Maren

“ Had they not their factor back from death and its torments?
There was God-speed and hearty handclasp from the men, and Maren smiled into their faces, reading their simple hearts.
With the women it was different. They hung, gazing, on the outskirts, calling farewell to Marie, who wept a little at sight of her deserted cabin, to Anon and Mora and Ninette, but there was no reflection of the feeling of their masters for this girl with her weary beauty, her steady, half-tragic eyes. Nor was there great regret over Micene. Too sharp had been her tongue, too keen her perception of their faults. ”

“ He was fond enough of Maren, but her intellect had never won his respect. As the children grew up and did wrong in one way or another, Sören always said: "What a fool the child is—it takes after its mother." And Maren, as years went on, bore patiently with this; she knew quite as well as Sören that it was not intellect that counted.
Two or three times in the week, Sörine went up town with a load of fish and brought goods home again. ”

“ Will no one ever hear her? Her torn feet torment her, she is sore with blows and perishing with cold. At last her voice reaches the ears of the children, who run and tell their father that some one is crying and calling; looking across, he sees the poor little figure waving her arms, takes his dory and paddles over, and with amazement recognizes Maren in her night-dress, with bare feet and streaming hair, with a cruel bruise upon her face, with wild eyes, distracted, half senseless with cold and terror. ”

“ From the wood-cellar she all at once heard a sound as of wailing in the darkness within. It was as though some one were crying, and now and again sobbing convulsively for some time without being able to produce a distinct sound.
The voice sounded so utterly broken-hearted that Maren stopped putting the wood into her apron and stood by the chopping-block listening. It seemed to come from one of the coal cellars up the dark passage. At last she seized the lantern and groped her way in; she must come to the bottom of this.
"Is any one here?" she cried at the door whence the sobbing came. ”

“ You know, as it is always, every man in the post already. It is not so with the women, I'll wager. For instance, who lives in the tiny house there by the south bastion?”
“I know not,” answered Maren, as though she humoured a child, and taking the last question first; “as for the youth, 'tis young Marc Dupre, and one of a sturdy nature. I like his spirit, though all I know of it is what sparkles from his roguish eyes. A fighter,—one to dare for love of chance.” ”

“ Maren describes him as tall, powerful, dark, with a peculiarly quiet manner. She says she never saw him drunk—he seemed always anxious to keep his wits about him: he would linger on the outskirts of a drunken brawl, listening to and absorbing everything, but never mixing himself up in any disturbance. He was always lurking in corners, lingering, looking, listening, and he would look no man straight in the eyes. ”

“ Meanwhile poor shuddering Maren on the lonely island, by the water-side, waits till the sun is high in heaven before she dares to come forth. She thinks he may be still on the island. She said to me, “I thought he must be there, dead or alive. I thought he might go crazy and kill himself after having done all that.” At last she steals out. The little dog frisks before her; it is so cold her feet cling to the rocks and snow at every step, till the skin is fairly torn off. ”

“ A babble of voices told of pursuit,—shouts and gutturals that strung out from the camp all through the gorge and were beginning to flow with the river.
“Only a matter of time,—a little time,” thought Wilson, at the prow, but never a word was uttered in the canoe.
Exerting every atom of strength, calling on all the will-power aboard, they shot forward into the night and the current.
The noise behind increased, as the tones of a bell blown by the wind increase when the wind sets in one's direction.
“Not now!” Maren was saying to herself. “Not now,—when we are so far toward the winning! ”

“ Eager as a hound for the quarry Maren stood forth beside Dupre to hail them.
Head of the brigade was Mr. Thomas Mowbray, a gentleman of fine presence and of gentle manners.
In answer to the hail from shore he came to, and presently he stood in the prow of his boat listening to an appeal that lightened his grave eyes.
“Men we must have, M'sieu,” Maren was saying passionately; “men of the Hudson's Bay. Against all odds we go of a truth, but strategy and wit accomplish much, and the Nakonkirhirinons have no thought of rescue. ”

“ The old woman would cry too, and the one would soothe the other, until both were comforted.
"Ay, ay, 'tis hard to live," old Maren would say. "If you'd but had a father—one worth having. Maybe you'd have got the thrashings all folks need, and poor old Granny'd have lived with you instead of begging her food!"
Maren had barely finished speaking, when a cart with a bony old nag in the shafts stopped outside on the road. A big stooping man with tousled hair and beard sprang down from the cart, threw the reins over the back of the nag, and came towards the house. ”

“ But, after all one can be too fastidious, and when at last the girl could not keep down even an omelet, it was too much of a good thing for Maren. She took her daughter up to a wise woman who lived on the common. Three times did she try her skill on Sörine, with no avail. So Sören had to borrow a horse and cart and drove them in to the homeopathist. He did it very unwillingly. Not because he did not care for the girl, and it might be possible, as Maren said, that as she slept, an animal or evil spirit might have found its way into her mouth and now prevented the food from going down. ”

“ This accident made Maren famous as a curer of burns and people sought her help for their injuries. "You're a wise one," said they, and gave her bacon or fish by way of thanks. "But 'tis not to be wondered at, after all."
The allusion to the fact that her mother had been a "wise woman" did not please Maren at all. But the bacon and the herrings came to an empty cupboard, and—as Sören said: "Beggars cannot be choosers and must swallow their pride with their food."
Ditte shot up like a young plant, day by day putting forth new leaves. ”

“ At eight o’clock that evening comes the steamer Mayflower to the Shoals, with all the officers on board. They land and make investigations at Smutty-Nose, then come here to Appledore and examine Maren, and, when everything is done, steam back to Portsmouth, which they reach at three o’clock in the morning. After all are gone and his awful day’s work is finished at last, poor John comes back to Maren, and kneeling by the side of her bed, he is utterly overpowered with what he has passed through; he is shaken with sobs as he cries, “Oh, Maren, Maren, it is too much, too much! ”

“ They have—”
Here there came a tumult among the listening populace, and Marie rushed through and flung herself upon Maren and there was time for nothing else, save that, as Maren turned with her hanging like a vice about her throat and Henri's arm across her shoulders, there was a streak of crimson, a flash of ornaments in the sun, but now risen above the forest's rim, and some one threw herself upon the unconscious form of McElroy, kissing his face and his helpless hands and weeping terribly. ”

“ And then the flotilla parted at a word of command from the darkness ahead and a boat came back among them. It passed close to the fugitives, and Maren saw a tall man with a square chin, who stood up in it.
When it reached the fringe it went on out into the open water toward the halted canoes of the Nakonkirhirinons, on whose eager faces sat a sort of stupid awe.
“What do yez want?” called the tall man sternly, as he swept face to face with the foremost canoe in which stood a headman of the tribe. “Whyfore is all this bally-hoo wid th' lights?” ”

“ No one in the wide world cared for the little one, not even the old people for that matter. But all the same Maren went up into the attic and brought out an old wooden cradle which had for many years been used for yarn and all kinds of lumber; Sören put new rockers, and once more Maren's old, swollen legs had to accustom themselves to rocking a cradle again. ”

“ He looked uncommonly old and had always done so ever since his childhood, it was said people of the Sand farm were always born toothless.
Maren came and placed herself in front of him. "Maybe you're thinking of the son your wife should bear? And maybe seeing him already running by your side in the fields, just like a little foal, and learning to hold the plow. Ay! many a one's no son to save for, but enjoys putting by for all that. And often 'tis a close-fisted father has a spendthrift son; belike 'tis the Lord punishing them for their greedy ways. ”

“ Sören had to get a drill and learn to mend earthenware to make up for the worst of her depredations. A great many things fell over Ditte without alarming her in the least.
"She'll neither break nor bend—she's a woman all over," said Sören, inwardly rather proud of her power of endurance. But Maren had to be ever on the watch, and was in daily fear for the things and the child herself.
One day Ditte spilled a basin of hot milk over herself and was badly scalded; that cured her of inquisitiveness. Maren put her to bed and treated her burns with egg-oil and slices of new potato ”

“ Perhaps it was a coincidence, but there was no swallow’s nest in that hall, with hungry mouths of little ones gaping to be fed, and no peaceful stork upon the roof. Even the rats shunned it: a weasel lived in the attic.
Poor Maren’s travail was brief, let us hope. Down the street there lived a man with whom it went through a life rich in benediction to his [Pg 242] kind. A bishop was he, and a singer whose songs will live as long as the Danish tongue. ”

“ She lifted her hand above her without turning her head, and it shone pale in the mist, an eerie beacon, and thus the boat passed from view in the greyness, though as the paddles dipped for the start the song still rung forth, beating along the shore.
* * * * * * * * * * *
“Men,” said Maren Le Moyne at the first stop, “this is a trail of great hazard. There is in it neither gift nor gain, only a mighty risk. Yet I have asked you forth upon it as men of the H. B. C. because the man I would save is a factor of the Great Company.” ”

“ In honor of the strangers, coffee was taken after dinner in the garden, where, under the plum-trees, a swing was fixed. Somewhat later a sailing party was arranged. A small yacht belonging to the merchant lay, just unladen, near the bridge of boats.
Otto found Maren and the young lady from Holstebro sitting in the arbor. Somewhat startled, they concealed something at his entrance.
“The ladies have secrets! May one not be initiated?” ”

“ The old woman started, alarmed at the word. "Nay, but of course not. 'Tis nothing to prate about: come along home," said she harshly, pushing the child. Ditte was unaccustomed to be spoken to in this manner, and she hurried along.
The house was cold as they entered it, and Maren put the little one straight to bed. Then having gathered sticks for the fire, she put on water for the coffee, talking to herself all the while. "Ugh, just so; but who's to blame? The innocent must suffer, to make the guilty speak."
"What did you say, Granny?" asked Ditte from the alcove. ”

“ Fresh in his mind was a delicious July day at Rheims with his tutor, and the memory of every detail noted on the way, along the green windings of the Marne, by Meaux, Montmirail and Epernay. Now, traversing the same towns, he seemed to be looking into murdered faces, vacant and stony. ”

“ Marna!" Every pulse
Throbbed "Marna!" And his body shook and swayed,
As though it strove to utter that one word,
And cry it once unto eternal stars,
Though it should perish crying. Through the cell
The silence murmured: "Marna!" And without
A lone gull wailed it to the windy night.
He lifted his wild eyes, and in the shrine
He saw the face of Marna, which outburned
The flickering taper; on the gloom up-surged,
Foam-white, the face of Marna; till the dark
Flowed pitiful o'er him, and on the stone
He sank unconscious. Night went slowly by,
And pale dawn stole in silence through his cell ”

“ The Marne
“Within its pages is concentrated much if not the whole of the meaning of the Marne both to France and America. Mrs. Wharton has never written a broader, keener criticism of life than this.”—New York Times. ”

“ The landscape has the grace and freshness which is characteristic of the whole valley of the Marne: a horizon of tiny hills, humble and smiling, a fertile and regularly cultivated plain, an old mill lost among the willows, a line of great poplars, a sluggish, grassy rivulet, resigned to continual detours, and finally, spread over all these things, a somewhat humid light which imparts to them a delicate charm—a lovable spectacle of which the eye cannot tire, since its subtle seductiveness lies wholly in the changes of the height and the flight of the clouds. ”

“ Once arrived in the Bois de Boulogne, the visitor has not to travel far in order to see the Marne, that most capricious of French rivers. There is scarcely a Parisian who has not taken an exploring stroll along the banks of this stream, which conducts the oarsman to the very point whence he started. Artists and dreamers in search of leafy shade, of trees overhanging a limpid stream, of mills beating the clear water with their black wheels, know the Marne well. On summer days many a peal of laughter may be heard to proceed from behind some shrubbery. ”