Strife and Peace

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The road was untracked, often steep and terrific, but the horses stepped
safely over it, and thus in a little time they came to a Saeter-hut,
which lay upon the shore of Ustevand, one of the inland lakes which lie
at the foot of Hallingskarv. This Saeter lies above the boundary of the
birch-tree vegetation, and its environs have the strong features
peculiar to the rocky character; but its grass-plots, perpetually
watered from the snowy mountains, were yet of a beautiful green, and
many-coloured herds of cattle swarmed upon them. Like dazzling silver
ribbons shimmered the brooks between the green declivities and the
darker cliffs. The sun now shone bright, and they mutually congratulated
each other on the cheering prospect of a happy journey. At this Saeter
the company rested for an hour, and made a hasty breakfast of the simple
viands which are peculiar to this region. Before each guest was placed a
bowl of "Lefsetriangle,"[18] on which was laid a cake of rye-meal, about
the size of a plate. Upon the table stood large four-cornered pieces of
butter, and a dish of excellent mountain-fish. Cans of Hardanger ale
were not wanting; and a young girl, with light plaited hair,
light-yellow leather jacket, black thickly-plaited petticoat, and a red
kerchief tied round her neck, with a face as pretty and innocent as ever
an idyl bestowed upon its shepherdess, waited upon the guests, and
entertained them with her simple, good-humoured talk.

After breakfast the journey was continued. Upon the heights of Ustefjell
they saw two vast mountain ranges, whose wavy backs reared themselves
into the regions of perpetual snow. They were Hallingskarv and
Halling-Jokul.

Slowly advanced the caravan up the Barfjell. By degrees all trees
disappeared; the ground was naked, or only covered by low black bushes;
between, lay patches of snow-lichen, which increased in extent the
higher they ascended. The prospect around had in it something
indescribably cold and terrific. But Susanna felt herself in a peculiar
manner enlivened by this wild, and to her new spectacle. To this the old
Halling peasant contributed, who, whilst they travelled through this
desolate mountain track, related to the party various particulars of the
"subterranean folk" who dwelt there, and whom he described as a spectre
herd, with little, ugly, pale, or bluish human shapes, dotted in grey,
and with black head-gear. "They often draw," said he, "people down into
their subterranean dwellings, and there murder them; and if anybody
escape living out of their power, they remain from that time through
the whole of their lives dejected and insane, and have no more pleasure
on the earth. Certain people they persecute; but to others they afford
protection, and bring to them wealth and good fortune." The Halling
peasant was himself perfectly convinced of the actual existence of these
beings; he had himself seen in a mountain district a man who hastily
sunk into the earth and vanished!

One of his friends had once seen in a wood a whole farm, with house,
people, and cattle; but when he reached the place, all these had
immediately vanished.

Harald declared that here the imagination had played its pranks well;
but the old man endeavoured to strengthen the affair by relating the
following piece out of Hans Lauridsen's "Book of the Soul."

"The devil has many companions; such as elfin-women, elfin-men, dwarfs,
imps, nightmares, hobgoblins with red-hot fire-tongs, Var-wolves,
giants, spectres, which appear to people when they are about to die."

And as Harald smilingly expressed some doubt on the subject, the old man
said warmly--

"Why, does it not stand written in the Bible that all knees, as well
those that are in heaven and on the earth, and _under_ the earth, shall
bow at the name of the Lord? And who, indeed, can they be _under_ the
earth, if not the subterranean? And do you take care," continued he
gaily, with an arch look at Susanna, "take care when the 'Thusmoerk'
(twilight) comes, for then is the time when they are about; and they
have a particular fancy for young girls, and drag them gladly down to
their dwellings. Take care! for if they get you once down into their
church--for they have churches too, deep under ground--you will never
see the sun and God's clear heaven again as long as ever you live; and
it would not be pleasant, that you may believe, to dwell with Thuserne."

Susanna shuddered involuntarily at this jest. She cast a glance upon the
wild rock-shapes around her, which the Halling-peasant assured her were
all spectres, giants, and giantesses, turned into stone. Harald remarked
the impression which all this made on Susanna; but he, who had so often
amused himself by exciting her imagination, became now altogether
rectifying reason, and let his light shine for Susanna on the darkness
of superstition.

Higher yet ascended the travellers, and more desolate became the
country. The whole of this mountain region is scattered over with larger
and smaller blocks of stone; and these have assisted people as waymarks
through this country, when, without these, people must infallibly lose
themselves. Stones have, therefore, been piled upon the large blocks in
the direction which the road takes; and if a stone fall down, the
passer-by considers it a sacred duty to replace it. "Comfortable
waymarks," as Professor Hansten, in his interesting "Mountain Journey,"
calls these guides; "for," continues he, "they are upon this journey the
only traces of man; and if only once one has failed to see one such
stone of indication, the next which one discovers expels the awakened
anxiety by the assurance, 'thou art still upon the right way.'"

In dark or foggy weather, however, those friendly watchers are almost
useless, and the journey is then in the highest degree dangerous. People
become so easily bewildered and frozen in this desert, or they are
overwhelmed by the falls of snow. They who perish in this manner are
called after death "Drauge," and are supposed to haunt the gloomy
mountain passes. The guide pointed out a place near the road where had
been found the corpses of two tradespeople, who one autumn had been
surprised by a snow-storm upon the mountains, and there lost their
lives. He related this with great indifference, for every year people
perish in the mountain regions, and this kind of death is not considered
worse than any other. But dreadful thoughts began to rise in Susanna's
mind. There was, however, no reason to anticipate misfortune, for the
weather was lovely, and the journey, although difficult, went on safely
and well. It was continued uninterruptedly till evening. As no Saeter
could be reached before dark, they were to pass the night in a place
called "Monsbuheja," because in its neighbourhood there was grass for
the horses. Here our travellers happily arrived shortly before sunset.
They found here a cave, half formed by nature and half by the hands of
men, which last had rolled large stones around its entrance. Its walls
were covered with moss, and decorated with horns of the reindeer
fastened into the crevices of the rock. Soon had Susanna formed here,
out of carpet-bags, cloaks, and shawls, a comfortable couch for her
wearied lady, who thanked her for it with such a friendly glance as
Susanna had never before seen in her eyes.

Harald, in the mean time, with the servants had cared for the horses,
and in collecting fuel for the night. A few hundred paces from the cave,
a river flowed between ice-covered banks; on the edge of this river, and
on the shores of the snow-brook, they found roots of decayed junipers,
rock-willows, and moor-weed, which they collected together to a place
outside the cave, where they kindled the nocturnal watch-fire.

During this, Susanna ascended a little height near the cave, and saw the
sun go down behind Halling-Jokul. Like a red globe of fire, it now stood
upon the edge of the immeasurable snow-mountains, and threw splendid,
many-coloured rays of purple, yellow, and blue, upon the clouds of
heaven, as well as upon the snow-plains which lay below. It was a
magnificent sight.

"Good heavens! how great, how glorious!" exclaimed Susanna,
involuntarily, whilst with her hands pressed upon her breast, she bowed
herself as though in adoration before the descending ruler of the day.

"Yes, great and glorious!" answered a gentle echo near; Susanna looked
around, and saw Harald standing beside her. There stood they, the two
alone, lighted by the descending sun, with the same feelings, the same
thoughts, ardent and adoring in the waste, dead solitude. Susanna could
not resist the feelings of deep and solemn emotion which filled her
heart. She extended her hand to Harald, and her tearful look seemed to
say, "Peace! peace!" Susanna felt this a leave-taking, but a
leave-taking in love. In that moment she could have clasped the whole
world to her breast. She felt herself raised above all contention, all
spite, all littleness. This great spectacle had awakened something great
within her, and in her countenance _Sanna_ beamed in beautiful and mild
illumination.

Harald, on the contrary, seemed to think of no leave-taking; for he held
Susanna's hand fast in his, and was about to speak; but she hastily
withdrew it, and, turning herself from him, said:

"We must now think about supper!"

The fire outside the cave blazed up cheerfully, and in the eastern
heaven uprose the moon amid rose-coloured clouds.

Soon was Susanna, lively and cheerful, busied by the fire. From cakes of
bouillon and prepared groats which she had brought with her, she
prepared an excellent soup, in which pieces of veal were warmed. Whilst
this boiled, she distributed bread, cheese, and brandy to the men who
accompanied them, and cared with particular kindness for the old guide.
Harald allowed her to do all this, without assisting her in the least.
He sate upon a stone, at a little distance, supported on his gun, and
observed her good and cheerful countenance lighted up by the fire, her
lively movements and her dexterity in all which she undertook. He
thought upon her warm heart, her ingenuous mind, her activity; he
thought upon the evenings of the former winter, or when he read aloud,
related stories to her, and how she listened and felt the while. All at
once it seemed to him that the ideal of a happy life, which for so many
years had floated before his mind, now was just near to him. It stood
there, beside the flames of the nocturnal fire, and was lighted up by
them. Alette's warnings flitted from before him like the
thence-hastening night-mists, without shape or reality. He saw himself
the possessor of an estate which he would ennoble as Oberlin has done
the sunken rocky valley; saw himself surrounded by dependents and
neighbours, to whose happiness he really contributed; he saw himself in
his home--he contemplated it in the most trying light--the long winter
evenings; but it dimmed not thereby. For he saw himself as before, on
the winter evenings with Susanna; but yet not as before, for he now sate
nearer to her and she was his wife, and he read aloud to her, and
enjoyed her lively, warm sympathy; but he rested at intervals his eyes
upon her and upon the child, which lay in the cradle at her feet, and
Susanna glanced at him as she had just now done upon the rock in the
evening sun. The flames which now danced over the snow were the flames
of his own hearth, and it was his wife who, happy and hospitable, was
busied about them, diffusing comfort and joy around her.

"What is the use of a finer education?" thought he, "it cannot create a
heart, a soul, and qualities like this girl's!" He could not turn his
eyes from Susanna; every moment she seemed more beautiful to him.--The
sweet enchantment of love had come over him.

In the mean time the evening meal was ready, and Harald was called to
it. What wonder if he, after a fatiguing day's journey, and after the
observations which he had just been making, found Susanna's meal beyond
all description excellent and savoury?! He missed only Susanna's
presence during it, for Susanna was within the cave, and upon her knees
before Mrs. Astrid, holding in her hand a bowl of soup, and counting
with quiet delight every spoonful which her lady with evident
satisfaction conveyed to her lips. "That was the best soup that I ever
tasted!" said she, when the bowl was emptied; "it is true, Susanna, that
you are very clever!" It was the first time that Mrs. Astrid had paid
attention to her eating, and the first praise which Susanna had received
from her mouth,--and no soup, not even nectar, can taste so charming, so
animating, as the first word of praise from beloved lips!

When Susanna went out of the cave, she was welcomed by Harald's looks;
and they spoke a language almost irresistibly enchanting for a heart to
which affection was so needful as was Susanna's: and in her excited and
grateful spirit she thought that she could be content for all eternity
to be up in these mountains, and wait upon and prepare soup for those
beloved beings who here seemed first to have opened their hearts to her.

They now made preparations for the night, which promised to be clear,
but cold. The peasants laid themselves around the fire. Mrs. Astrid,
anxious on account of Harald's shoulder, prayed him to come into the
cave, where it was sheltered from the keen air; but Harald preferred to
keep watch on the outside, and sate before the fire wrapped in his
cloak. Susanna laid herself softly down at his mistress's feet, which
she hoped by this means to keep warm. Strange shapes flitted before her
inward sight whilst her eyelids were closed. Shapes of snow and ice came
near to her, and seemed to wish to surround her--but suddenly vanished,
and were melted before the warm looks of love, and the sun shone forth
in glory; and happy, sweet feelings blossomed forth in her soul. Amid
such she slept. Then a new image showed itself. She was again in
Heimdal; she stood upon the bank of the river, and looked with fearful
wonder on the opposite shore; for there, amid the dark fir-trees, shone
forth something white, mist-like, but which became ever plainer; and as
it approached the brink of the river, Susanna saw that it was a child,
and she knew again her little Hulda. But she was pale as the dead, and
tears rolled down her snow-white cheeks, while she stretched forth her
little arms to Susanna, and called her name. Susanna was about to throw
herself into the waves which separated them, but could not; she felt
herself fettered by an invisible power. At this, as she turned round
with inexpressible anguish to free herself, she perceived that it was
Harald who thus held her; he looked so cold, so severe, and Susanna felt
at the game time both love and hatred for him. Again anxiously called
the tender child's voice, and Susanna saw her little sister sink upon
the stones of the shore, and the white waves beat over her. With a
feeling of wild despair Susanna now awoke from sleep, and sprang up.
Cold perspiration stood upon her brow, and she looked bewildered around.
The cave darkly vaulted itself above her; and the blazing fire outside
threw red confused beams upon its fantastically decorated walls. Susanna
went softly out of the cave; she wished to see the heavens, the stars;
she must breathe the free fresh air, to release herself from the terrors
of her dream. But no beaming star looked down upon her, for the heavens
were covered with a grey roof of cloud, and the pale moonlight which
pressed through cast a troubled light over the dead country, and gloomy
and hideous shapes. The fire had burnt low, and flickered up, as if
sleepily, now and then, with red flames. The peasants slept heavily,
lying around it. Susanna saw not Harald at this moment, and she was glad
of it. In order to dissipate the painful impression she had experienced,
Susanna took a water-jug, and went down to the river with it, to fetch
water for the morrow's breakfast. On the way thither she saw Harald, who
with his gun upon his shoulder, walked backwards and forwards some
little distance from the cave. Unobserved by him, she, however, came
down to the river, and filled her jug with the snow-mingled water. This
little bodily exertion did her good; but the solitary ramble was not
much calculated to enliven her spirits. The scene was indescribably
gloomy, and the monotonous murmuring of the snow-brook was accompanied
by gusts of wind, which, like giant sighs, went mournfully whistling
through the desert. She seated herself for a moment at the foot of a
rock. It was midnight, and deep silence reigned over the country. The
rocks around her were covered with mourning-lichen, and the pale
snow-lichens grew in crevices of the mountains; here and there stuck out
from the black earth-rind the bog-lichen, a little pale-yellow
sulphur-coloured flower, which the Lapland sagas use in the magic arts,
and which here gives the impression of a ghastly smile upon these fields
of death. Susanna could not free herself from the remembrance of her
dream; and wherever she turned her glance she thought that she saw the
image of her little dying sister. Perhaps in this dream she had received
a warning, perhaps a foretelling; perhaps she might never leave this
desert; perhaps she should die here, and then----what would become of
her little Hulda? Would not neglect and want let her sink upon the hard
stones of life, and the waves of misery go over her? In the midst of
these gloomy thoughts, Susanna was surprised by Harald. He saw that she
had been weeping, and asked, with a voice so kind it went to Susanna's
heart--

"Why so dejected? Are you uneasy or displeased? Ah! tell it openly to me
as a friend! I cannot bear to see you thus!"

"I have had a bad dream!" said Susanna, wiping away her tears and
standing up, "all is so ghastly, so wild here around us. It makes me
think on all the dark and sad things in the world! But it is no use
troubling oneself about them," continued she more cheerfully, "it will
be all well enough when the day dawns. It is the hour of darkness, the
hour in which the under-earth spirits have rule!" And Susanna attempted
to smile. "But what is that?" continued she, and her smile changed
itself suddenly to an expression of anxiety, which made her
involuntarily approach Harald. There was heard in the air a low
clattering and whistling, and at the same time a mass resembling a grey
cloud came from the north, spreading over the snow-fields and
approaching the place where they stood. In the pale moonlight Susanna
seemed to see wild shapes with horns and claws, moving themselves in the
mass, and the words, "the under-earth spirits," were nearly escaping her
lips.

"It is a herd of reindeer!" said Harald, smiling, who seemed to divine
her thoughts, and went a few paces towards the apparition, whilst he
mechanically shouldered his gun. But at the same moment the herd took
another direction, and fled with wild speed towards the east. The wind
rose, and swept with a mournful wail through the ice-desert.

"It is here really fearful!" said Susanna, and shuddered.

"But to-morrow evening," said Harald, cheerfully, "we shall reach
Storlie-Saeter, which lies below the region of snow, and then we shall
find birch-woods, quite green yet, and shall meet with friendly people,
and can have there a regularly comfortable inn. The day afterwards we
shall have a heavy piece of road; but on that same day we shall have a
view of scenes so magnificent, that you certainly will think little of
the trouble, on account of the pleasure you will enjoy, for there the
beautiful far exceeds the terrific. That spot between Storlie-Saeter and
Tverlic, where the wild Leira-river, as if in frenzy, hurls itself down
over Hoegfjell, and with the speed of lightning and the noise of thunder
rushed between and over splintered masses of rock, in part naked, in
part clothed in wood, to tumble about with its rival the furious
Bjoeroeja,--that spot exceeds in wild grandeur anything that man can
imagine."

Thus spake Harald, to dissipate Susanna's dejection; but she listened to
him half-dreaming, and said as if to herself--

"Would that we were well there, and passed it, and at our destination,
and then----"

"And then?" said Harald, taking up the unfinished sentence--"what then?"

"Home with my Hulda again!" said Susanna, deeply sighing.

"What, Susanna? Will you then leave us? Do you really hate Norway?"

"No, no!--a long way from that!--But one cannot serve two masters, that
I now feel. Hulda calls me. I shall have no rest till I return to her,
and never will I part from her again, I have dreamed of her to-night;
and she was so pale, so pale--Ah! But you are pale too, terribly pale!"
continued Susanna, as she looked at Harald with astonishment; "you are
certainly ill!"

"It is this lovely moonlight and this sweet scenery which gives me this
ashy-grey colour," said Harald jokingly, who wished to conceal the true
cause of his paleness; which was, that his shoulder began to be acutely
painful during the night. And he endeavoured to turn Susanna's attention
to another object.

The two had in the mean time reached the cave. Harald revived the
smouldering fire with fresh fuel, and Susanna crept softly into the
cave, and resumed her former place at the feet of her mistress. But it
was not till late that she sunk into an uneasy sleep.

She was awoke by a loud and rushing noise. A pale light came into the
cave, and she heard Harald's voice saying aloud outside, "It is time
that we are preparing for the journey, that as soon as possible we may
get into quarters. We have a laborious day before us."

Susanna looked around her for her lady. She stood quite ready near
Susanna, and was regarding her with a gentle, attentive look.

Susanna sprang up, shocked at her own tardiness, and went all the
quicker now to make arrangements for breakfast. The bouillon was again
had recourse to, the servants were refreshed with salmon, bacon, and
curds thawed in snow-water.

A tempest had blown up after midnight, which promised our travellers not
at all an agreeable travelling-day. The river and the brooks roared
loudly, and raged and thundered amid the rocks around them. In the
course of the morning the wind, however, abated, but Harald cast now and
then thoughtful glances upon the grey roof of cloud which grew ever
thicker above their heads. Susanna saw him once cast an inquiring glance
upon the guide, and he shook his grey head. In the mean time all the
_men_ seemed cheerful; and Harald seemed to wish by his animation, to
remove the impression which his continued unusual paleness might
occasion.

Through the whole forenoon they continued to ascend higher into the
region of winter, and the snow-fields stretched out wider and wider. No
one living thing showed itself in this desert, but they frequently saw
traces of reindeer, and here and there flies lay upon the snow in deep
winter-sleep. The wind fortunately subsided more and more, and let its
icy breath be felt only in short gusts. But ever and anon were heard
peals and roarings, as if of loud thunder. They were the so-called
"Fjellskred;" or falls of great masses of rocks and stones, which
separate themselves from the mountains, and plunge down, and which in
these mountain-regions commonly occur during and after tempests. The
peasants related many histories of houses and people who were crushed
under them.

The road became continually more and more difficult. They were often
obliged to wade through running rivers, and to pass over snow-bridges,
under which the rivers had made themselves a path. Harald, alike bold,
as prudent and determined, often averted danger at his own risk, from
Mrs. Astrid and Susanna. Neither was he pale any longer. The exertions
and fever, which nobody suspected, made his cheeks glow with the finest
crimson.

In the afternoon, they had reached the highest point of the rocks. Here
were piled up two great heaps of stones, in the neighbourhood of a
little sea called Skiftesjoe, which is covered with never-melted ice in
the hottest summer. Here the brooks begin to run westward, and the way
begins from here to descend. The giant shapes of the Vasfjern and
Ishaug, together with other lofty snow-mountains, showed themselves in
perspective.

The wind was now almost still; but it began to snow violently, and the
cloudy sky sank down, dark and heavy as lead, upon the travellers.

"We must hasten, hasten," said the old Halling peasant, as he looked
round with an intelligent glance to the party whom he led, "else we
shall be snowed up on the mountains, as it happened to the late Queen
Margaret, when----"

He ended not, for his horse stumbled suddenly on a steep descent, and
threw him over. The old man's head struck violently against a stone, and
he remained lying senseless. It was a full hour before they succeeded in
bringing him to consciousness. But the blow had been so severe, and the
old man was so confused in his head, that he could no longer serve as
guide. They were obliged to place him on the same horse as his grandson
rode, and the high-spirited young man took charge of him with the
greatest tenderness. Harald rode now at the head of the party, but every
moment increased the difficulties of his undertaking, for the snow fell
with such terrible rapidity, and the thickness of the air prevented him
distinguishing with certainty "the comfortable waymarks,"--the
traveller's only means of safety. They were obliged often to make
windings and turnings, to come again upon the right path. Nevertheless,
they succeeded in reaching Bjoeroei-Saeter, an uninhabited Saeter, but which
stands upon the broad and rapid Bjoeroeia.

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