She laughed gaily. "Lonely? I? Why, Britta is with me--besides, I am never lonely now." She uttered the last word softly, with a shy, upward glance. "I have so much to think about--" She paused and drew her hand away from her lover's close clasp. "Ah," she resumed, with a mischievous smile, "you are a conceited boy! You want to be missed! You wish me to say that I shall feel most miserable all the time you are away! If I do, I shall not tell you!"
"Thelma, child?" called Olaf Güldmar, at this juncture "keep the gates bolted and doors barred while we are absent. Remember, thou and Britta must pass the night alone here,--we cannot be at home till late in the evening of to-morrow. Let no one inside the garden, and deny thyself to all comers. Dost thou hear?"
"Yes, father," she responded meekly.
"And let Britta keep good guard that her crazy hag of a grandam come not hither to disturb or fright thee with her croaking,--for thou hast not even Sigurd to protect thee."
"Not even Sigurd!" said that personage, with a meditative smile. "No, mistress; not even poor Sigurd!"
"One of us might remain behind," suggested Lorimer, with a side-look at his friend.
"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! Still, pretty witch as thou art, 'twill not harm thee to put the iron bar across the house door, and to lock fast the outer gate when we have gone. This done, I have no fear of thy safety. Now," and he kissed his daughter heartily, "now lads, 'tis time we were on the march! Sigurd, my boy, lead on!"
"Wait!" cried Sigurd, springing to Thelma's side. "I must say good-bye!" And he caught the girl's hand and kissed it,--then plucking a rose, he left it between her fingers. "That will remind you of Sigurd, mistress! Think of him once to-day!--once again when the midnight glory shines. Good-bye, mistress! that is what the dead say, . . . Good-bye!"
And with a passionate gesture of farewell, he ran and placed himself at the head of the little group that waited for him, saying exultingly-"Now follow me! Sigurd knows the way! Sigurd is the friend of all the wild waterfall! Up the hills,--across the leaping stream,--through the sparkling foam!" And he began chanting to himself a sort of wild mountain song.