Elsket | Page 3

"No
one without Olafs blood could cross the Devil's Ledge." "Two men had
disappeared three years ago." "A man had disappeared there last year.
He had gone, and had never been heard of afterward. The Devil's Ledge
was a bad pass."
"Why don't they look into the matter?" I asked.
The reply was as near a shrug of the shoulders as a Norseman can
accomplish.
"It was not easy to get the proof; the mountain was very dangerous, the
glacier very slippery; there were no witnesses," etc. "Olaf of the
Mountain was not a man to trouble."

"He hates Englishmen," said one, significantly.
"I am not an Englishman, I am an American," I explained.
This had a sensible effect. Several began to talk at once. One had a
brother in Idaho, another had cousins in Nebraska, and so on.
The group had by this time been augmented by the addition of almost
the entire population of the settlement; one or two rosy-cheeked women,
having babies in their arms, standing in the rain utterly regardless of the
steady downpour.
It was a propitious time. "Can I get a place to stay here?" I inquired of
the group generally.
"Yes,--oh, yes." There was a consultation in which the name of
"Hendrik" was heard frequently, and then a man stepped forward and
taking up my bag and rod-case, walked off, I following, escorted by a
number of my new friends.
I had been installed in Hendrik's little house about an hour, and we had
just finished supper, when there was a murmur outside, and then the
door opened, and a young man stepping in, said something so rapidly
that I understood only that it concerned Olaf of the Mountain, and in
some way myself.
"Olaf of the Mountain is here and wants to speak to you," said my host.
"Will you go?"
"Yes," I said. "Why does he not come in?"
"He will not come in," said my host; "he never does come in."
"He is at the church-yard," said the messenger; "he always stops there."
They both spoke broken English.
I arose and went out, taking the direction indicated. A number of my
friends stood in the road or street as I passed along, and touched their
caps to me, looking very queer in the dim twilight. They gazed at me

curiously as I walked by.
I turned the corner of a house which stood half in the road, and just in
front of me, in its little yard, was the little white church with its square,
heavy, short spire. At the gate stood a tall figure, perfectly motionless,
leaning on a long staff. As I approached I saw that he was an elderly
man. He wore a long beard, once yellow but now gray, and he looked
very straight and large. There was something grand about him as he
stood there in the dusk.
I came quite up to him. He did not move.
"Good-evening," I said.
"Good-evening."
"Are you Mr. Hovedsen?" I asked, drawing out my letter.
"I am Olaf of the Mountain," he said slowly, as if his name embraced
the whole title.
I handed him the letter.
"You are----?"
"I am----" taking my cue from his own manner.
"The friend of her friend?"
"His great friend."
"Can you climb?"
"I can."
"Are you steady?"
"Yes."

"It is well; are you ready?"
I had not counted on this, and involuntarily I asked, in some surprise,
"To-night?"
"To-night. You cannot go in the day."
I thought of the speech I had heard: "No one goes over the mountain
except at night," and the ominous conclusion, "Who goes over the
mountain comes no more." My strange host, however, diverted my
thoughts.
"A stranger cannot go except at night," he said, gravely; and then added,
"I must get back to watch over Elsket."
"I shall be ready in a minute," I said, turning.
In ten minutes I had bade good-by to my simple hosts, and leaving
them with a sufficient evidence of my consideration to secure their
lasting good-will, I was on my way down the street again with my light
luggage on my back. This time the entire population of the little village
was in the road, and as I passed along I knew by their murmuring
conversation that they regarded my action with profound misgiving. I
felt, as I returned their touch of the cap and bade them good-by, a little
like the gladiators of old who, about to die, saluted Caesar.
At the gate my strange guide, who had not moved from the spot where
I first found him, insisted on taking my luggage, and buckling his straps
around it and flinging it over his back, he handed me his stick, and
without a word strode off straight toward the black mountain