"You mean by that, I suppose, that there is no possibility of doing anything new,--no way of branching out in some, better and untried direction?" asked Errington.
Olaf Güldmar shook his head emphatically. "You can't do it," he said decisively. "Everything in every way has been begun and completed and then forgotten over and over in this world,--to be begun and completed and forgotten again, and so on to the end of the chapter. No one nation is better than another in this respect,--there is,--there can be nothing new. Norway, for example, has had its day; whether it will ever have another I know not,--at any rate, I shall not live to see it. And yet, what a past!--" He broke off and his eyes grew meditative.
Lorimer looked at him. "You would have been a Viking, Mr. Güldmar, had you lived in the old days," he said with a smile.
"I should, indeed!" returned the old man, with an unconsciously haughty gesture of his head; "and no better fate could have befallen me! To sail the seas in hot pursuit of one's enemies, or in search of further conquest,--to feel the very wind and sun beating up the blood in one's veins,--to live the life of a man--a true man! . . . in all the pride and worth of strength, and invincible vigor!--how much better than the puling, feeble, sickly existence, led by the majority of men to-day! I dwell apart from them as much as I can,--I steep my mind and body in the joys of Nature, and the free fresh air,--but often I feel that the old days of the heroes must have been best,--when Gorm the Bold and the fierce Siegfried seized Paris, and stabled their horses in the chapel where Charlemagne lay buried!"
Pierre Duprèz looked up with a faint smile. "Ah, pardon! But that was surely a very long time ago!"
"True!" said Güldmar quietly. "And no doubt you will not believe the story at this distance of years. But the day is coming when people will look back on the little chronicle of your Empire,--your commune,--your republic, all your little affairs, and will say, 'Surely these things are myths; they occurred--if they occurred at all,--a very long time ago!"
"Monsieur is a philosopher!" said Duprèz, with a good-humored gesture; "I would not presume to contradict him."
"You see, my lad," went on Güldmar more gently, "there is much in our ancient Norwegian history that is forgotten or ignored by students of to-day. The travellers that come hither come to see the glories of our glaciers and fjords,--but they think little or nothing of the vanished tribe of heroes who once possessed the land. If you know your Greek history, you must have heard of Pythias, who lived three hundred and fifty-six years before Christ, and who was taken captive by a band of Norseman and carried away to see 'the place where the sun slept in winter.' Most probably he came to this very spot, the Altenfjord,--at any rate the ancient Greeks had good words to say for the 'Outside Northwinders,' as they called us Norwegians, for they reported us to be 'persons living in peace with their gods and themselves.' Again, one of the oldest tribes in the world came among us in times past,--the Phoenicians,--there are traces among us still of their customs and manners. Yes! we have a great deal to look back upon with pride as well as sorrow,--and much as I hear of the wonders of the New World, the marvels and the go-ahead speed of American manners and civilization,--I would rather be a Norseman than a Yankee." And he laughed.