Ticket No. 9672 - Jules Verne (i can read book club .txt) 📗

a lad there⁠—one of the young rascals known as skydskarls, that make a living by clinging to the back of karjolen, and taking the horse back when the journey is ended.

“What do you want here at this hour?” asked Hulda.

“First of all to bid you good evening,” replied the boy, mischievously.

“Is that all?”

“No; that isn’t all; but a boy oughtn’t to forget his manners, ought he?”

“You are right. But who sent you?”

“Your brother Joel.”

“And what for?” asked Dame Hansen, advancing to the door with the slow and measured tread that is a characteristic of the inhabitants of Norway. There is quicksilver in the veins of their soil, but little or none in the veins of their bodies.

The reply had evidently caused the mother some anxiety, however, for she added hastily:

“Has anything happened to my son?”

“No, but the Christiania postman gave him a letter, and⁠—”

“A letter from Drammen?” repeated Dame Hansen, in a lower tone.

“I don’t know about that,” replied the youth. “All I do know is, that Joel can’t get home before tomorrow, and he sent me here to deliver the letter.”

“It is important then?”

“I should judge so.”

“Hand it here,” said Dame Hansen, in a tone that betrayed keen anxiety.

“Here it is, clean and not wrinkled in the least. But the letter is not for you.”

Dame Hansen seemed to breathe more freely.

“Then who is it for?” she asked.

“For your daughter.”

“For me!” cried Hulda. “It is a letter from Ole! I am sure it is⁠—a letter that came by way of Christiania. My brother did not want me to be kept waiting.”

Hulda had snatched the letter from the boy’s hand, and now taking it to the table upon which her mother had deposited the candle, she examined the address.

“Yes, it is from him. It is certainly from him! Heaven grant that he writes to announce the speedy return of the Viking!”

“Won’t you come in?” said Dame Hansen, turning to the boy.

“Only for a minute. I must get back home tonight, for I am to go with a karjol tomorrow morning.”

“Very well. Tell Joel, from me, that I expect to go to Moel tomorrow, and that he must wait for me there.”

“Tomorrow evening?”

“No; tomorrow morning, and he must not leave Moel until he sees me. We will return to Dal together.”

“Very well, Dame Hansen.”

“Won’t you take a drop of brandevin?”

“With pleasure.”

The boy approached the table, and Dame Hansen handed him a glass of the beverage which is such a powerful protection against the evening fogs. It is needless to say that he drained the glass, then,

“God-aften!” he said.

“God-aften, my son!”

This is the Norwegian good night. It was simply spoken, without even an inclination of the head, and the lad instantly departed, without seeming to mind in the least the long walk that he had before him. The sound of his footsteps soon died away beneath the trees that border the swiftly flowing river.

Hulda still stood gazing at Ole’s letter. Think of it! This frail envelope must have crossed the broad ocean to reach her, the broad ocean in which the rivers of western Norway lose themselves. She examined the different postmarks. Though mailed on the 15th of March, the missive had not reached Dal until the 15th of April. Why! a month had already elapsed since the letter was written! How many things might have happened in a month on the shores of Newfoundland! Was it not still winter, the dangerous season of equinoxes? Are not these fishing banks the most dangerous in the world, swept by terrible gales from the North Pole? A perilous and arduous vocation was this business of fishing which Ole followed! And if he followed it was it not that she, his betrothed, whom he was to marry on his return, might reap the benefits?

Poor Ole! What did he say in this letter? Doubtless that he loved Hulda as faithfully and truly as Hulda loved him, that they were united in thought, in spite of the distance that separated them, and that he longed for the day of his return to Dal.

Yes, he said all this, Hulda was sure of it. But perhaps he might add that the day of his return was near at hand⁠—that the fishing cruise which had enticed the inhabitants of Bergen so far from their native land, was nearly at an end. Perhaps Ole would tell her that the Viking had finished taking aboard her cargo, that she was about to sail, and that the last days of April would not pass without a blissful meeting in the pleasant home at Vesfjorddal. Perhaps, too, he would assure her, at last, that she might safely appoint the day for the pastor to come to Moel to unite them in the little chapel whose steeple rose from a small grove not a hundred yards from Dame Hansen’s inn.

To learn all this, it might only be necessary to break the seal, draw out Ole’s letter, and read it, through the tears of joy or sorrow that its contents would be sure to bring to Hulda’s eyes, and doubtless more than one impatient girl of the south, or even of Denmark or Holland, would already have known all! But Hulda was in a sort of a dream, and dreams terminate only when God chooses to end them, and how often one regrets them, so bitter is the reality.

“Is it really a letter from Ole that your brother has sent you, my daughter?” inquired Dame Hansen.

“Yes; I recognize the handwriting.”

“Well, are you going to wait until tomorrow to read it?”

Hulda took one more look at the envelope, then, after slowly breaking the seal, she drew out the carefully written letter, which read as follows:

“Saint-Pierre-Miquelon, March 17th, 1862

“My Dearest Hulda⁠—You will hear, with pleasure, that our fishing venture has prospered, and that it will be concluded in a few days. Yes; we are nearing the end of the season, and