III To the Land of the Brave
Then came the day he was to go. They gathered up that money, yet lying on the shore, and put it in his scrip, and all was ready—he in his wolfskin—she in her stole; yet she trembled as with palsy in his arms.
“What? Hast thou changed?” he laughed.
“Ah, ah,” she sighed, “thou art my husband now! I am a wife!”
Tears would not flow she was so terrified. No sob rose in her throat. She only trembled in his arms.
“Ah, this is not the lady of my dreams,” he said. “Come! come! Out with thy shears. Give me a tress for talisman, as the ladies of our Vikings did, and send me forth. Let me not stay. Call me a coward that I go. Come! come!”
“I cannot bid thee go,” she breathed; “my heart will not. Yea, we are poor and hungry here, sometimes, but stay with us thy kindred, who love thee and will stand with thee when dark days come. There thou wilt be alone! A stranger in a land of strangers. Life is a hard thing here—yea—but stay and share it with us—make it not harder. Thou art brave—the bravest on the earth to me. That is why God hath left thee to care for us—of all those who are dead. Seest thou not His hand in this?”
“Yea.”
“Then must thou obey.”
“I see it not as thou. I see and hear God’s will in this longing for another land—in the coming of the travellers to tell me of it.”
Her face grew solemn.
“I did not think of that. How shallow is my thought! And selfish. I fear all selfish. Because I wish for thee to stay, my heart sees in each wish to go a sin against the God. And yet—and yet—it does not seem His will. Oh, husband, if it is, canst thou not make it plain to me who have little thoughts—thou with thy eagle thought?”
“Nay—nay,” and he caressed her fondly. “I have made thee sad. What? A sad bride? Even under the glacier? It shall not be!”
But yet, the while she nestled in his arms, she begged:
“Yet, love, speak to my soul and make all plain to me.”
“We will obey the God, my splendid one. I go now but to find a nest for thee and these when God Himself doth make this land impossible.”
“Beloved, if God doth make this land impossible, then is it His purpose that we shall cease with the land as we began. And that is just, as all God’s dealings are. Oh, it is ominous that thou a man, and I a woman, whom God made, should think to thwart His purposes in us or in this land! Thou canst not change the purposes of God, beloved.”
“Does not God mean that we shall use the powers He gives us?”
“Yea—where He points the way.”
“And who points the way to me? Who puts these things into my brain?”
This reasoning was better to her. And it all was new—so great a thought as that.
“I have not reasoned deep as that,” she said in awe. “Surely, thy thought is greater and more reverent—than mine—as, indeed, a husband’s should be greater than a wife’s,” she said in pretty pride of him. “I try, just now, to think the travellers did put the purpose in thee. Yet, somewhere, no matter how it came to thee, it had beginning in the mind of God. I know not,” she whispered. “If thou thinkest it the will of God—thou shalt go. To Him all oaths and promises against His will are vanity and sin.”
“Beloved, if I stay, it will be alone to tread the mill and build me and thee a house yonder with the dead. God does not desire that. That is our destiny—our only destiny. To be hungry—poor—naked—to starve—to waste—to be drowned in still waters—to sleep in decay yonder. If I go, the very world is mine and all it has. That is God’s will.”
“I am thy joy, Christof,” pleaded his young wife. “So thou hast often said. And I will give thee all my little life to make thee happy here. I think I can. Oh, we will be hungry—yea—and poor—but we will be together. There is no other life for me. Is there for thee? Together, Christof!”
“I cannot go without thy well-wishing,” he smiled and caressed her; “but my wife will give me that and send me forth. She will not make me wear a young life out here that might be great and honored there. She has it in her splendid head that it will be for long and far. It is a week to the great land. A week to find a nest. A week to come again. Canst thou not wait and ward three weeks for paradise? Could I fail, if that is in thy head, when it is for the helpless ones upon our hands and hearts and for—thee? Now, for thy talisman of success. I will preserve it from all harm and bring it back to thee. I swear it on this pretty hand. Thus did our ancestors go forth. Art thou less brave than they? Am I?”
There was a moment in which nothing was heard but the sullen beating of the waves. She was so sad that almost he was persuaded to renounce ambition for her love. But his eye caught the sun upon a distant sail.
“There!” cried he. “It shall be as swift as that!”
“Why, then, my husband, go. I think it is the good God prompts thee. Else thou couldst not go from us who need thee so. And, if ’tis He—why—He knows thy heart—and He will go with thee and keep thee, and bring thee back to us. Thou art our all. For that I pray. For that each night we all shall pray. So—Christof—go with God. And I, thy Christine—I will stay and keep thine oath for thee—here in our little land—I will not forsake one of the little ones—not one of the old or blind or maimed or simple ones. And I shall have joy in this—remember that! Great joy shall I have in keeping thy oath for thee—to the priest—thy ancestors—thy God—until thou comest back to keep it once again thyself. Farewell, O sweetest lover ever woman had, farewell until thou comest back to me again!”
She took the brazen shears which hung at her belt and, cutting an unruly lock, she put it in his hands while her white lips moved in benediction.
And so he went, looking last upon her at that turning of the road, and she, there, her last on him.