The Modern Vikings

“Yes, child,” answered the doctor; “very ill.”

“And will God take my mamma away from me?” he faltered, extricating himself from Hector’s embrace, and trying hard to steady his voice and look brave.

“I am afraid He will, my child,” said the doctor, gravely.

“But could I not do something for her, doctor?”

The long suppressed tears now broke forth, and trickled down over the boy’s cheeks.

“You, a child, what can you do?” said the doctor, kindly, and shook his head.

Just then there was a great noise in the air. The chimes in the steeple of the village church pealed forth a joyous Christmas carol, and the sound soared, rushing as with invisible wing-beats through the clear, frosty air. For it was Christmas-eve, and the bells were, according to Norse custom, “ringing-in the festival.” Thorwald stood long listening, with folded hands, until the bells seemed to take up the doctor’s last words, and chime: “What can you do, what can you do, what can you do?” Surely, there could be no doubt that that was what the bells were saying. The clear little silvery bells that rang out the high notes were every moment growing more impatient, and now the great heavy bell joined them, too, and tolled out slowly, in a deep bass voice, “Thor – wald!” and then all the little ones chimed in with the chorus, as rapidly as the stiff iron tongues could wag: “What can you do, what can you do, what can you do? Thorwald, what can you do, what can you do, what can you do?”

“A child – ah, what can a child do?” thought Thorwald. “Christ was himself a child once, and He saved the whole world. And on a night like this, when all the world is glad because it is His birthday, He perhaps will remember how a little boy feels who loves his mamma, and cannot bear to lose her. If I only knew where He is now, I would go to Him, even if it were ever so far, and tell Him how much we all love mamma, and I would promise Him to be the best boy in all the world, if He would allow her to stay with us.”

Now the church-bells suddenly stopped, though the air still kept quivering for some minutes with faint reverberations of sound. It was very quiet in the large, old-fashioned house. The servants stole about on tiptoe, and spoke to each other in hurried whispers when they met in the halls. A dim lamp, with a bluish globe, hung under the ceiling and sent a faint, moon-like light over the broad oaken staircase, upon the first landing of which a large Dutch clock stood in a sort of niche, and ticked and ticked patiently in the twilight. It was only five o’clock in the afternoon, and yet the moon had been up for more than an hour, and the stars were twinkling in the sky, and the aurora borealis swept with broad sheets of light through the air, like a huge fan, the handle of which was hidden beneath the North Pole; you almost imagined you heard it whizzing past your ears as it flashed upward to the zenith and flared along the horizon. For at that season of the year the sun sets at about two o’clock in the northern part of Norway, and the day is then but four hours long, while the night is twenty. To Thorwald that was a perfectly proper and natural arrangement; for he had always known it so in winter, and he would have found it very singular if the sun had neglected to hide behind the mountains at about two o’clock on Christmas-eve.

But poor Thorwald heeded little the wonders of the sky that day. He heard the clock going, “Tick – tack, tick – tack,” and he knew that the precious moments were flying, and he had not yet decided what he could do which might please God so well that he would consent to let his dear mamma remain upon earth. He thought of making a vow to be very good all his life long; but it occurred to him that before he would have time to prove the sincerity of his promise, God might already have taken his mamma away. He must find some shorter and surer method. Down on the knoll, near the river, he knew there lived a woman whom all the peasants held in great repute, and who was known in the parish as “Wise Marthie.” He had always been half afraid of her, because she was very old and wrinkled, and looked so much like the fairy godmother in his storybook, who was not invited to the christening feast, and who revenged herself by stinging the princess with a spindle, so that she had to go to sleep for a hundred years. But if she were so wise, as all the people said, perhaps she might tell him what he should do to save the life of his mamma. Hardly had this thought struck him before he seized his cap and overcoat (for it was a bitter cold night), and ran to the stable to fetch his skees.[10 - Skees (Norwegian skier) are a peculiar kind of snow-shoes, generally from five to nine feet long, but only a few inches broad. They are made of tough pine-wood, and are smoothly polished on the under side, so as to make them glide the more easily over the surface of the snow. In the middle there are bands to put the feet into, and the front end of each skee is pointed and strongly bent upward. This enables the runner to slide easily over logs, hillocks, and other obstacles, instead of thrusting against them. The skee only goes in straight lines; still the runner can, even when moving with great speed, change his course at pleasure by means of a long pole which he carries for this purpose, and uses as a sort of rudder. Skees are especially convenient for sliding downhill, but are also, for walking in deep snow, much superior to the common American snow-shoes.] Then down he slid over the steep hill-side. The wind whistled in his ears, and the loose snow whirled about him and settled in his hair, and all over his trousers and his coat. When he reached Wise Marthie’s cottage, down on the knoll, he looked like a wandering snow image. He paused for a moment at the door; then took heart and gave three bold raps with his skee-staff. He heard someone groping about within, and at length a square hole in the door was opened, and the head of the revengeful fairy godmother was thrust out through the opening.

“Who is there?” asked Wise Marthie, harshly (for, of course, it was none other than she). Then as she saw the small boy, covered all over with snow, she added, in a friendlier voice: “Ah! gentlefolk out walking in this rough weather?”

“O Marthie!” cried Thorwald, anxiously, “my mamma is very ill – ”

He wished to say more, but Marthie here opened the lower panel of the door, while the upper one remained closed, and invited him to enter.

“Bend your head,” she said, “or you will knock against the door. I am a poor woman, and can’t afford to waste precious heat by opening both panels.”

Thorwald shook the snow from his coat, set his skees against the wall outside, and entered the cottage.

“Take a seat here at the fire,” said the old woman, pointing to a wooden block which stood close to the hearth. “You must be very cold, and you can warm your hands while you tell me your errand.”

“Thank you, Marthie,” answered the boy, “but I have no time to sit down. I only wanted to ask you something, and if you can tell me that, I shall – I shall – love you as long as I live.”

Old Marthie smiled, and Thorwald thought for a moment that she looked almost handsome. And then she took his hand in hers and drew him gently to her side.

“You are not a witch, are you, Marthie?” he said, a little tremblingly. For Marthie’s association with the wicked fairy godmother was yet very suggestive. Then, again, her cottage seemed to be a very queer place; and it did not look like any other cottage that he had ever seen before. Up under the ceiling, which was black and sooty, hung bunches of dried herbs, and on shelves along the wall stood flower-pots, some of which had blooming flowers in them. The floor was freshly scrubbed, and strewn with juniper-needles, and the whole room smelt very clean. In a corner, between the stone hearth and the wall, a bed, made of plain deal boards, was to be seen; a shaggy Maltese cat, with sleepy, yellow eyes, was for the present occupying it, and he raised his head and gazed knowingly at the visitor, as if to say: “I know what you have come for.”

Old Marthie chuckled when Thorwald asked if she was a witch; and somehow her chuckle had a pleasant and good-natured sound, the boy thought, as he eyed her wistfully.

“Now I am sure you are not a witch,” cried he, “for witches never laugh like that. I know, now, that you are a good woman, and that you will want to help me if you can. I told you my mamma was very ill” (the tears here again broke through his voice) – “so very ill that the doctor says God will take her away from us. I sat at her door all yesterday and cried, and when papa took me in to her, she did not know me. Then I cried more. I asked papa why God makes people so ill, and he said it was something I didn’t understand, but I should understand some day. But, Marthie, I haven’t time to wait, for by that time mamma may be gone, and I shall never know where to find her; I must know now. And you, who are so very wise, you will tell me what I can do to save my mamma. Couldn’t I do something for God, Marthie – something that he would like? And then, perhaps, he would allow mamma to stay with us always.”

The tears now came hot and fast, but the boy still stood erect, and gazed with anxious questioning into the old woman’s face.

“You are a brave little lad,” she said, stroking his soft, curly hair with her stiff, crooked fingers, “and happy is the mother of such a boy. And old Marthie knows a thing or two, she also, and you shall not have come to her in vain. Once, child, more than eighteen hundred years ago, just on this very night, a strange thing happened in this world, and I dare say you have heard of it. Christ, the White, was born of Mary in the land of the Jews. The angels came down from heaven, as we read in the Good Book, and they sang strange and wonderful songs of praise. And they scattered flowers, too – flowers which only blossomed until then in heaven, in the sight of God. And one of these flowers, – sweet and pure, like the tone of an angel’s voice expressed in color – one of these wondrous flowers, I say, struck root in the soil, and has multiplied, and remains in the world until this day. It blossoms only on Christmas-eve – on the eve when Christ was born. Even in the midst of the snow, and when it is so cold that the wolf shivers in his den, this frail, pure flower peeps up for a few brief moments above the shining white surface, and then is not seen again. It is of a white or faintly bluish color; and he who touches it and inhales its heavenly odor is immediately healed of every earthly disease. But there is one singular thing about it – no one can see it unless he be pure and innocent and good; to all others the heavenly flower is invisible.”

“Oh, then I shall never find it, Marthie!” cried Thorwald, in great suspense. “For I have often been very naughty.”

“I am very sorry to hear that,” said Marthie, and shook her head.

“And do you think it is of any use for me, then, to try to find the flower?” exclaimed the boy, wildly. “O Marthie, help me! Help me!”

“Well, I think I should try,” said Marthie, calmly. “I don’t believe you can have been such a dreadfully naughty boy; and you probably were very sorry whenever you happened to do something wrong.”

“Yes, yes, always, and I always begged papa’s and mamma’s pardon.”

“Then, listen to me! I will show you the Star of Bethlehem in the sky – the same one that led the shepherds and the kings of the East to the manger where Christ lay. Follow that straight on, through the forest, across the frozen river, wherever it may lead you, until you find the heavenly flower. And when you have found it, hasten home to your mother, and put it up to her lips so that she may inhale its breath; then she will be healed, and will bless her little boy, who shunned no sacrifice for her sake.”

“But I didn’t tell you, Marthie, that I made Grim Hering-Luck tattoo a ship on my right arm, although papa had told me that I mustn’t do it. Do you still think I shall find the heavenly flower?”

“I shouldn’t wonder if you did, child,” responded Marthie, with a reassuring nod of her head. “It is high time for you to start, now, and you mustn’t loiter by the way.”

“No, no; you need not tell me that!” cried the boy, seizing his cap eagerly, and slipping out through the lower panel of the door. He jumped into the bands of his skees, and cast his glance up to the vast nocturnal sky, which glittered with myriads of twinkling stars. Which of all these was the Star of Bethlehem? He was just about to rush back into the cottage, when he felt a hand upon his shoulder, and saw Wise Marthie’s kindly but withered face close to his.

“Look toward the east, child,” she said, almost solemnly.

“I don’t know where the east is, Marthie,” said Thorwald, dolefully. “I always get mixed up about the points of the compass. If they would only fix four big poles, one in each corner of the earth, that everybody could see, then I should always know where to turn.”

“There is the east,” said Marthie, pointing with a long, crooked finger toward the distant mountain-tops, which, with their hoods of ice, flashed and glistened in the moonlight. “Do you see that bright, silvery star which is just rising between those two snowy peaks?”

“Yes, yes, Marthie. I see it! I see it!”

“That is the Star of Bethlehem. You will know it by its white, radiant light. Follow that, and its rays will lead you to the flower which can conquer Death, as it led the shepherds and the kings of old to Him over whom Death had no power.”

“Thank you, Marthie. Thank you!”

The second “thank you” hardly reached the ears of the old woman, for the boy had shot like an arrow down over the steep bank, and was now half-way out upon the ice. The snow surged and danced in eddies behind him, and the cold stung his face like sharp, tiny needles. But he hardly minded it, for he saw the star of Bethlehem beaming large and radiant upon the blue horizon, and he thought of his dear mother, whom he was to rescue from the hands of Death. But the flower – the flower – where was that? He searched carefully all about him in the snow, but he saw no trace of it. “I wonder,” he thought, “if it can blossom in the snow? I should rather think that Christ allows the angels to fling down a few of them every year on his birthday, to help those that are sick and suffering; they say he is very kind and good, and I shouldn’t wonder if he sees me now, and will tell the angels to throw down the precious flower right in my path.”

II

The world was cold and white round about him. The tall pines stood wrapped in cloaks of snow, which looked like great white ulsters, and they were buttoned straight up to the chin – only a green finger-tip and a few tufts of dark-green hair showed faintly, at the end of the sleeves and above the collar. The alders and the birches, who had no such comfortable coats to keep out the cold, stood naked in the keen light of the stars and the aurora, and they shivered to the very marrow. To Thorwald it seemed as if they were stretching their bare, lean hands against the heavens, praying for warmer weather. A family of cedar-birds, who had lovely red caps on their heads and gray uniforms of the most fashionable tint, had snugged close together on a sheltered pine-branch, and they were carrying on a subdued twittering conversation just as Thorwald passed the river-bank, pushing himself rapidly over the snow by means of his skee-staff. But it was strictly a family matter they were discussing, which it would be indiscreet in me to divulge. They did, however, shake down a handful of loose snow on Thorwald’s head, just to let him know that he was very impolite to take so little notice of them. They did not know, of course, that his mother was ill; otherwise, I am sure, they would have forgiven him.

Hush! What was that? Thorwald thought he heard distant voices behind him in the snow. He looked all about him, but saw nothing. Then, following the guidance of the star, he still pressed onward. He quitted the river-bed and traversed a wide sloping meadow; he had to take a zigzag course, like a ship that is tacking, because the slope was too steep to ascend in a straight line. He was beginning to feel tired. The muscles in his legs ached, and he often shifted the staff from hand to hand, in order to rest the one or the other of his arms. He gazed now fixedly upon the snow, taking only an occasional glance at the sky, to see that he was going in the right direction; the strange hum of voices in the air yet haunted his ears, and he sometimes imagined he heard words moving to a wonderful melody. Was it the angels that were singing, inspiring him with courage for his quest? He dared hardly believe it, and yet his heart beat joyously at the thought. Ah! what is that which glitters so strangely in the snow? A starry gleam, a twinkling, like a spark gathering its light into a little glittering point, just as it is about to be quenched. Thorwald leaps from his skees and plunges his hand into the snow. The frozen crust cuts his wrist cruelly; and he feels that he is bleeding. With a wrench he pulls his hand up; his heart throbs in his throat; he gazes with wild expectation, but sees – nothing. His wrist is bleeding, and his hand is full of blood. Poor Thorwald could hardly trust his eyes. He certainly had seen something glittering on the snow. He felt a great lump in his throat, and it would have been a great relief to him, at that moment, to sit down and give vent to the tears that were crowding to his eyelids. But just then a clear, sweet strain of music broke through the air, and Thorwald heard distinctly these words, sung by voices of children:

“Lead, O Star of Bethlehem,
Me through death and danger,
Unto Christ, who on this night
Lay cradled in a manger.”

Thorwald gathered all his strength and again leaped into his skees; he was now on the border of a dense pine-forest, and as he looked into it, he could not help shuddering. It was so dark under the thick, snow-burdened branches, and the moon only broke through here and there, and scattered patches of light over the tree-tops and on the white carpet of the snow. Yet, perhaps it was within this very wood that the heavenly blossom had fallen. He must not lose heart now, when he was perhaps so near his goal. Thrusting his staff vigorously into the snow-crust, he pushed himself forward and glided in between the tall, silent trunks; at the same moment the air again quivered lightly, as with the breath of invisible beings, and he heard words which, as far as he could afterward recollect them, sounded as follows:

“Make my soul as white and pure
As the heavenly blossom —
As the flower of grace and truth
That blooms upon Thy bosom.”

Thorwald hardly felt the touch of the snow beneath his feet; he seemed rather to be soaring through the air, and the trunks of the huge dark trees marched in close columns, like an army in rapid retreat, before his enraptured vision. Christ did see him! Christ would send him the heavenly flower! All over the snow sparkling stars were scattered, and they gleamed and twinkled and beckoned to him, but whenever he stretched out his hand for them they suddenly vanished. The trees began to assume strange, wild shapes, and to resemble old men and women, with long beards and large hooked noses. They nodded knowingly to one another, and raised up their gnarled toes from the ground in which they were rooted, and tried to trip up the little boy who had dared to interrupt their solemn conversation. One old fir shook the snow from her shoulders, and stretched out a long, strangely twisted arm, and was on the point of seizing Thorwald by the hair, when fortunately he saw the coming danger, and darted away down the hill-side at quickened speed. A long, bright streak of light suddenly illuminated the eastern sky, something fell through the air, and left a golden trail of fire behind it; surely it was the heavenly flower that was thrown down by an angel in response to his prayer! Forward and ever forward – over roots and stumps and stones – stumbling, rising again, sinking from weariness and exhaustion, kneeling to pray on the frozen snow, crawling painfully back and tottering into the skee-bands; but only forward, ever forward! The earth rolls with a surging motion under his feet, the old trees join their rugged hands and dance, in wild, senile glee, around him, lifting their twisted limbs, and sometimes, with their talons, trying to sweep the stars from the sky. Thorwald struggled with all his force to break through the ring they had made around him. He saw plainly the flower, beaming with a pale radiance upon the snow, and he strove with all his might to reach it, but something held him back, and though he was once or twice within an inch of it, he could never quite grasp it with his fingers. Then, all of a sudden, the strange song again vibrated through the air, and he saw a huge star glittering among the underbrush; a flock of children clad in white robes were dancing about it, and they were singing Christmas carols in praise of the new-born Saviour. As they approached nearer and nearer, the hope revived in Thorwald’s heart. Ah, there the flower of healing was, lying close at his feet. He made a desperate leap and clutched it in his grasp – then saw and felt no more.

III