Macfarlane, who had preserved a discreet silence throughout the whole scene, here looked up.
"She's just a screech-owl o' mistaken piety," he said. "She minds me o' a glowerin' auld warlock of an aunt o' mine in Glasgie, wha sits in her chair a' day wi' ae finger on the Bible. She says she's gaun straight to heaven by special invitation o' the Lord, leavin' a' her blood relations howlin' vainly after her from their roastin' fires down below. Ma certes! she'll give ye a good rousin' curse if ye like! She's cursed me ever since I can remember her,—cursed me in and out from sunrise to sunset,—but I'm no the worse for't as yet,—an' it's dootful whether she's any the better."
"And yet Lovisa Elsland used to be as merry and lissom a lass as ever stepped," said Güldmar musingly. "I remember her well when both she and I were young. I was always on the sea at that time,—never happy unless the waves tossed me and my vessel from one shore to another. I suppose the restless spirit of my fathers was in me. I was never contented unless I saw some new coast every six months or so. Well! . . . Lovisa was always foremost among the girls of the village who watched me leave the Fjord,—and however long or short a time I might be absent, she was certain to be on the shore when my ship came sailing home again. Many a joke I have cracked with her and her companions—and she was a bonnie enough creature to look at then, I tell you,—though now she is like a battered figure-head on a wreck. Her marriage, spoiled her temper,—her husband was as dark and sour a man as could be met with in all Norway, and when he and his fishing-boat sank in a squall off the Lofoden Islands, I doubt if she shed many tears for his loss. Her only daughter's husband went down in the same storm,—and he but three months wedded,—and the girl,—Britta's mother,—pined and pined, and even when her child was born took no sort of comfort in it. She died four years after Britta's birth—her death was hastened, so I have heard, through old Lovisa's harsh treatment,—anyhow the little lass she left behind her had no very easy time of it all alone with her grandmother,—eh Britta?"
Britta looked up and shook her head emphatically.
"Then," went on Güldmar, "when my girl came back the last time from France, Britta chanced to see her, and, strangely enough,"—here he winked shrewdly—"took a fancy to her face,—odd, wasn't it? However, nothing would suit her but that she must be Thelma's handmaiden, and here she is. Now you know her history,—she would be happy enough if her grandmother would let her alone; but the silly old woman thinks the girl is under a spell, and that Thelma is the witch that works it;"—and the old farmer laughed. "There's a grain of truth in the notion too, but not in the way she has of looking at it."
"All women are witches!" said Duprèz. "Britta is a little witch herself!"
Britta's rosy cheeks grew rosier at this, and she tossed her chestnut curls with an air of saucy defiance that delighted the Frenchman. He forgot his wounded cheek and his disfiguring bandages in the contemplation of the little plump figure, cased in its close-fitting scarlet bodice, and the tempting rosy lips that were in such close proximity to his touch.
"If it were not for those red hands!" he thought. "Dieu! what a charming child she would be! One would instantly kill the grandmother and kiss the granddaughter!"
And he watched her with admiration as she busied herself about the supper-table, attending to every one with diligence and care, but reserving her special services for Thelma, whom she waited on with a mingled tenderness, and reverence, that were both touching and pretty to see.
The conversation now became general, and nothing further occurred to disturb the harmony and hilarity of the party—only Errington seemed somewhat abstracted, and answered many questions that were put to him at haphazard, without knowing, or possibly caring, whether his replies were intelligible or incoherent. His thoughts were dreamlike and brilliant with fairy sunshine. He understood at last what poets meant by their melodious musings, woven into golden threads of song—he seemed to have grasped some hitherto unguessed secret of his being—a secret that filled him with as much strange pain as pleasure. He felt as though he were endowed with a thousand senses,—each one keenly alive and sensitive to the smallest touch,—and there was a pulsation in his blood that was new and beyond his control,—a something that beat wildly in his heart at the sound of Thelma's voice, or the passing flutter of her white garments near him. Of what use to disguise it from himself any longer? He loved her! The terrible, beautiful tempest of love had broken over his life at last; there was no escape from its thunderous passion and dazzling lightning glory.