Harriet Martineau

“ It was not a shout of anger: it was something between a shriek and a wail—like what he fancied would be the cry of a person in the act of being murdered. That Nipen was here now, he could not doubt; and, at length, Oddo fled. He fled the faster, at first, for hearing the rustle of wings; but the curiosity of the boy even now got the better of his terror, and he looked up at the barn where the wings were rustling. There he saw in the starlight the glitter of two enormous round eyes, shining down upon him from the ridge of the roof. ”

“ Amidst these friendly words the old man and his grandson put off once more alone, making straight for the islet. Of the two Peder was the greater hero, for he saw the most ground for fear.
“Promise me, Oddo,” said she, “not to take advantage of my not seeing. As sure as you observe anything strange, tell me exactly what you see.”
“I will, grandfather. There is nothing yet but what is so beautiful that I could not, for the life of me, find out anything to be afraid of. The water is as green as our best pasture, as it washes up against the grey rock. ”

“ Then, in the opposite case—of one as innocent as the whitest flower in all this pasture—in my Erica’s case, the ghosts she sees are all from passions that leave her heart pure, but bewilder her eyes. It is the fear that she was early made subject to, and the grief that she feels for her mother, that create demons and sprites for her. The day may come, if I can make her happy enough, when I may convince her that, for all she now thinks, she never yet saw a token of any evil spirit—of any spirit but the Good One that rules all things. ”

“ But it was not so, and Rolf smiled at his own momentary fear, when he remembered how, as a child, he had tried to count the stars he could see at once through a hole pricked by a needle in a piece of paper, and how, for that matter, all that we ever see is through the little circle of the pupil of the eye. He smiled when he considered that while, from his recess, he could see the united navy of Norway and Denmark, if anchored in the fiord, his enemy could not see even his habitation, otherwise than by peeping under the bushes which overhung the cleft—and this only at low-water ”

“ I wonder whether you can be silent in the sight of night-fishing."
"To be sure," said Oddo, disposed to be angry, and only kept from it by the thought of last night. He helped to bring the skiff into the shadow of the overhanging rocks, and only spoke once more, to whisper that the fishing-boat was drifting down with the tide, and that he thought their cove lay between them and the fishing-party.
It was so. As the skiff rounded the point of the promontory, Oddo pointed out what appeared like a mere dark chasm in the high perpendicular wall of rock that bounded the waters. ”

“ Where is Erlingsen? It is nothing short of cruel to keep me waiting to-day, of all days; and in this spot, of all places—almost within sight of the seater where my poor Erica sits pining, and seeing nothing of the pastures, but only, with her minds' eye, the sea-caves where she thinks these limbs are stretched, cold and helpless, as in a grave. A pretty story I shall have to tell her, if she will only believe it, of another sort of sea-cave. ”

“ As if there was not always an echo here, opposite the rock! It is not Nipen at all. I will just wait another minute, however.”
He leaned in silence on his folded arms; and had not so waited for many seconds before he saw something moving on the snow at a little distance. It came nearer and nearer, and at last quite up to the can of ale.
“I am glad I stayed,” thought Oddo. “Now I can say I have seen Nipen. It is much less terrible than I expected. Grandfather told me that it sometimes came like an enormous elephant or hippopotamus; and never smaller than a large bear. ”

“ Even at night, when the flocks are in the fold, and the birds at roost, and the echoes themselves seem to be asleep, there is occasionally a sweet music heard, too soft for even the listening ear to catch by day. Every breath of summer wind that steals through the pine-forests wakes this music as it goes. The stiff spiny leaves of the fir and pine vibrate with the breeze, like the strings of a musical instrument, so that every breath of the night-wind, in a Norwegian forest, wakens a myriad of tiny harps ”

“ The summons arrived quite as soon as it could have been looked for, and the next day there was as pretty a boat-procession on the still waters of the fiord as had ever before glided over its surface. Within the memory of man, no bride had been prettier—no crown more glittering—no bridegroom more happy—no chanting was ever more soothing than old Peder's—no clarionet better played than Oddo's—no bridesmaids more gay and kindly than Orga and Frolich. ”

“ There is the rumble of some avalanche, as, after a drifting storm, a mass of snow too heavy to keep its place slides and tumbles from the mountain peak. Wherever there is a nook between the rocks on the shore, where a man may build a house, and clear a field or two;—wherever there is a platform beside the cataract where the sawyer may plant his mill, and make a path from it to join some great road, there is a human habitation, and the sounds that belong to it. ”

“ And in the whirl of the waltz she tried to forget the last words Rolf had spoken; but they rang in her ears; and before her eyes were images of Nipen overhearing this defiance—and the Water-Sprite planning vengeance in its palace under the ice—and the Mountain-Demon laughing in scorn, till the echoes shouted again—and the Wood-Demon waiting only for summer to see how he could beguile the rash lover.
Long was the supper, and hearty was the mirth round the table. People in Norway have universally a hearty appetite—such an appetite as we English have no idea of. ”

“ Yet Erica looked behind her after every few strokes of her oar; and once, when she saw something, her start was felt like a start of the skiff itself. There was a fire glancing and gleaming and quivering over the water, some way down the fiord.
“Some people night-fishing,” observed Oddo. “What sport they will have! I wish I was with them. How fast we go! How you can row when you choose! I can see the man that is holding the torch. ”

“ One or the other came popping up beside the boat, every minute, with clothes, or net, or lines, or brandy-flask, and finally with the oars of the poor broken skiff; being obliged to leave the skiff itself behind. Rolf did not forget to bring away whole handsful of beautiful shells, which he had amused himself with collecting for Erica.
At last, they entered the boat again; and while they were dressing, Oddo charmed his grandfather with a description of the cave,—of the dark, sounding walls, the lofty roof, and the green tide breaking on the white sands. ”

“ The three then went on their several ways—Oddo speeding over the ridges like a sprite on a night errand, and Rolf striding up the grassy slopes like (what he was) a lover anxious to be beside his betrothed after a perilous absence.
This was the day when the first cheese of the season was found to be perfect and complete. Frolich, Stiorna, and Erica examined it carefully, and pronounced it a well-pressed, excellent Gammel cheese, such as they should not be ashamed to set before the bishop, and therefore one which ought to satisfy the demon. ”

“ It was impossible for Erica herself to fear that Nipen was offended, at the outset of this festival day. If he had chosen to send a wind, the guests could not have come; for no human frame can endure travelling in a wind in Nordland on a January day. Happily, the air was so calm that a flake of snow, or a lock of eider-down, would have fallen straight to the ground. At two o’clock, when the short daylight was gone, the stars were shining so brightly, that the company who came by the fiord would be sure to have an easy voyage. ”

“ They did not leave quiet behind them, when they departed. They had roused the multitude of eider-ducks, and other sea-fowl, which thronged the islet, and which now, being roused, began their night-feeding and flying, though at an earlier hour than usual. When their discordant cries were left so far behind as to be softened by distance, the flapping of wings and swash of water, as the fowl plunged in, still made the air busy all round.
The rowers were so occupied with the management of their dangerous craft, that they had not spoken since they left the islet. ”

“ When we were talking beside those graves on the day of Ulla’s funeral, he laughed at me for even speaking of death and separation. ‘What! at our age!’ he said. ‘Death at our age,—and separation!’—and that with Henrica’s grave before our eyes!”
“Then, perhaps, this will prove to be a short and gentle separation, to teach him to speak more humbly. There is no being in the universe that would send death to punish light gay words, spoken from a joyful heart. If there were, I and many others should have been in our graves long since. Why, Erica! this is even a worse reason than Hund’s word. ”

“ Now, just tell me, Erica, would you believe anything else that Hund said?”
“In a common way, perhaps not: but you cannot think what a changed man he is, Frolich. He is so humbled, so melancholy, so awe-struck, that he is not like the same man.”
“He may not be the better for that. He was more frightened than anybody at the moment the owl cried, on your betrothment night, when you fancied that Nipen had carried off Oddo. Yet never did I see Hund more malicious than he was half an hour afterwards. I doubt whether any such fright would make a liar into a truthful man, in a moment.” ”

“ Still as everything is to the eye, sometimes for a hundred miles together along these deep sea-valleys, there is rarely silence. The ear is kept awake by a thousand voices. In the summer, there are cataracts leaping from ledge to ledge of the rocks; and there is the bleating of the kids that browse there, and the flap of the great eagle's wings, as it dashes abroad from its eyrie, and the cries of whole clouds of sea-birds which inhabit the islets; and all these sounds are mingled and multiplied by the strong echoes, till they become a din as loud as that of a city. ”

“ I am sure we can get over to the islet. See, madam, the fiord is as smooth as a pond.”
“Let her go,” said Peder. “She will never repent.”
“Then come back, I charge you, if you find the least danger,” said her mistress. “No one is safer at the oar than you; but if there is a ripple in the water, or a gust on the heights, or a cloud in the sky, come back. Such is my command, Erica.”
“Wife,” said Peder, “give her your pelisse; that will save her seeing the girls before she goes. And she shall have my cap, and then there is not an eye along the fiord that can tell whether she is man or woman.” ”

“ She was, indeed, obliged to suppose, at last, that it was his choice to keep away; for amidst the flying rumours that amused the inhabitants of the district for the rest of the winter,—rumours of the movements of the pirate-vessel, and of the pranks of the spirits of the region, there were some such clear notices of the appearance of Hund,—so many eyes had seen him in one place or another, by land and water, by day and night, that Stiorna could not doubt of his being alive, and free to come home or stay away as he pleased. ”

“ No one in my city of Tronyem now fears the angry and cunning fire-giant Loke; but every citizen closes his eyes in peace when he hears the midnight cry of the watch, ‘Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.’ (The watchman’s call in the towns of Norway.) In the wilds of the country every man’s faith will hereafter be his watchman, crying out upon all that happens, ‘It is the Lord’s hand: let Him do what seemeth to Him good!’ This might have been said, Erica, as it appears to me, at every turn of your story, where you and your friends were not in fault. ”