United States or Caribbean Netherlands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
You have had good use of my confession, Lovisa Elsland; you have held me in your power by means of my secret, but now " The old woman interrupted her with a low laugh of contempt and malice. "As the parents are, so are the children!" she said scornfully. "Your lover must have been a fine man, Ulrika, if the son is like his father!"
Her fall from the edge of the chasm had been deemed by them both an accident, and yet this wretched Lovisa Elsland mad with misplaced, disappointed passion, jealousy, and revenge, had lived on to the extreme of life, triumphant and unsuspected. "I swear the gods have played me false in this!" he muttered, lifting his eyes in a sort of fierce appeal to the motionless pinetops stiff with frost.
"A demon a demon!" she sobbed and moaned, as the valiant dwarf at last released her from his clutches; and, tossing his long, fair locks over his misshapen shoulders, laughed loudly and triumphantly with delight at his victory. "Lovisa! Lovisa Elsland! this is your doing; you brought this upon me! I may die now, and you will not care! O Lord, Lord, have mercy "
"'Tis a strange thing," said one man, "that woman as strong in the fear of the Lord as Lovisa Elsland should call for one of the wicked to visit her on her death-bed." "Strange enough!" answered his neighbor, blinking over his pipe, and knocking down some of the icicles pendent from his roof. "But maybe it is to curse him with the undying curse of the godly."
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 Gueldmar musingly. "I remember her well when both she and I were young.
"By the sword of Odin!" cried the bonde, "the woman must be mad! my answer? The girl has spoken for herself, and plainly enough too! Art thou deaf, Lovisa Elsland? or are thy wits astray?" "My hearing is very good," replied Lovisa calmly, "and my mind, Olaf Gueldmar, is as clear as yours.
Britta, on perceiving her, uttered a faint shriek, and without considering the propriety of her action, buried her nut-brown curls and sparkling eyes in Duprez's coat-sleeve, which, to do the Frenchman justice, was exceedingly prompt to receive and shelter its fair burden. The bonde rose from his chair, and his face grew stern. "What do you here, Lovisa Elsland?
"Lovisa Elsland," he began in distinct tones, addressing himself to that ghastly countenance still partly shaded by one hand. "I am here Olaf Gueldmar. Dost thou know me?" At the sound of his voice, a strange spasm contorted the withered features of the dying woman. She bent her head as though to listen to some far-off echo, and held up her skinny finger as though enjoining silence.
"Oh no, no!" exclaimed Thelma anxiously. "It would vex me so much! Britta and I have often been alone before. We are quite safe, are we not, father?" "Safe enough!" said the old man, with a laugh. "I know of no one save Lovisa Elsland who has the courage to face thee, child!
"Sigurd is my son!" said Ulrika, with a sort of solemn resignation, then, with a sudden gesture, she threw her hands above her head, crying, "My son, my son! The child I thought I had killed! The Lord be praised I did not murder him!" Lovisa Elsland seemed stupefied with surprise. "Is this the truth?" she asked at last, slowly and incredulously. "The truth, the truth!" cried Ulrika passionately.
Word Of The Day