第80章 LETTER XII(6)

"We were born on the same night,"said the Jarl,"and the time will not be long between our deaths."When night came,the Jarl kept himself awake,--but Karker slept;--a troubled sleep.The Jarl awoke him,and asked of what he was dreaming.He answered,"I was at Lade,and Olaf was laying a gold ring about my neck."The Jarl said,"It will be a RED ring about thy neck,if he catches thee:from me thou shalt enjoy all that is good,--therefore,betray me not!"Then they both kept themselves awake;"THE ONE,AS ITWERE,WATCHING UPON THE OTHER."But towards day,the Jarl dropped asleep,and in his unquiet slumber he drew his heels under him,and raised his neck as if going to rise,"and shrieked fearfully."On this,Karker,"dreadfully alarmed,"drew a knife from his belt,stuck it into the Jarl's throat,and cut off his head.Late in the day he came to Lade,brought the Jarl's head to Olaf,and told his story.

It is a comfort to know that "the red ring"was laid round the traitor's neck:Olaf caused him to be beheaded.

What a picture that is,in the swine-stye,those two haggard faces,travel-stained and worn with want of rest,watching each other with hot,sleepless eyes through the half darkness,and how true to nature is the nightmare of the miserable Jarl!

It was on my return from Lade,that I found your letters;and that I might enjoy them without interruption,Icarried them off to the churchyard--(such a beautiful place!)--to read in peace and quiet.The churchyard was NOT "populous with young men,striving to be alone,"as Tom Hood describes it to have been in a certain sentimental parish;so I enjoyed the seclusion I anticipated.

I was much struck by the loving care and ornament bestowed on the graves;some were literally loaded with flowers,and even those which bore the date of a long past sorrow had each its own blooming crown,or fresh nosegay.These good Throndhjemers must have much of what the French call la religion des souvenirs,a religion in which we English (as a nation)are singularly deficient.I suppose no people in Europe are so little addicted to the keeping of sentimental anniversaries as we are;I make an exception with regard to our living friends'birthdays,which we are ever tenderly ready to cultivate,when called on;turtle,venison,and champagne,being pleasant investments for the affections.But time and business do not admit of a faithful adherence to more sombre reminiscences;a busy gentleman "on 'Change"cannot conveniently shut himself up,on his "lost Araminta's natal-day,"nor will a railroad committee allow of his running down by the 10.25A.M.,to shed a tear over that neat tablet in the new Willow-cum-Hatband Cemetery.He is necessarily content to regret his Araminta in the gross,and to omit the petty details of a too pedantic sorrow.

The fact is,we are an eminently practical people,and are easily taught to accept "the irrevocable,"if not without regret,at least with a philosophy which repudiates all superfluous methods of showing it.DECENT is the usual and appropriate term applied to our churchyard solemnities,and we are not only "content to dwell in decencies for ever,"but to die,and be buried in them.

The cathedral loses a little of its poetical physiognomy on a near approach.Modern restoration has done something to spoil the outside,and modern refinement a good deal to degrade the interior with pews and partitions;but it is a very fine building,and worthy of its metropolitan dignity.I am told that the very church built by Magnus the Good,--son of Saint Olave--over his father's remains,and finished by his uncle Harald Hardrada,is,or rather was,included in the walls of the cathedral;and though successive catastrophes by fire have perhaps left but little of the original building standing,I like to think that some of these huge stones were lifted to their place under the eyes of Harald The Stern.It was on the eve of his last fatal expedition against our own Harold of England that the shrine of St.Olave was opened by the king,who,having clipped the hair and nails of the dead saint (most probably as relics,efficacious for the protection of himself and followers),then locked the shrine,and threw the keys into the Nid.Its secrets from that day were respected until the profane hands of Lutheran Danes carried it bodily away,with all the gold and silver chalices,and jewelled pyxes,which,by kingly gifts and piratical offerings,had accumulated for centuries in its treasury.

He must have been a fine,resolute fellow,that Harald the Stern,although,in spite of much church-building and a certain amount of Pagan-persecuting,his character did not in any way emulate that of his saintly brother.

The early part of his history reads like a fairy tale,and is a favourite subject for Scald songs;more especially his romantic adventures in the East,--"Well worthy of the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid."where Saracens flee like chaff upon the wind before him,and impregnable Sicilian castles fall into his power by impossible feats of arms,or incredible stratagems.AGreek empress,"the mature Zoe,"as Gibbon calls her,falls in love with him,and her husband,Constantine Monomachus,puts him in prison;but Saint Olaf still protects his mauvais sujet of a brother,and inspires "a lady of distinction"with the successful idea of helping Harald out of his inaccessible tower by the prosaic expedient of a ladder of ropes.A boom,however,across the harbour's mouth still prevents the escape of his vessel.The Sea-king is not to be so easily baffled.

Moving all his ballast,arms,and men,into the afterpart of the ship,until her stem slants up out of the sea,he rows straight at the iron chain.The ship leaps almost half-way over.The weight being then immediately transferred to the fore-part,she slips down into the water on the other side,--having topped the fence like an Irish hunter.