III.

The next morning they were awakened by a loud and continued noise. When they could collect their thoughts they knew it was the church bells ringing for service; they had slept very late, but then they had worked till three o'clock, that is to say, until broad daylight.

Kallem was out of bed in a second, and into the bathroom, next door, where he took a tremendous shower-bath; evidently, the former doctor had had a taste for that kind of thing! And hardly was he half dressed before he ran out onto the balcony to look at the view. He shouted in to Ragni to take her shower-bath too, and dress herself and come out to look at it; but she had felt the water so fearfully cold yesterday, she lay there with wide-open eyes, debating as to whether she should shirk it or really venture to take it. She made up her mind to shirk, so she quickly appeared at his side in a very pretty dressing-gown, which she had thrown round her. But although she looked so sweetly at him, and eagerly began praising the view and the exquisite day, he did not forget the shower-bath. Yesterday she had solemnly promised that she would begin the very first morning; susceptible to cold as she was, she must look upon a shower-bath as her daily bread, especially up here, where the change from heat to cold was so very sudden. Therefore----! She made the most piteous face, and tried to laugh it off; but he pointed to the shower-bath--would she really break her promise? If she broke it now, this first time, she would break it too often later on. She kissed him and said he was cruel; he kissed her and said she was sweet; but how about the shower-bath? So she darted in and undid her dressing-gown, as though she meant to take the bath, but popped into bed instead. When he came in, she pulled the clothes over her head; but without more ado he took up the blanket and its contents, and carried it to the door; but she begged and implored him to let her off, and seemed so frightened that he went back with his burden. She put her arms round him and dragged him down to her; she kissed him and whispered to him, and with her sweet caresses completely defeated his logic.

The bells went on ringing and ringing, carriages drove past away from the town. Hardly had one gone by before another came. The door was open; every time the bells stopped preparatory to the well-known three peals, they could hear the flies buzzing about the room, and the birds outside. They also heard the puffing of a little steamer out on the lake; they had seen it cut across from the other coast, probably with tourists. There must be some festivity going on somewhere to account for the way people were streaming in.

There was a light southwesterly breeze, filling the room each time with sweet scents; it poured in from the fields and trees. Through the clanging of the bells one could hear it whispering and sighing, the air seemed full of sounds.

Shortly after, they again stood on the balcony and watched the people going to church; well-packed carriages drove constantly past the church and continued upwards. The steamer came quite close; now the train whistled too. They both caught sight of two swallows that were evidently playing with their own shadows in the sand outside the veranda. They flew above and past each other, the shadows on the sand imitating each swoop; the birds wore down close to the sand and then a little way above; whenever they flew too high and the shadows disappeared, they darted down again to find them. She whispered to him that next year they would put out boxes for them to build in.

They finished dressing and went down to lunch. Sören Pedersen and his wife had arrived some time ago, and had their meal; they were now hard at work.

Then they heard that everyone was bound for the neighbouring parish, where the clergyman, Pastor Meek, was to celebrate his fifty years jubilee, and to preach a farewell sermon. Foot passengers had been on the go all the morning; now came those in carriages; and a steamer full of people from the opposite coast. Meek had had this same living all these fifty years--"a truly delightful man."

Kallem and Ragni were lunching in the big room; but their lunch was interrupted by someone knocking, and in came a thin, elderly man, smiling and noiseless, with horn spectacles on his nose; this was Dr. Kent, who was temporary manager of the hospital; he came from there just now. They both got up. He had a soft, pleasant voice, and a knowing smile accompanied all he said. He sat down at a little distance from them while they went on with their lunch, and gave a short account of the patients over at the "establishment," and of the sanitary state of both town and country. He answered dryly and briefly all questions as to those functionaries Kallem would have to call upon, as to the leaders in town and parish matters, and those of the local government board he ought to know. The purest business matters became pleasant when spoken of by Dr. Kent. When his gig came to the door--he was going on his rounds out in the country--Kallem asked leave to drive with him; but Ragni at once did the same too. So they hired a larger carriage and soon they were all three seated in it. Just as they were starting, Ragni remembered that the piano wanted tuning slightly, and she asked Sören Pedersen if he knew anyone who could tune at any rate for the present? Yes; there was Kristen Larssen.

So the drive began with an account of Kristen Larssen. Kent told them he was born up in one of the worst and most remote districts, and had been punished by the law for some trifling slip--he thought it was because he had called a tune he played, "the forgiveness of sins." Kristen Larssen was an inventor too; there was a knitting machine much in use now which was his invention, and various kinds of tools. He was a cold man--cold as iron in the winter time. Sören Pedersen and his wife were the only people he had anything to do with. And who were those two? He knew nothing about their "antecedentia;" she was from these parts, he was from Funen. They were both clever at their work; but people soon found out that they drank. The minister tried to correct this failing; he had grown attached to them from the time they had worked for him in his new house. Strange to say, his efforts were crowned with success; not only did they give up drink, but Sören became a most zealous temperance man and very religious; at last he knew the Bible by heart. It was literally true, he knew it by heart! He often told them how it was his greatest delight to make Aase hear him, and in some few small assemblies, he would repeat by heart whole chapters out of the Bible, while his hearers sat and followed attentively. The minister put his name down to get him into a Bible school, and he had no higher wish than to belong to it, but he expected Aase to be taken in too. As they did not agree to this, he gave up the Bible class and became unsteady again in everything.

He then became acquainted with that Jack of all trades, Kristen Larssen, who had just settled in the town. Kristen Larssen had heard about Sören Pedersen's powers of learning by heart, and tried to find out the mechanism of it. But there was none; the whole thing was a gift of God's mercy; all things were possible for God.

That is in the book of Matthew, answered Kristen Larssen; but in the book of Judges it is written that the Lord was with Judah, but Judah could not make the enemy flee from the valley, because they had chariots of iron.

The worthy Sören Pedersen was much shocked that the God of the Jews had not gained the victory over the chariots of iron.

In the same book of Moses, continued Kristen Larssen, it is written, "Thou shalt not kill," but it is written too that the Lord constantly gave orders to kill. So there are contradictions.

This was altogether new to Sören Pedersen, and yet he knew his Bible by heart. He was anxious to know the rights of it, and at every religious meeting he demanded explanations. At last he had no less than a hundred contradictory questions to inquire into; it was no longer possible to keep the peace. Half of them went into fits of laughter, the other half got angry. It ended by his being turned out of the meetings, both he and Aase. "I don't know," said Dr. Kent, "whether I may tell you how your brother-in-law, with his own hands, turned out Sören Pedersen and his wife Aase--out of the meeting-house! They had sat themselves down there before anyone else, and they would not move. Your brother-in-law is very strong, but Sören Pedersen held on, until it struck the minister that he would take Aase first, and then they both pulled away at her as if she were a stick of firewood."

Kallem and Ragni roared with laughter at this.

"I myself have witnessed one of the encounters," said Dr. Kent. "The minister was holding an examination at the school; I am one of the school committee. Sören Pedersen and his wife, Aase, were present, and everyone suspected there would be mischief. 'God cannot lie,' said the minister. Then Sören Pedersen rose up and said: 'It is written, that the Lord gave unto the prophets a spirit of lying.' Again Sören Pedersen had to depart."

The scenery through which they were driving, as they listened to all these amusing anecdotes, was an elevated, sunny plain divided by large and small ridges of woodland--or contrariwise, a wood divided by cultivated fields. The farms were all well built, the fields fertile, the road varied, first through woods, across fields, hills, and undulating over brooks and streams. There were heaps of stones in the most unexpected places, and paths and roads in all directions. Anyone coming from the prairies of America and the regularity of Central Europe, would be put in good spirits by all this variety. The same dazzling sunshine as yesterday, the same strong scent from meadow and wood--and such a display of flowers, such singing of birds; hark, that was the cuckoo!

It was not long till midsummer's day, and the vegetation was thereafter; Ragni was enchanted with the luxuriance of it all. Botany was her favourite branch of study, and the contrast between the flora she had studied, and that of the country here, interested her greatly. She asked if there were many places in Norway where barberry and columbine grew wild? Dr. Kent thought that they must have been brought into the country a long time ago; probably by the monks from the cloister down yonder.

As they passed again from the meadow into a narrow strip of wood, principally fir-trees, she saw the linnæa for the third time; she could not sit still in the carriage any longer; they all got out.

It had just begun to open its bell-shaped pink flowers; its spicy fragrance filled the wood; Ragni at once began her little whisperings to it; if only she were allowed to be alone now--for six years they had not seen each other, or, indeed, as it was spring when she started, it was six years and a half. She gathered and lifted up some of them, and her eye fell on a "pyrola uniflora" bending low in melancholy solitude; Kallem had just found the same; she asked him what it was called in Norwegian? He asked Kent if it was not St. Olaf's candlestick--he asked as an apothecary, and received an answer from a herbarium.

Ragni went further and further away from them both. The scent of the flower as she gathered it seemed to attract her still further in; it was sent to entice her on. So she went further, but kept a little behind--away from the others. She heard them talking; one hears so distinctly in the wood; she heard too a pair of startled birds. But here at hand was nothing but the rustling of her own footsteps through the grass and moss. She found one single wood-sorrel in flower, a last loiterer. It looked so out of sorts midst all its clover-like leaves; did it know its companions had left it?

The flowers all told her to go on; indeed, both the linnæa, and the holy candlestick, and the wood-sorrel drew her on; the latter had stood so long waiting on purpose for that. And there was Ragni--in a large family gathering of star-flowers; they were all waiting to see her; no one else had trodden that way this year. Ragni knelt down among them and told them how she had come from so very far away, she told it all in flower-fashion, without words; speech was not necessary between them. How she had opened one door after the other to find her way back to Norway; each time she had opened one, there had been another beyond ... until at last she was with them all. As soon as she saw the linnæa she knew that she had reached the end. This was the innermost of all. All great dangers from outside, direct from the sea, all that strength and cruelty, variable and busy, all this splendour and alarm, all impels us further and further in; right in here we must come to understand that everything does not fall in a thousand pieces. It is they who are in there who can control all.

"We have been waiting for you too. Here we keep the innermost secret."

"Oh, tell it to me!"

"Be kind to others."

"Indeed, I think that is the only thing I have a talent for. But if the others will not----"

"Let the others be as they will; but be you kind."

Then she understood, because she had gone so deep in. She understood now what had the greatest strength. The star-flowers.

"Ragni," shouted Kallem, in the distance, the wood resounded with his clear voice. "Yes!" Some of the family must go with her, she gathered them and took them up.

Then she hastened back again nearer to the road. On the edge of the wood stood an "actea"--it seemed to stand there just to show the way in, if she had got out of the carriage there. Now it wished to join the party. And just by the road, well hidden under the bank, was a whole party of lilies of the valley; where could her eyes have been? They knew well enough where she came from, for they, too, had been posted as sentinels to show the way in. They saw and understood one another directly; but that is always the way amongst those of the same family. Some of them must go with her too.

"Ragni!" shouted Kallem.

"Yes, yes!" and she came out on to the road and saw how far behind she was.

The two men were standing by the carriage, talking; they were on the top of the bank, and Kallem's tall figure and the other's little slight one stood out clearly defined. Both of them had their hands full. As she hurried toward them she could hear Kallem discoursing; it was on a branch of black alder which he swung as he stood there; he repeated in German, a German botanist's delight over this stately poison-bearer which he had come across in Norway. Dr. Kent presented her with a "polygula amara;" he knew that the little blue flower would be new to her coming from America. She thanked him warmly. They got into the carriage and began at once arranging their treasures, and begged Ragni to choose what she liked; they had gone through a small bog; Kent had the flower of a bog-fir fastened in his coat, and they had both gathered everything, down to the very buttercup, "that wild beast," said Ragni; she wouldn't have it; it was so "muddy" too.

"You are æsthetic in everything," said Kallem. She shot a glance at him, sweet as the scent of her flowers.

"Do you notice that we are quite alone on the road?" remarked Dr. Kent; he told them that everyone was at church, as old Pastor Meek was to preach a farewell sermon on this his fifty years jubilee day. When he was twenty years old he had become curate to his own father--that was in those times--and he had inherited the living. He was now seventy years old, and was going to start on a journey abroad with his grand-daughter. He must be a strong man? Yes, and led a healthy life; always on the move, always busy. He was the go-between here. Go-between? Yes, each district must have one to intercede for science and for practical matters. Much of the prosperity of this district proceeds from him and has been passed on to others. Then he is popular? The most popular man of the neighbourhood. How is he "in the pulpit?" "Well, he has stood there now fifty years and related anecdotes. At first this was made fun of, and there were some who thought it profanation; now there are several who have followed his example."

"What sort of anecdotes are they?"

The last one that Dr. Kent had heard was about a woman who had been thirty years in prison in St. Louis, in America, and who, although she was seventy years old, was the worst of all the prisoners. Once the prisoners had to be moved to another prison which was under the management of a woman who was a Quaker. The old woman refused to be moved; she resisted with all her strength, and at last they had to tie her in a chair and carry her away. As they arrived with her, the woman who had the management of the prison stood in the doorway and received the furious old creature. "Unloose her!" she said. "But is it safe?" "Unloose her!" And they did so. As soon as the old woman was unbound, her new superintendent bent down over her, put her arm round her neck, and gave her a kiss of welcome as from one sister to another. Then the old woman fell on her knees and asked: "Do you really believe that there is some good in me?" From that time she invariably was quite obedient.

Here Kent and Kallem left the carriage; they had to turn up to a peasant's house a little way back from the road. There was a black dog lying in front of the gallery; he looked at the carriage and barked; but only once or twice, then he went down a few steps toward them, sniffed at them all round, and then went back and lay down.

There was no one else to be seen. The driver turned the horses and drove to one side. The two doctors went in to the patient, and Ragni walked up and down the yard. Through the window she could see an old man in bed and his old wife sitting beside him; she sang to him with trembling voice, and did not stop even when the door was opened behind her.

Ragni looked about her in the yard; then went and sat down on the store-house steps.

Nothing has such a quieting influence on one as a peasant's farm at rest. Not even the wood, for there is always a rustle or sound of something, and one must be on the look-out both sitting or lying down; nor yet the sea when it is quiet, for it never can be perfectly at rest; nor the meadow, for that swarms with life and we can see it too around us. But a peasant's farm which is not at work--the hens going about scratching and picking up food, make you feel comfortable, the dog lying down, and the cat that creeps stealthily a few paces, stops, then creeps on again, and the ploughs leaning up against the harrows, the grinding-stones standing dry, the carts with shafts down, the dinner-bell silent; everything that has been at work rests like you, and that which still moves about only adds to the general peace. Should you see a pig in the distance rooting up the ground, it is entirely occupied with that; or a horse champing and whisking away flies, that is its pleasure; should the little birds come and chirp their greeting to you, it increases the light-heartedness which is the foundation of all peace.

Suddenly, in the midst of this peaceful rest, the fright from that meeting with Josephine came over her. Was there nothing in her conscience that could accuse her? No, a thousand times, no! Not even her sister's children? No, for she could not even have lived for them under such circumstances. What then? What had she done? She had loved him. And why should she not do so?

The quiet was over; she went up above the house and found there two kinds of "orobus" not very far apart, first of all the bird-pea out on the meadow, and then one other in a cup with petals; she could not remember the name of the latter. As she went down the path again she found a splendid cock's-comb and a third kind of violet; the others had already given her two kinds. What flowers there were! Look there! The loveliest veronica; ah, the head fell; but there is another, that will keep. Afterwards she heard that the fragile flower is called here "man's faith."

Again she went in to the farm-yard; through the window of the bed-room she saw Kallem with his ear pressed to the old man's chest. Dr. Kent soon came out and the wife with him; he screamed at her, but she heard almost nothing. Kallem looked so tall standing there in the door, now he came to join her. How she loved him.

They were sitting together in the evening in the doctor's work-room; it was now all arranged as it was to be, with the exception of the books. Sören Pedersen, followed by his wife Aase, came in from the passage through the dining-room; he looked cunning, she looked alarmed; they announced that the minister and his wife were just coming in at the gate!

Kallem saw that Ragni turned pale. As the others were present, however, he said nothing but: "Come along!" went into the drawing-room, and from thence out in the passage to receive them.

The meeting was a stiff one. The minister begged they would excuse their coming so late, but it was the most convenient time for him, he had just come from evening service. They only came in to ask if Kallem and his wife would go home with them to supper? On Sundays a clergyman is seldom his own master before the evening.

His voice had still a little of the solemnity of a sermon in it, and there was a reflection of church in both countenance and manner. Josephine stood and looked about her, in which her husband speedily followed her example.

He thought it all very snug and cosy, and the piano was a "splendid piece of furniture." As they were looking at it, Josephine opened her lips for the first time, and turning to Ragni, said quickly: "I hear you play so beautifully!"

"Oh----"

"Won't you play something for us?" The minister added: "Please do!"

Ragni looked at her husband--as one who is drowning looks for help. "Ragni requires to be in the proper mood to be able to play," said he.

"Very likely she is tired," said the minister, excusing her; they sat down, the minister and Kallem opposite each other, Josephine on one side; Ragni remained standing.

"Of course you must both of you be tired," continued the minister; "you have been travelling now for so long, and then arranging the house here; I heard from Dr. Kent that you had very nearly finished?"

Yes, so they were; but they had had capital help from Sören Pedersen and his wife Aase. Ragni was afraid that those two were still in the dining-room, and hurried in to see; but they were gone, and were not in the doctor's room either.

The minister's face had assumed quite a fatherly expression. "We have been obliged to employ Sören Pedersen and his wife because the people we otherwise employ were not at liberty. But one ought not to give work to that kind of people."

"Indeed?"

"Oh, they are good workers; but they drink up everything they earn, and then stay away from their work for days; it was the same here too. They scandalize the whole congregation."

"Dear me, that's a pity."

In passing Kallem, Ragni stroked his head with her hand; she had to fetch something off the piano. The minister was nothing abashed by the doctor's flighty tone.

"We have striven to do what we could for them both--yes, for she drinks just as much as he does. You would be astonished if you heard how kind everyone has been to them. But all in vain, and worse than in vain. But I will not go further into that story." He looked at his wife, who sat there in her tight-fitting dress, stiff and impenetrable, a piece of perfection from top to toe. Her eyes so well trained that they saw everything without appearing to see. She would have liked Kallem to have come and spoken to her. Ragni stood farther back, unseen by the others, but directly opposite him.

"It is provoking," he said, "that the former doctor built his house so close to the hospital. It is not pleasant to have strangers so near one."

"Yes, but the old man built it for his brother-in-law. And now he is dead too."

"So I hear; if I could afford to sink more money in houses, I would buy this, although I should have no use for it."

Josephine turned half round, doubtless to see if Ragni still stood there. "I don't think it is for sale," said she; "I know the heirs." Then there was a pause for a little while.

The minister started a new subject; that same morning he had been reading in the _Morgenblad_ about the general state of insecurity all over America. He spoke like one who knew all about it, and turned continually to his wife; if he did look at the others--for instance at Ragni, who had just come back from America--it was merely a passing glance; he invariably returned to his wife.

Pastor Tuft was a stately, good-looking man, especially as a certain degree of stoutness had filled in his bony face; he had a pleasant voice, and his Melancthon eyes sparkled and glistened at all that was said. His speech and manners were, if anything, persuasive; but one felt his power under cover of all his mildness.

His wife quite unexpectedly made an upward movement with her head. "Of course it must be time to be going now," said he, as he rose from his seat; "I am quite forgetting myself. Well--will you go with us?"

Josephine got up too, so did Kallem. But he, too, had a wife who could give glances, warning and imploring.

"Thanks, but we are both tired, we will put it off till another time."

And so they accompanied the others to the door. Kallem then went to the window and looked out after them as they walked away, both so tall and strong-looking. Soon they had left the church behind them; everyone who met them greeted them most respectfully. He stood on there even after they were out of sight. He walked up and down the room a few times, then he turned a somersault (made a wheel on his hands). "Go and fetch Sören Pedersen and his wife Aase to me!"--but he went himself. They were not to be found anywhere; Sigrid told him they had gone directly the minister and his wife came. "Hang it all, now you'll see they are making themselves tipsy! Just go down to them and invite them to come to supper with us. Say we are quite alone." Off went the girl; Kallem shouted out after her: "Insist upon their coming, whether they want to or not."

"Now listen to me, Mr. saddler!" said the doctor, when they both appeared in the parlor again, the wife behind the husband; "listen to me. The minister says that you drink, Pedersen, both you and your wife, and that he cannot get you to give it up?"

"The minister speaks the truth."

"But it is a dreadful disease, Pedersen."

"Oh, yes--in the long run."

"Will you leave it to me to cure you?"

"Oh, most willingly, doctor! but seriously, now; will it take a long time?"

"Two minutes."

"Two minutes?" He smiled; but before the smile had vanished, Kallem was upon him with his eyes, which had a strange and startling expression. The saddler changed colour, he retreated a few steps. The doctor followed and told him to sit down. He did it without hesitation. "Look at me!" Aase was fit to faint. "Sit down, you too!" said the doctor over his shoulder to her, and she collapsed into a chair. Yesterday already the doctor had seen what kind of people he had to do with; it did not take two minutes, before Sören Pedersen was completely mesmerized and his wife Aase too, though she had only been looking on. The doctor commanded them to open their eyes again; they both did so at once. "Now listen here, Sören Pedersen! You just leave off drinking brandy or spirits in any shape or form whatever; no more wine either, nor strong beer--not for one whole month. Do you hear? When that month is past--it is now half-past six--you come here to me on the stroke of the hour. And you too, Aase. Every time he wants to drink, you must cry out. And afterwards you can sing, both of you."

"But we can't sing."

"You will sing all the same."