LITMIR.BIZ

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Magnus and his company had reached the sheep-fold, and there the farmers of the district were gathered to greet them, with snuff and health-drinking as before, but above the joy of that meeting was the delight of seeing a long cavalcade of the townspeople, who had come to make holiday, and were riding rapidly up the valley.

      Half an hour later Magnus saw Oscar and Thora on the outside of the sheep-fold, but at that moment he was knee-deep in a palpitating and bleating sea of sheep, and he could only wave his hand and try to shout his salutations. He found he could not shout, for something had gripped him by the throat; but Oscar called to him, and he thought, "What a man he is now, and what a grown-up voice he has got!"

      During the next three hours Magnus was kept busy, separating the sheep, and settling deputes among the farmers; but as he worked he saw the townspeople pitch their tents and light fires to boil their kettles. "Thora is there," he thought, and he was content.

      By two o'clock in the afternoon the last of the sheep had been separated; the shepherds were driving away their flocks in different directions; the bleating, barking, and shouting were dying off in the distance, and then Magnus--soiled, sunburnt and unshaven--turned his face toward the tents.

      The townspeople had finished eating; their fires were smouldering out in the sunshine, and they were dancing to a guitar on a level piece of green, when Magnus went up to them and asked for Oscar, but looked for Thora. Somebody told him they had gone--gone for a walk somewhere--and Magnus was glad, because they could meet where they would be more alone.

      He shaded his eyes and looked down the valley, and thinking he saw two figures at the foot of the hills, he leapt on the back of a pony that was grazing near, and rode off in that direction. He was humming a tune, for he was very happy. After some minutes he was sure he saw Oscar and Thora, and began to call to them.

      "Helloa!" he cried, but there came no answer.

      "Helloa!" he cried again, but still there was no reply, and all was silent now save for the tinkling of the guitar behind him.

      "Helloa! Helloa! Helloa!" but nothing came back to him but his own voice as it echoed in the hills.

      Oscar and Thora were sitting on the sunny side of a rock which rose out of the foot of the mountain like a mound of black soil, but was really the mouth of an extinct volcano. Magnus thought he knew what they were doing--they were dropping stones down the crater and listening for the sound of their descent. That was why they had not heard him, although he had called so loud. Very well, he knew what he would do, he would play a practical joke upon them; he would take them by surprise; he would creep up on the opposite side of the rock and suddenly appear before them as if he had risen out of the pit.

      With this intention Magnus made a circuit of the crater, and drew up on the shady side of it. He was then very close to the two who were sitting above, but still they did not hear him, so slipping from the saddle and throwing the reins over the pony's head he stole up softly and began to climb the rock as quietly as he could in his big boots over the rolling stones. The greater difficulty was to keep himself from laughing aloud at the thought of what their faces would be like when he stood up between them like a ghost that had sprung out of the earth.

      Scrambling on hands and knees Magnus had climbed half way up the rock when he heard Oscar speaking, and he stopped to listen.

      "But why did you consent?" said Oscar's voice.

      Thora did not answer, and after a moment the voice of Oscar said again, "Why did you, Thora?"

      There was a low murmur of indistinguishable words, and then the voice of Oscar said, "Because your father wished it? But surely you have to live your own life, Thora. However obedient a daughter should be to her father, she is a separate being, and the time comes when she has to fly with her own wings, as we say. Then, why did you consent?"

      Magnus felt his fingers tighten their hold on the rock he was clinging to, and he leaned forward to catch Thora's reply. But there was only the same low murmur of indistinguishable words, and then Oscar's voice once more,

      "Magnus? No doubt! I wouldn't say a word against Magnus--God forbid!--but love--mutual love--is the only basis of a true marriage, and if you do not love Magnus--not really and truly, as you say--why did you consent to marry him?"

      Magnus felt the ground to be reeling under his knees. If he had not been clinging to the rock he must have rolled to the foot of it. All his soul seemed to listen, but he could hear nothing except the sound of Thora's voice breaking with sobs.

      Then came Oscar's voice again, but lower and tenderer than before, "How hateful of me to make you cry, Thora! I didn't intend to do that, dear. But have you never asked yourself what will happen if you marry Magnus, and then find out when it is too late that you like somebody else?"

      At that there came another note into Thora's weeping, a note of joy as well as sorrow, and Magnus--though he did not know it--clambered higher up the rock.

      "What did you say, Thora? Tell me, dear, tell me--did you say you had found out already?"

      And then at last came Thora's voice in a burst of passionate tears, "You know I have, Oscar," and after that there was a startled cry.

      Thora had risen and was moving toward Oscar, who was already on his feet and holding out his arms to her, when behind him she saw Magnus with a terrible face--eyes staring, lips parted, and breath coming and going in gusts. Oscar turned to see what it was that Thora looked at and, seeing Magnus, his whole body seemed to shrink in an instant, and he felt like a little man.

      "Is it--you--really?" he faltered, and he smiled a sickly smile, but Magnus neither saw nor heard him.

      Magnus heard nothing, saw nothing, and knew nothing at that first moment except that he, a man of awful strength and passion, was standing at the mouth of a pit as deep as hell and as silent as the grave, with two who had been dearer to him than any others in the world, and they had deceived and betrayed him. But at the next moment he saw a look in Thora's face that made him remember Hans, the sailor, for it was the same look that he had seen there the instant after he had thrown the man on his back, and then a ghostly hand seemed to touch him on the shoulder and the fearful impulse passed.

      There was silence for some moments, in which nothing was heard but the quick breathing of the three, and then Magnus found his voice--a choking utterance--and he fell on Thora with loud reproaches.

      "What does this mean?" he said. "It is only six days since I parted from you, and now I find you like this! Speak! Can't you speak?"

      But Thora could only gasp and moan; and Oscar, who had struggled to recover himself, stepped out to defend her. "It's not Thora's fault, Magnus. It's mine, if it is anybody's, and if you have anything to say you must speak to me."

      "You!" cried Magnus, wheeling round on him. "What are you, I'd like to know? A man who betrays his own brother! Is that what you came home to do--to make mischief and strife and break up everything? In the name of God why didn't you stay where you came from?"

      "Magnus," said Oscar, trying to hold himself in, "you must not speak to me like that. You must not talk as if I had stolen Thora's affections away from you, because----"

      "Then what have you done? If you haven't done that, what have you done?"

      "Because Thora never loved you--never--though I am sorry to say it--very sorry----"

      "Damn your sorry!" said Magnus.

      "And damn your insolence!" cried Oscar. "And if you won't hear the truth in sorrow, then hear it in scorn--Thora's engagement to you is nothing but a miserable commercial bargain between her father and our father by which she has been bought and sold like a slave."

      The blow went home; Magnus felt the truth of it; he tried to speak, and at first he could not do so; at length he stammered:

      "I know nothing about that. I only know that I was to marry Thora, and that in two days' time we were to be betrothed."

      Then Thora said nervously, with quivering lips and voice, "It wasn't altogether my fault, Magnus--you know it was not. It was all done by other people, and I had

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