The Prodigal Son. Hall Sir Caine
the morning of the day when the "Laura" was due, there was no sign of her on the sea, but that was a matter of moment only to Thora, who had been up early and down at the jetty before breakfast. The rest of the little world in which she lived were immersed in preparations for the election and were going about like dogs on the leash before the hunt begins. Oscar was flying to and fro with red ribbons in his button-hole; ponies were coming and going with red ribbons in their bridles, and red flags were hanging all over the town; but, nevertheless, there was a sense of uncertainty everywhere and an atmosphere of intense excitement.
The day opened dull and rayless, with a pale sun behind a slaty sky like a white wafer on an old parchment. An hour before the polling booths opened the Governor called upon the Factor, under pretense of his morning's walk, and said:
"I'm doubtful of the result, Neilsen, and I now see that Oscar was the worst possible candidate to stand for our cause. Everybody who has a grievance against the Governor is going to vote against the Governor's son, and everybody who has a grievance against the Factor will vote against his son-in-law."
"Oh, I know the people, bless them," said the Factor. "Master when you want anything--slave when you don't. But we'll see, Stephen, we'll see!"
After finishing his breakfast comfortably the Factor walked leisurely to his counting-house and called for his ledger. It showed that nearly half of the electors of the town were indebted to him, some of them slightly, others deeply, and not a few beyond hope of payment without pressure or distraint. He counted up their total indebtedness, and it proved to be frightful. "But life is precious when death is at the door," he thought, and lighting his long German pipe, he put the leather-bound book under his arm and strolled quietly across to the polling-station.
As chairman of Oscar's committee the Factor had a right to sit inside the polling booth, but he merely asked to be allowed to take a chair outside the counter to which the voters would come up when they recorded their votes. "A low seat is often easy," he said, sitting with his face to the Sheriff and his back to the door.
When the doors were opened the Factor laid his ledger across his knees and took out a thick blue pencil. Then, as each voter came up to the counter and his name was called and looked up in the register, the Factor was seen to turn up the voter's account in his own book and hold his blue pencil over it.
"Whom do you vote for?" asked the Sheriff, "Oscar Stephenson or Jon Oddsson?" and if the voter answered "Oscar Stephenson," the blue pencil was seen to descend in two broad strokes across the account as if cancelling it altogether; but if he answered "Jon Oddsson," it was seen to score the total with a double underline as if marking it for immediate recovery.
The opposition had entered in hot haste, but the effect was instantaneous. A voter would come swaggering up to the counter, call his name in a robustious voice, and then (while waiting for the verification of his right to vote) see the Factor sitting below with his own account open before him, and, understanding everything in a moment, would begin to answer the Sheriff with a faltering, "Odd----," then pause, tremble, mumble "Stephenson," and go stumbling out of doors.
Silently, hour after hour, from the beginning of the day to the end of it, the Factor sat at his task, never once looking up from his ledger and apparently doing nothing but checking, as he had a right to do, the Sheriff's record of the votes. Aunt Margret came to say that dinner was ready, but he answered that he was not hungry. Toward three in the afternoon Thora arrived in great excitement to say that the "Laura" had been sighted outside the head, but he told her to meet her sister herself, and tell her that he did not expect to be home before midnight.
When the cathedral clock struck four the Sheriff rose and ordered the shutting of the doors. The short winter's day had closed in by this time, and while the counting was going on with its monotonous beat in the silence of the breathless room, like the splashing of rain on the pavement--"Stephenson, Stephenson, Oddsson, Stephenson"--the Factor, who had lit his pipe, was pacing the corridor outside, like a man who walks in his orchard when the fruit is ripe.
When the counting was finished the Sheriff told the attendants to open the window, and then the deep hum of a crowd which had been cheering and singing outside, with a noise like the waves breaking on a bar far off, rose to a roar, like that of the sea running up a stony beach. At the next moment everybody was shaking hands with Oscar, a band was beginning to play in the street, and the Sheriff was stepping on to the balcony.
Meantime Thora, fluttering with excitement of another sort, had gone down to the jetty to meet Helga. As soon as the "Laura" had steamed up the fiord and cast anchor outside the town, she put off in her father's white boat and drew up alongside. It was now quite dark, but lights were burning on the steamer and the dark figures of a line of passengers were silhouetted against the sky as they leaned over the rail and shouted to the friends in little boats who had come out to meet them. Thora was sure that Helga must be there, and she wanted to call to her, but her heart was beating so fast that her voice would not answer. At length the ladder was let down, and Thora's boat swayed up to it, and then she climbed up the steamer's side.
"Helga!"
"Miss Helga is below," said a voice out of the darkness, and though she felt a pang of disappointment that Helga was not waiting, she ran down the stairs to the saloon. At the bottom she called "Helga" again, and the stewardess said:
"The young lady is in her cabin."
"Which?"
"Second to the left."
Feeling conscious of increasing disappointment, but still panting in her eagerness, Thora skipped off to the cabin, and then came a shock of surprise.
Somehow she had expected to find Helga a little thing, grown certainly, but still smaller than herself. In her dreams of their first meeting she had pictured herself stooping to kiss Helga, and then in a sisterly-motherly sort of way putting her arms about her waist. But the young lady who came leisurely out of the cabin with her veil down and buttoning her kid gloves, was much taller than Thora and quite dignified and stately.
"Thora!" said the girl.
"So it is you--really you?" said Thora.
"Really me," laughed Helga, and then it was Helga who stooped to kiss Thora, who had to lift up her face to her.
Thora's heart was in her mouth in both senses. She looked at Helga again by the dim light of the saloon lamp, and felt herself small and insignificant. Helga was beautiful, with fine features, large gray eyes and rich dark complexion, and Thora felt herself to be plain and commonplace. Helga was fashionably dressed in the Danish manner, with the soft silk things about the neck and bosom which give charm to a charming girl, and Thora felt herself to be dowdy and countrified in her Iceland hufa and stiff velvet cloak.
"Have you come alone?" asked Helga.
"Quite alone," said Thora.
"But hasn't father come with you? Or Aunt Margret? Or that wonderful Oscar? Is there nobody but you?"
"Nobody but me," said Thora, and then, though she felt crushed and small, she delivered the Factor's message and told about the election.
"So that was the meaning of the band we heard as we were sailing up?" said Helga, and at the first moment Thora thought perhaps Helga had hoped it was in honor of her own arrival, but at the next she felt ashamed and foolish.
"We might as well go, then," said Helga, and she swept up the stairs, leaving Thora to follow. It was all so different from what Thora had expected--so utterly different--that she would have given anything to run away and cry.
But going ashore in the boat, she sat at the helm side by side with Helga, and there, the lights being gone, and Thora no longer in awe of Helga's fashion and beauty, she slipped her arm about her sister's waist, as she had always intended to do, and after that they got on better.
When they touched the jetty there was much shouting and scrambling in the darkness, and Thora was nervous and excited, but Helga was quiet and even amused.
"No carriages in this benighted country yet, I suppose?" said Helga.
"No, but I've