A Hardy Norseman. Lyall Edna

all!” said Cecil, as they drew near to the crowded landing-quay.

      “I think we shall fit in, Cis,” he said, smiling. “Thank Heaven, you don’t take your pleasure after the manner of that fellow. If I were his traveling companion I should throttle him in a week.”

      “Or suggest a muzzle,” said Cecil, laughing; “that would save both his neck and your feelings.”

      “Let me have your key,” he said, as they approached the wooden pier; “the custom-house people will be coming on board, and I will try to get our things looked over quickly. Wait here and then I shall not miss you.”

      He hastened away and Cecil scanned with curious eyes the faces of the little crowd gathered on the landing-quay, till her attention was arrested by a young Norwegian in a light-gray suit who stood laughing and talking to an acquaintance on the wooden wharf. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with something unusually erect and energetic in his bearing; his features were of the pure Greek type not unfrequently to be met with in Norway; while his northern birth was attested by a fair skin and light hair and mustache, as well as by a pair of honest, well-opened blue eyes which looked out on the world with a boyish content and happiness.

      “I believe that is Frithiof Falck,” thought Cecil. And the next moment her idea was confirmed, for as the connecting gangway was raised from the quay, one of the steamer officials greeted him by name, and the young Norwegian, replying in very good English, stepped on board and began looking about as if in search of some one. Involuntarily Cecil’s eyes followed him; she had a strange feeling that in some way she knew him, knew him far better than the people he had come to meet. He, too, seemed affected in the same way, for he came straight up to her, and, raising his hat and bowing, said, with frank courtesy:

      “Pardon me, but am I speaking to Miss Morgan?”

      “I think the Miss Morgans are at the other side of the gangway; I saw them a minute ago,” she said, coloring a little.

      “A thousand pardons for my mistake,” said Frithiof Falck. “I came to meet this English family, you understand, but I have never seen them.”

      “There is Miss Morgan,” exclaimed Cecil; “that lady in a blue ulster; and there is her uncle just joining her.”

      “Many thanks for your kind help,” said Frithiof, and with a second bow, and a smile from his frank eyes, he passed on and approached Mr. Morgan.

      “Welcome to Norway, sir,” he exclaimed, greeting the traveler with the easy, courteous manner peculiar to Norwegians. “I hope you have made a good voyage.”

      “Oh, how do you do, Mr. Falck?” said the Englishman, scanning him from head to foot as he shook hands, and speaking very loud, as if the foreigner were deaf. “Very good of you to meet us, I’m sure. My niece, Miss Blanche Morgan.”

      Frithiof bowed, and his heart began to beat fast as a pair of most lovely dark-gray eyes gave him such a glance as he had never before received.

      “My sister is much looking forward to the pleasure of making your acquaintance,” he said.

      “Ah!” exclaimed Blanche, “how beautifully you speak English! And how you will laugh at me when I tell you that I have been learning Norwegian for fear there should be dead silence between us.”

      “Indeed, there is nothing which pleases us so much as that you should learn our tongue,” he said, smiling. “My English is just now in its zenith, for I passed the winter with an English clergyman at Hanover for the sake of improving it.”

      “But why not have come to England?” said Blanche.

      “Well, I had before that been with a German family at Hanover to perfect myself in German, and I liked the place well, and this Englishman was very pleasant, so I thought if I stayed there it would be ‘to kill two flies with one dash,’ as we say in Norway. When I come to England that will be for a holiday, for nothing at all but pleasure.”

      “Let me introduce my nephew,” said Mr. Morgan, as Cyril strolled up. “And this is my daughter. How now, Florence, have you found your boxes?”

      “Allow me,” said Frithiof; “if you will tell me what to look for I will see that the hotel porter takes it all.”

      There was a general adjournment to the region of pushing and confusion and luggage, and before long Frithiof had taken the travelers to his father’s carriage, and they were driving through the long, picturesque Strand-gaden. Very few vehicles passed through this main street, but throngs of pedestrians walked leisurely along or stood in groups talking and laughing, the women chiefly wearing full skirts of dark-blue serge, short jackets to match, and little round blue serge hoods surmounting their clean white caps; the men also in dark-blue with broad felt hats.

      To English visitors there is an indescribable charm in the primitive simplicity, the easy informality of the place: and Frithiof was well content with the delighted exclamations of the new-comers.

      “What charming ponies!” cried Blanche. “Look how oddly their manes are cut—short manes and long tails! How funny! we do just the opposite. And they all seem cream colored.”

      “This side, Blanche, quick! A lot of peasants in sabots! and oh! just look at those lovely red gables!”

      “How nice the people look, too, so different to people in an English street. What makes you all so happy over here?”

      “Why, what should make us unhappy?” said Frithiof. “We love our country and our town, we are the freest people in the world, and life is a great pleasure in itself, don’t you think? But away in the mountains our people are much more grave. Life is too lonely there. Here in Bergen it is perfection.”

      Cyril Morgan regarded the speaker with a pitying eye, and perhaps would have enlightened his absurd ignorance and discoursed of Pall Mall and Piccadilly, had not they just then arrived at Holdt’s Hotel. Frithiof merely waited to see that they approved of their rooms, gave them the necessary information as to bankers and lionizing, received Mr. Morgan’s assurance that the whole party would dine at Herr Falck’s the next day, and then, having previously dismissed the carriage, set out at a brisker pace than usual on his walk home.

      Blanche Morgan’s surprise at the happy-looking people somehow amused him. Was it then an out-of-the-way thing for people to enjoy life? For his own part mere existence satisfied him. But then he was as yet quite unacquainted with trouble. The death of his mother when he was only eleven years old had been at the time a great grief, but it had in no way clouded his after-life, he had been scarcely old enough to realize the greatness of his loss. Its effect had been to make him cling more closely to those who were left to him—to his father, to his twin-sister Sigrid, and to the little baby Swanhild (Svarnheel), whose birth had cost so much. The home life was an extremely happy one to look back on, and now that his year of absence was over and his education finished it seemed to him that all was exactly as he would have it. Faintly in the distance he looked forward to further success and happiness; being a fervent patriot he hoped some day to be a king’s minister—the summit of a Norwegian’s ambition; and being human he had visions of an ideal wife and an ideal home of his own. But the political career could very well wait, and the wife too for the matter of that. And yet, as he walked rapidly along Kong Oscars Gade, through the Stadsport, and past the picturesque cemeteries which lie on either side of the road, he saw nothing at all but a vision of the beautiful dark gray eyes which had glanced up at him so often that afternoon, and in his mind there echoed the words of one of Bjornson’s poems:

      “To-day is just a day to my mind,

      All sunny before and sunny behind,

      Over the heather.”

      But the ending of the poem he had quite forgotten.

CHAPTER II.

       Table of Contents

      Herr Falck lived in one of the pretty, unpretentious houses