The Modern Vikings

He looked expectantly about the large room, but no one volunteered to act as interpreter of anything so comprehensive as “foreign languages.”

“The gintleman over there,” the policeman remarked, pointing out a well-dressed man in the audience, “looks as if he understood furrin languages.”

The gentleman in question disclaimed all knowledge of the languages referred to, and the Court visited him with a look of serious displeasure. It was very annoying, and there seemed positively no way of disposing of the case, except to recommit the prisoners until an interpreter could be found. The judge was about to resort to that expedient, when a new prisoner was led into the court, and the boys gave a simultaneous exclamation of surprise at beholding Jens Skoug, the emigration agent. Mr. Skoug had evidently come into collision with a policeman’s club, or some other unyielding substance, for his left eye was much blackened, and he had a great bump on his forehead. He had been arrested the previous night for disturbing the peace.

“That man, it appears, is acquainted with these Dutch boys,” the Court remarked, nodding to the policeman who had charge of Mr. Skoug; “bring him up.”

“Do you understand foreign languages?” the justice went on, addressing the emigration agent in his severest judicial tones.

“Yes, lots of them,” replied Jens, drowsily.

“Do you know these boys?”

Jens contemplated the boys with a puzzled frown; then he shook his head boozily and replied:

“No, yer Honor, I never saw them in all my life. They are not my style, yer Honor; don’t look as if they had moved in the best society.”

“Well, never mind that,” interrupted the Court; “but can’t you find out anything about them? why they did not license their bear? Who provides for them? Where do they live?”

Jens, in turning his back to the Court, gave Alf and Karen and the bear a fierce glance, as if to say that he would make them smart, if they dared in any way to compromise him. Then, to their surprise, he stooped down and talked with them earnestly for several minutes.

“Your Honor,” he resumed, rising and facing the judge; “these boys are, as you supposed, Dutch. They are utterly destitute, and have no money wherewith to buy a license for their bear. In other words, they are vagrants; and if I may be permitted to make a suggestion, I think the Reform School or the workhouse would be the right place for them. They are a hardened lot, I am afraid, judging by their talk – ”

“You may spare your suggestions,” the judge interrupted curtly; “though they happen to fit in exactly with what I had determined to do with them. Their bear will have to be killed or sold, and they are hereby recommitted, and will be sent to the Island for thirty days.”

Mr. Skoug again stooped down and explained to the two culprits; but he had no sooner mentioned the word “kill” than Alf gave a shout, half of anger, half of dread, pulled his Norse tolle-knife[12 - All Norse peasant lads wear a sheathed knife at the side, called a “tolle-knife.”] from its sheath, and with one swift motion slit the bear’s skin from the neck downward. The policeman rushed forward, the audience jumped up on the benches, the judge himself started at the flash of the knife, and was on the point of leaping over his desk. What was his amazement when, instead of a bear, he saw a little shivering boy in very scanty attire! A roar of laughter and a deafening salvo of applause burst forth from all parts of the room, and it was in vain that the judge hammered with all his might on his desk, and in thunderous tones demanded order. The Irish policeman, to whose taste for practical jokes the whole scene was due, laughed as if he were going to split his sides. He would not have ventured to confess that he had planned some such dramatic incident, although, as he admitted to himself, it had turned out even more startling than he had dared to hope.

When order was finally restored, the Court commanded that the prisoners be removed; but Truls, who now comprehended the situation, and was determined not to submit to further imposition, marched boldly up to the judge, and put Mr. Tenney’s card before him on the desk.

“This gentleman,” he said, confidently, “made me promise to send for him if I should ever need a friend. Now I need him, and if you would kindly send someone to fetch him, I should be much obliged.”

The judge understood the purport of this speech, even though the words were unintelligible to him. Mr. Tenney’s name was well known to him, as that of a citizen of great wealth and influence, and his prisoners immediately rose in his estimation when he heard that they enjoyed the protection of so prominent a man. He therefore beckoned to a policeman, wrote a hasty note, and told him to have it instantly despatched. The boys and their sister, in the meanwhile, were permitted to sit down in the court-room, awaiting Mr. Tenney’s arrival. Mr. Skoug, who betrayed a great anxiety to be off, pleading a variety of business engagements, was then examined and fined ten dollars. He had just managed to disappear through a side-room when Mr. Tenney’s tall and portly figure was seen entering. He gave the boys a friendly nod, as he walked rapidly up to the judge, with whom he conversed amicably for several minutes. There was something brisk, energetic, and business-like in all his movements. He laughed very heartily when the recent incident with the bear was related to him, and the judge joined in the laugh, and asserted that it was the most amusing thing that ever had occurred in all his long experience on the bench. Then Mr. Tenney apologized for having taken up so much of the Court’s valuable time, and the Court expressed itself delighted to have made Mr. Tenney’s acquaintance and to have been in any way able to serve him; whereupon Mr. Tenney had the three children conveyed to his carriage, and they drove away through the glorious May sunshine, up one street and down another, until they reached a large and stately house on Madison Avenue. Here they stepped out of the carriage, and a liveried servant flung the doors open before them, as they entered the house.

Such magnificence the boys had never beheld before: long, wonderful mirrors which looked like strips of lake standing on end, carpets which felt soft under the feet like fine moss, and gilt and carved furniture, which seemed to have stepped right out of a fairy story. It was certainly very extraordinary; but still more extraordinary was the kindness and consideration with which they were treated by Mr. Tenney and his wife. Two pretty rooms were assigned to them on the fourth floor of the house; little Karen was dressed in beautiful clothes, and the boys themselves got each a new suit, the like of which they had never had on their backs before. They felt like young princes, and if they could only have talked with the kind people who took so much trouble on their account, they would have expressed to them their gratitude, and perhaps, too, solicited their aid in ascertaining the whereabouts of their lost father.

Mr. Tenney, however, guessed their thoughts, and did not need to be told that their minds were torn with anxiety. He first procured a Norwegian interpreter from one of the steamship companies, and made the boys describe to him accurately the time and circumstances of Fiddle-John’s disappearance. He wrote letters to the emigration commissioners, inserted advertisements in the newspapers, and set the whole official machinery in motion to get a clew by which to unravel the mystery.

Investigations were set on foot, detectives were employed, the Castle Garden officials were questioned and cross-examined, but there was no one who had the slightest recollection of having seen Fiddle-John. Thus three days passed. Mr. Tenney’s determination to accomplish his purpose increased, the greater the obstacles were that he encountered. There was a streak of obstinacy in his temperament, and there seemed to be an impression abroad that Mr. Tenney was not to be trifled with, when once he was aroused, and that may have been the reason why Fiddle-John grew in the course of a week to be a kind of public character, and people asked each other jocosely when they met in street cars or in hotel vestibules:

“How do you do? Seen Fiddle-John?”

Someone, it appears, had seen Fiddle-John, and that was the purser of the steamboat Ruckert, whose encounter with the lamented Garibaldi was yet fresh in the boys’ memories. He came late one evening to Mr. Tenney’s residence, and explained to him that a man called Fiddle-John had just been put aboard the ship, as a lunatic, to be taken back to Norway free of charge. The ship was to sail the next day at noon; and if Mr. Tenney would hold himself responsible for the consequences, the purser said he would undertake to restore Fiddle-John to his family within – well, within five minutes.

Mr. Tenney was quite ready to assume all the responsibility in the matter, and accordingly the purser raised the window, and beckoned to a carriage which had stopped on the other side of the street. The carriage drove up before the door, and out stepped Fiddle-John. But oh, how miserable he looked! The light from the gas-lamp fell upon his pale face, his disordered hair, and his tall, stooping figure. He was led carefully up the steps, and the children flew into his arms, hugging him, kissing him, and weeping over him. He sat down on a low stool, and stared about him in a bewildered fashion. But gradually, as his eyes rested upon the dear familiar faces, his expression softened, the wild look of fright departed from his face, and the tears began slowly to course down his cheeks.

“O, children!” he said in a hoarse, broken voice; “I thought I should never see you again!”

He covered his face with his hands, and wept long and silently.

“They wanted to make a madman of me,” he sobbed; “and they almost succeeded. Whatever I did or said – it made no difference – it only proved that I was mad. I came to believe it, children, and the thought was terrible to me; if I had staid another day, I should never have recovered my reason.”

VI

Five years have passed since Fiddle-John and his sons were rescued from misery by Mr. Tenney. They now live in the porter’s lodge of Mr. Tenney’s beautiful Berkshire country-seat; and Fiddle-John, with all his eccentricities, makes a very acceptable porter. The little stone cottage at the gate of the larger villa looks very picturesque with the green vines trailing over it, and it is very comfortably and prettily furnished. Little Karen is now a matronly little body, with a strict sense of order, and many housewifely accomplishments. She goes to the public school in the morning, but studies at home in the afternoon, and keeps her father company. The boys are both big fellows now, and they are as good Americans as any to the manner born. Truls brags of American enterprise, and the blessings of democratic institutions, as if every drop of his Norse blood had become naturalized. He is an engineer, and earns good wages, and is full of hopefulness for the future. It need scarcely be said that his sister adores him, and regards him as one of the most remarkable men of the century.

Alf, who has inherited his father’s handsome face, and incapacity for practical concerns, is at present preparing to enter college. Mr. Tenney is much interested in him, as a lad of unusual ability and a singular sweetness of character; and it is owing to his generosity that Alf has been able to follow the career for which he is by nature and inclination adapted. He has his father’s beautiful voice, too, and makes a sensation in the church choir every Sunday when he sustains the lovely tenor solo in the anthems “As Pants the Hart,” and “I Know that My Redeemer Liveth.”

He is a rather serious fellow, with thoughtful eyes, and a frank and open countenance. Some think he would have a fine career as a clergyman, but it is difficult to tell whether his inclination, in later years, will turn in that direction. His father, however, does all in his power to encourage this ambition, and it is not unlikely that his hopes may some day be fulfilled. In fact, it is Fiddle-John’s favorite occupation to hope and dream about the future of his sons.

During the long summer afternoons he sits in the shadow of the vines, outside of his cottage, while his daughter reads aloud to him from the old Norse ballad books which he yet loves so dearly. And it happens very frequently, then, that the young ladies and gentlemen who are visiting at the neighboring villas come, in a company, and beg him to sing to them. They throw themselves down in easy attitudes upon the soft, close-trimmed lawn; and their bright garments, their crimson sunshades, and their fresh, youthful faces make a fine picture against the green background of elms and chestnut trees.

To the gentle and guileless minstrel it is a great pleasure to see these gay and happy creatures; and when the young girls hang upon his arms and urge him to sing, his eyes beam with delight.

“Now, do sing, Fiddle-John,” they coaxingly say. “You know we have walked miles and miles to hear your voice. And here is a young lady from New York, who never heard a Norse song in all her life, and is disappointed, because you look so nice and gentle, and not wild and savage as a son of the Vikings should.”

Fiddle-John likes this kind of banter very well; and when, finally, he yields to their coaxing and lifts up his clear, strong voice, singing the sad, wild ballads of his native land, there falls a hush upon the noisy company, as if they were in the presence of a renowned artist. These are Fiddle-John’s happiest moments. And it was just on such an occasion when, on a beautiful afternoon in July, he had been entertaining the young people with his songs, that a swarthy-looking Savoyard walked up before his door, and began to whip up a bear which danced to a tune from “Il Trovatore,” played upon a wheezy hand-organ.

“Stop, you sacrilegious brute!” said one of the young men, addressing, not the bear, but his master; “we have a better kind of music here than your asthmatic organ can produce.”

The Savoyard, being apparently well accustomed to this manner of address, swung his organ across his back and was about to take his departure, when Karen, prompted by some idle impulse, stepped up to the bear and patted it. Then a sudden change came over the young man’s countenance. He stared for a moment fixedly at the little girl.

“Take care, Carina mia,” he said, with a smile; “that bear is a real one!”

“Annibale!” she cried in surprise; and, to be sure, it was Annibale!

He had grown five years older, but in other respects he had changed but little. He knew but very little more English than he had done on the day of his arrival, and his ambition still did not extend beyond hand-organs and bears. He reaped a plentiful harvest of coins that night; but that was owing to little Karen, and not to the doleful hand-organ. She ran into the cottage and spread out upon the lawn a rug, made out of a small bear-skin. “Do you know that, Annibale?” she cried.

“Garibaldi, my poor Garibaldi!” exclaimed the Savoyard, while the tears glittered in his eyes; and he stooped down and caressed the furry head.

Now the curiosity of the young ladies was excited, and the whole company clamored for the story of Annibale and the bear-skin. They all seated themselves in a ring about Fiddle-John, and he told the story, as I have told it to you. For I had the good luck to be one of the listeners.

notes

1

Skees are a kind of snowshoe, four to six feet long, bent upward in front, with a band to attach it to the foot in the middle.

2

Lord Dufferin tells, in his Letters from High Latitudes, how the Icelandic pilots conversed with him in Latin, and other travellers have many similar tales to relate.

3

Professor Willard Fiske, formerly of Cornell University, was instrumental in collecting in the United States a library of several thousand volumes, which he presented to the Icelanders on the one thousandth birthday of their nation.

4

The auk cannot fly well, but uses its wings for swimming and diving.