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Walrond, pausing from his labours and viewing the remains of the duck disconsolately, for he did not see what portion of its gaunt skeleton was going to furnish him with dinner, and duck was one of his weaknesses, "dear me, there's a dreadful smell of burning in this room. Do you think it can be the beef, my love?" "Of course it is not the beef," replied Mrs. Walrond rather sharply.
There is plenty of iron, not worked, and gold has also been found in Kongsberg. Walrond had a bed and I slept in my cloak. Next day they engaged a well-organised chasse. 'Mr. Benker of Berlin, their host, purchased it from the King of Sweden for L150,000. It is the only thing on this scale in Europe. The travellers now returned to Christiania, apparently to be received by the King.
"What a beautiful dream," began Anthony, but at that moment, pausing from her labours at the beef, Mrs. Walrond said: "Barbara, eat your duck before it grows cold. You know the doctor said you must take plenty of nourishment."
Walrond began to say grace and the difficulties of that meeting were over. Anthony sat by Barbara. His chair was rickety, one of the legs being much in need of repair; the driftwood fire that burned brightly about two feet away grilled his spine, for no screen was available, and he nearly choked himself with a piece of very hot and hard potato.
But she had come back, and he was sure that they were each other's for life. And yet, and yet, life must end one day and then, what? Once more that hand of ice dragged at his heart strings. In a moment it was all over and Mr. Walrond was speaking. "Why don't you bid Barbara good-day, Anthony?" he asked. "Don't you think she looks well, considering?
Noticing that Mr. Walrond looked serious, and knowing something of how matters stood between Anthony and Barbara, he hastened to add that so far as he knew there was no cause for alarm, and that if he were moderately careful he thought that Anthony would live to eighty. "But it is otherwise with his brother," he added significantly, "and for the matter of that with the old man also."
The vision was that of the fate of the soul of the son of Anthony and Barbara through a thousand, thousand ages that were to come, and it was a dreadful fate. "Pray again, my father," said Barbara, "and ask if it may be changed." So the spirit of Septimus Walrond prayed, and the spirits of his daughters and of the daughter of Anthony and Barbara prayed with him.
These dainties with late apples and plenty of cold water made up the best dinner that the Walrond family had eaten for many a day. The Rectory dining-room was a long, narrow chamber of dilapidated appearance, since between meals it served as a schoolroom also.
Yet to tell the truth never before did he share in such a delightful meal. For soon, when the clamour of "the girls" swelled loud and long, and the attention of Mr. and Mrs. Walrond was entirely occupied with the burnt beef and the large duck that absolutely refused to part with its limbs, he found himself almost as much alone with Barbara as though they had been together on the wide seashore.
So presently he too rose and departed. Six months or so had gone by and summer reigned royally at Eastwich, for thus was the parish named of which the Reverend Septimus Walrond had spiritual charge.
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