Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 9, 2025
"Now you must find Hertha," she went on, "and then if either of you will be released, I think that Holy Church will not be hard on you, nor keep you bound to each other, for things have turned out ill for such a betrothal." "This is a hard case," I said, "for supposing that one longs for release and the other does not?" "Why, you cannot be so much as lovers yet!" she said, laughing suddenly.
Cnut will be back shortly, and then you have warriors' work to do. When that is done there will be peace, for England or Denmark, or both, will be worn out. It will not be long ere that is so, she says, and she is very wise. Then come and find Hertha if you will. But now there will be less trouble for both if you meet not." Then I grew impatient, for I hate concealments of any kind.
"Wait yet longer," she answered; "peace will come, and he will bring Hertha back to Bures." That ought to have been my own plan, but I had rather hoped to hear her say that I was right in holding myself free to choose afresh as I would. The thought of being bound seemed irksome to me; though why I, landless and luckless, should have found it so, I could not say. It mattered not at all at present.
The minister of her church investigated Swan Carlson and his claims, finding him all that he professed to be. Hertha wrote to him; in time Swan came to visit her, a tall, long-striding man, handsomer than his picture in the paper, handsome as a Viking lord with his proud foot on the neck of a fallen foe.
So I lived on in Ethelred's court now in one town and now in another, as the long struggle bade us shift either to follow or fly the Danes; and presently the memory both of my mother and Hertha grew dim, for wartime and new scenes age and harden a youth very quickly.
The hard "ma chère mère" was there, the goodnatured Beata Hvardagslag, people from the East and the West, the enthusiastic Nina, the energetic, struggling Hertha in her white dress. "Can any one tell me why that person must always be dressed in white?" jested the little figure in the arm-chair when she caught sight of her.
There she and Hertha and I were safe till the worst was over," he answered, and looked in my face. Then I must say what was in my mind all the while, and I asked him plainly: "Where is Hertha now, father? Is she yet well and safe?" "Both well and safe with Gunnhild," he said. "Where is she can I seek her?" The old man looked at me meaningly for a minute, and I grew hot under his kindly gaze.
There was no moon. The soft glow of a few misty, somnolent stars gave no light among the trees, no light shone from the house. Mackenzie recalled the night he had first approached that door and come suddenly around the corner into the pale beam of Hertha Carlson's lantern. Now the kitchen door might be shut, and there was no window on that side.
Now the historian tells us that Hertha was Mother Earth, the goddess of the soil, whose yearly celebration would appropriately take place in the spring or early summer. To her the produce of the land would be ascribed; and in her name and by her permission would all agricultural operations be performed. Such a goddess it must be who is honoured by the ceremonies already noticed in India.
Then Sexberga clasped her hands together, and said: "Shall I ever forget the time when we fled to Pevensea before the outlaws? And to think of that terror if it had lasted for days and weeks and months maybe, as it would for your Hertha. Could you in no way seek her, Redwald?"
Word Of The Day
Others Looking