowed by fine mountains, is strikingly picturesque. There is an air of vigorous life about it; oddly-rigged and brightly-painted vessels scud along before a wind which catches the waves, and tears them into foam; against the beautiful shadowy hills stands a jumble of red-roofed houses, pierced, as it were, by a forest of masts.

Mrs Ravenhill, sitting on the upper deck, swept the scene with what Millie called her air of hungry enjoyment.

“She sees points, effects, and is perfectly happy. What I foresee,” added the girl, laughing, “is a struggling crowd, from which I shall have to defend her.”

“Norwegians are never rude,” announced Mrs Ravenhill.

“Not often. But what of that girl at Stalheim, who demanded money because you had sketched her cottage?”

“Oh, Stalheim! Stalheim is a spoilt place. I do not count Stalheim.”

“You will find points enough and to spare,” said Wareham, “and if you can get on board a steamer, you may have peace also. I suppose Smeby’s will do as well as any other hotel?”

So it was settled, only, as Smeby’s was full, Mrs Ravenhill and Millie went across the street, and had rooms at the house of a kindly, funny little woman, who told them long Norwegian stories, which she found it impossible to conceive were not understood. The days were bright, but chilly, with a spirited wind blowing in from the sea, and ruffling the harbour. The Ravenhills attempted no demands upon Wareham’s hours; he was free to come and go, join them or leave them alone, whether Mrs Ravenhill sketched or made regulation purchases of spoons, furs, or photographs at the shops. This liberty pleased him, it allowed him to live with Anne in thought, and to be miserable over the combinations he foresaw. When two and two must drive together, would not Hugh contrive to be with Anne? No one would prevent it if Anne suffered the arrangement. And to be near her—to look into her eyes! Now that the victory was won, he gave himself the luxury of imagining what a defeat would have brought him: he might have been in Hugh’s place, and his heart leaped with the conviction that he would have been preferred. He walked hurriedly, urged, goaded, by this thought; over his head clouds were flying, gulls screamed to each other, flashing white wings against the grey. He walked long, seeing nothing; when he wheeled round at last, it was more from instinct than intention, and after supper he went out again.

Mrs Ravenhill was not quite pleased.

“No one invited Mr Wareham,” she said to Millie that night. “If he chose to come with us, he might take more trouble to be entertaining.”

Millie stood at the window, her back to her mother.

“Never mind,” she said at last. “You have earned his gratitude.”

“Why?”

“He is not very happy, so he likes to be alone.”

Mrs Ravenhill laid down the photographs she was examining, and stared.

“Not happy? Millie, you catch up absurd fancies! The man eats, drinks, talks, as usual. He has not been confiding in you?”—quickly.

The “No” came with a sigh.

Her mother heard the “No,” and not the sigh, and took up the photographs again.

“Then I wouldn’t waste my pity. I will tell you what I think. Mr Wareham has lived in his own interests till he has grown selfish; the large party and the little rubs did not please him, and he came away. He is welcome to go where he likes. All that I complain of is that he seems to think he owes nothing to us. You see what I mean?”

“Yes.”

“And don’t you think he was glad to break away?”

“Perhaps,” said Millie untruthfully.

“Oh, he was.” The mother was persuaded that Millie never flung a thought in the direction of Wareham, yet, mother-like, would not believe that he could have been attracted by another when her girl was there. Descent such as that ranks with the incredible. Yet if—if Millie were not so entirely heart-whole as she believed, she yearned to offer comfort. She said, with a smile—“Miss Dalrymple has too much of the bearing of a conqueror to please a man not easily subdued.”

The girl’s heart was trembling lest the secret it held should escape. She praised Anne on purpose to be quit of all suspicion of jealousy.

“She is one of the women who has a right to such a bearing. If I were a man, I should fall in love with her a dozen times over.”

Mrs Ravenhill’s momentary suspicion fled.

“He could have stayed if he had wished it, I suppose,” she said cheerfully, and slipped into other talk.

A newspaper had given them moderately late news of their country, and when they met at breakfast, Wareham alluded to it.

“At home, if you miss the Times for a day, you become a hopeless laggard in the world. It is amazing how soon the feeling wears off.”

“By the way, I see the professor mentioned for an appointment,” said Mrs Ravenhill. “Our professor?”

“Mrs Martyn’s.” They laughed.

“Whatever it may be,” said Wareham, “he will not be troubled by the misgiving that a worthier man might have been found.”

Millie remarked that he had a very accurate mind.

“From which he shoots out poor Mrs Martyn’s facts as rubbish.”

“But in Miss Dalrymple’s hands he is a lamb,” said Mrs Ravenhill. “I think she might even venture on a statistic unquestioned.” Wareham made no answer, he turned to ask something of the long landlord. Millie spoke to a pale-faced girl, who was still shuddering from the crossing she had just gone through, and unwilling to believe that anything in Norway could be worth its preliminary horrors. Mrs Ravenhill got up.

“Which is the way to the fish-market?” she asked.

“I will go with you, if you will allow me,” Wareham answered.

“Don’t let us trouble you.”

Millie was conscious of a touch of stiffness in her mother’s manner, but he showed no signs of noticing it.

“You should have gone earlier,” he said. “Seven or eight o’clock is a better time. However, you will gain some idea of its picturesqueness even now, and from there you can have a look at the Hanseatic House. There is a general museum, too, and a good one.”

The one important street in Bergen runs directly through the town. Here and there desolate open spaces break away, the safe guards from the ever-dreaded enemy fire; here and there cellars yawn, heaped with gaily-painted tine; here and there again you catch sight of the dancing waters of the harbour, and a jumble of shipping. It is at the end of the harbour that the fish-market is held; the boats are jammed together, the buyers stand and lean over the railings; women in thickly-plaited black dresses with close black caps, a rim of white round the face, and one spot of white behind, are sprinkled among the more ordinary costumes. More remarkable were the fishermen in the boats. Old and young, the hardy faces caught and held attention; you looked at men. As Wareham had said, the great throng was over, but even yet there were plenty of purchasers, and a penny would gain a plateful of little fish.

And here, in the heart of old Bergen, is the house of the Hanseatic League, unchanged since the time of the traders. It is the past, fossilised, for some; for others it is the means by which to drift back themselves into the past, and join the ghosts. Away with the crowd of laughing sight-seers! here sits the merchant in fur cap and gown, his account-book before him. Check the entries if you will, it lies open. Here is the eating-room for the apprentices, lads who, taught to sweep and cook, should make good husbands by and by. But as their dignities would not put up with bed-making, and woman was not admitted, all the beds are provided with a sliding panel, whereby that useful but dangerous appendage, standing outside, could insert her arms and head—no more!—and arrange for masculine comfort. And here is the great lantern which, fixed on a pole, the trader carried in the funeral processions of his guild. From youth to old age it is all here.