Part 4

"Ma, can you conceive such extortion?" stopping suddenly before the bill, which still finally was always found to be right, and then turning thoughtfully round again, while he dried his pen in his chocolate-colored every-day wig.

His plethoric, vociferous, somewhat confused nature always became furious when he saw a bill; it operated like a red cloth on a bull, and when, as now, all the half year's bills came storming down on him at once, he both roared and bellowed. It was an old story for his wife, who had acquired a remarkable skill in taking the bull by the horns.

The wrongs, which thus he did _not_ suffer, seemed nevertheless to awaken an increasing storm of resentment in him. With a violent tug at the door-latch, and his wig awry, he would come suddenly in, exclaiming,--"Seventy-five dollars, three shillings, seventeen pence!--seventy-five--dollars--three shillings--and seventeen pence!--it is almost enough to make one crazy. And so you ordered citron--citron,"--he put on a falsetto tone, and laughed out of pure rage. "He, he, he, he!--now have we the means for that? And then, almond soap for the guest-chamber!" This last came in a deep, suppressed, gloomy bass. "I cannot understand how you could have hit on that!"

"My dear, that was thrown in. Don't you see that it isn't carried out for anything?"

"Thrown in--oh, thrown in--yes, there you see how they cheat! Seventy-five dollars, three shillings, and seventeen pence--plainly that is enough to be frightened at. Where shall I find the money?"

"But you have already found it, Jäger!--Remember the servants," she whispered quickly. It was a quiet prayer to put off the rest of the outburst till later in the afternoon, between themselves.

The captain's various ecstatic flashes of passion about the bills went over the house that afternoon like a refreshing and purifying thunderstorm before Christmas. The children, cowed and tortured, took refuge during the storm under the protection of their mother, who warded off the blast; but when his step was again heard in the office, they went on, just as persevering and inquisitive as before, peeping into and shaking out the bags in order to find a raisin or two or a currant that had been forgotten, collecting the twine, looking after the weight, and cutting up the bar soap.

During all these anxieties the tall form of the mistress stood in uninterrupted activity, bowed like a crane over the box with the city wares, which had been lifted in on the kitchen floor. Jars, willow baskets filled with hay, small bags, and an infinity of packages in gray wrappers, tied up with twine, small and great, vanished by degrees into their different resting-places, even to the last, the bag with the fine wheat flour, which was brought in by Great-Ola and put by itself in the meal-chest in the pantry.

When the spice closet was finally shut, the captain stood there for the twentieth time. With the air of a man who had been made to wait and been tormented long enough, he gently tapped her on the shoulder with his fingers and said, rather reproachfully, "It really astonishes me, Gitta, that you don't pay more attention to the letter we have received to-day."

"I haven't been able to think of anything else than your troubles with the bills, Jäger. Now I think you might taste the French brandy this evening, to see if it is good enough for the Christmas punch. Cognac is so dear."

"That's a good idea, Gitta!--Yes, yes--only let us have supper soon."

The plates with oatmeal porridge and the blue milk in the cold cups were placed upon the table; they stood like black, dreary islands over the cloth, and presented no temptation to linger over the evening meal.

After the necessary part of it was swallowed and the children were sent upstairs, the captain sat, now quite cozy and comfortable, before the table, which was still extended, with his tobacco and his taste of toddy made of the French brandy, whose transformation into Christmas punch was going on in the kitchen, from which there was also heard the sizzling of the waffle-iron.

"Only strong, Ma,--only strong!--Then you can manage with the brown sugar.--Yes, yes," tasting of the wooden dipper which his wife brought in, "you can treat the sheriff to that with pleasure."

"Now Marit is coming in with the warm waffles,--and then it was this about the letter of the governor's wife.--You see, Jäger, we cannot send the child there unless we have her suitably fitted out; she must have a black silk confirmation dress, city boots and shoes, a hat, and other things."

"Black silk conf--"

"Yes, and some other dresses, which we must order in Christiania; there is no help for it."

Captain Jäger began to walk to and fro.

"So, so!--So, so! Well, if that is your idea, then I think we will decline the invitation with thanks."

"I knew that, Jäger! You would like to have the yolk, but as to breaking the egg, you hesitate."

"Break the egg? Break my purse, you mean."

"I mean, you can call in a part of the six hundred dollars you got with me. I have thought and reckoned it over. Inger-Johanna alone will cost us over one hundred dollars this year, and when Thinka is going to Ryfylke, we shall not get off with two hundred."

"Over two hundred dollars!--Are you crazy? Are you crazy--really crazy, Ma? I think you have a screw loose!" He made a sudden turn over the floor. "The letter shall rather go at once into the stove."

"Very well; you know that I think everything you do is sensible, Jäger."

He stopped, with the letter in his hand and his mouth half open.

"And the slight chance Inger-Johanna might have of being provided for, that perhaps is not so much to be taken into account. She is certainly the nearest relation. There is nothing in the way to prevent her being the heir also.--N-no, do as you will and as you like, Jäger. You probably see more clearly in this than I do.--And then you will take the responsibility yourself, Jäger,"--she sighed.

The captain crumpled the letter together, gave her a hasty glance like a wounded lion, and then stood awhile and stared at the floor. Suddenly he threw the letter on the table and broke out: "She must go!--But the cost of the campaign--the cost of the campaign, Ma, that, I learned in my strategy, must be borne by the enemy! And the governor's wife must naturally take care of her outfit there."

"The governor's wife, Jäger, must not pay for anything--not a bit--before she has decided if she will keep her. We must not be anxious to be rid of her; but _she_ shall be anxious to get her; and she must ask us for her, both once and twice, you understand."

That the winter was coming on was less noticed this year than usual. Two children were to be fitted out. Soon spinning-wheel and reel accompanied, in the short day and long evening, the murmur of the stove. Ma herself spun all the fine woof for the linsey-woolsey dresses. There was knitting, weaving, and sewing, nay, also embroidery on linen--"twelve of everything for each one." And in school hours in the office the captain worked not less zealously with the French grammar.

The stiffening cold frost, which blew about the house and cut like ice from every crack; the cold so fierce that the skin was torn off the hands when any one was unlucky enough to take hold of the latch of the outer door or of the porch without mittens; complaints of nail ache, when the children came in from out-of-doors; or else that the drinking-water was frozen solid in the tubs and pails, that the meat must be thawed out,--this was only what was usual in the mountain region. The doleful, monotonous howling and the long, hungry yelling of the wolves down on the ice could be heard from the Gilje hills both by day and by night. The road on the lake lasted a long time. It was there till long into the spring thaw, though worn, unsafe, and blue with its dirt-brown mudstreak.

But when it did disappear, and the ice was melted by the heat of the sun, there lay on the steep hill behind the house a long line of bleaching linen, so shining white that it seemed as if the snow had forgotten to go away there.

_Chapter III_

It was midsummer. The mountain region was hazy in the heat; all the distance was as if enveloped in smoke. The girls on the farm went about barefooted, in waists and short petticoats. It was a scorching heat, so that the pitch ran in sticky white lines down from the fat knots in the timber of the newly built pigsty, where Marit was giving swill to the hogs. Some sand-scoured wooden milk-pans stood on edge by the well, drying, while one or two sparrows and wagtails hopped about or perched nodding on the well-curb, and the blows of the axe resounded from the wood-shed in the quiet of the afternoon. Pasop lay panting in the shade behind the outer door, which stood open.

The captain had finished his afternoon nap, and stood by the field looking at Great-Ola and the horses ploughing up an old grassland which was to be laid down again.

The bumble-bee was humming in the garden. With about the same monotonous voice, Thinka and Inger-Johanna, sitting by the stone table in the summer-house over the cracked blue book-cover and the dog-eared, well-thumbed leaves, mumbled the Catechism and Commentary, with elbows and heads close to each other. They had to learn pages eighty-four to eighty-seven before supper time, and they held their fingers in their ears so as not to disturb each other.

There was darkness like a shadow just outside of the garden fence. But they saw nothing, heard nothing; the long passage of Scripture went way over on the second page.

Then there was a gay clearing of a throat. "Might one interrupt the two young ladies with earthly affairs?"

They both looked up at the same time. The light hop leaves about the summer-house had not yet entirely covered the trellis.

With his arms leaning on the garden fence there stood a young man--he might have been standing there a long time--with a cap almost without a visor over thick brown hair. His face was sunburned and swollen.

The eyes, which gazed on them, looked dreadfully wicked.

Neither of them saw more; for, by a common impulse at the phenomenon, they ran in utter panic out of the door, leaving the books spread open behind them, and up the steps in to Ma, who was in the kitchen buttering bread for lunch.

"There was a man standing--there was a man out by the garden fence. It was certainly not any one who goes around begging or anything like that."

"Hear what he has to say, Jörgen," said Ma, quickly comprehending the situation; "this way, out the veranda door. Appear as if you came of your own accord."

Both the girls flew in to the windows of the best room in order to peep out under the curtains.

He was coming in by the steps to the outer door with Jörgen, who suddenly vanished from his sight into the kitchen.

Little Thea stood in the door of the sitting-room with a piece of bread and butter, clutching the latch, and, holding the door half shut and half open, stared at him; she was altogether out of it.

"Is your father at home?"

"Yes, but you must go by the kitchen path, do you hear? And wait till we have had lunch; he is not going up to the office before that." She took him for a man who was going to be put on the roll.

"But I am not going to the office, you see."

Ma herself came now; she had managed to get her cap on in her hurry, but it was all awry.

"A young man, I see, who has perhaps come a long distance to-day. Please walk in."

Her smile was kind, but her eye underneath it was as sharp as an officer's review; here were holes and darns with coarse thread for the nonce and rents in abundance, and it was not easy to free herself from the suspicion of some questionable rover, especially when he dropped straight in through the door with the remark: "I come like a tramp from the mountain wilds, madam. I must make many excuses."

Ma's searching look had in the mean time broken through the shell. The white streak on the upper part of the forehead, under the shade where the skin had not been reddened by the sunburn, and his whole manner determined her to scrutinize him prudently. "Please sit down, Jäger is coming soon." She incidentally passed by the sewing-table and shut it. "Won't you let me send you a glass of milk in the mean time?"

A girl came in with a great basin, shaped like a bowl, and vanished again.

He put it to his mouth, noted with his eye how much he had drunk, drank again, and took another view.

"It is delightful--is not at all like the mistress of the house, for she seemed like sour milk, and"--he suppressed a sigh--"dangerously dignified."

He drank again.

"Yes, now one really must stop; but since and whereas--"

He placed the basin quite empty on the plate.

"Best to attack him at once. Dead broke, will you on my honest face lend me four--no, that does not sound well, better out with it at once--five dollars, so that I can get to Christiania?"

The small eyes twinkled quickly. If only the captain had come then! Some one was walking about out there.

He gazed abstractedly; he repeated his speech to himself. It was always altered, and now he stood again at the ticklish point--the amount. He considered if perhaps he only needed to ask for four--three?

There was a growling out in the hall; the dog rushed out, barking loudly. It was plainly the captain.

The young man rose hurriedly, but sat down again like a spring ready to jump up out of a chair: he had been in too great haste.

"In the parlor--some sort of fellow who wants to talk with me?" It was out on the stairs that some one was speaking.

A moment or two later, and the captain appeared in the door.

"I must beg you to excuse me, Captain. I have unfortunately, unfortunately"--here he began to stammer; bad luck would have it that one of the two young girls whom he had seen in the summer-house, the dark one, came in after her father; and so it would not do--"come over the mountain," he continued. "You will understand that one cannot exactly appear in the best plight." The last came in a tone of forced ease.

The captain at that moment did not appear exactly agreeably surprised.

"My name is Arent Grip!"

"Arent Grip!" rejoined the captain, looking at him. "Grip! the same phiz and eyes! You can never be the son of Perpetuum--cadet at Lurleiken? He is a farmer, or proprietor I suppose he calls himself, somewhere among the fjords."

"He is my father, Captain."

"Does he still work as hard as ever at his mechanical ideas?" asked the captain. "I heard that he had carried the water for his mill straight through the roof of the cow-barn, so that the cows got a shower bath, when the pipes sprung a leak."

Inger-Johanna caught a movement of indignation, as if the stranger suddenly grasped after his cap. "Shame, shame, that those times did not give a man like my father a scientific education." He said this with a seriousness utterly oblivious of the captain.

"So, so. Well, my boy, you must be kind enough to take a little lunch with us, before you start off. Inger-Johanna, tell Ma that we want something to drink and bread and butter. You must be hungry coming down from the mountains. Sit down.--And what is now your--your occupation or profession in the world? if I might ask." The captain sauntered around the floor.

"Student; and, Captain," he gasped, in order to use quickly the moment while they were alone, "since I have been so free as to come in here thus without knowing you--"

"Student!" The captain stopped in the middle of the floor. "Yes, I would have risked my head on it, saw it at the first glance, but yet I was a little in doubt. Well, yes," clearing his throat, "nearly plucked, perhaps; eh, boy?" inquired he good-naturedly. "Your father also had trouble with his examinations."

"I have not the fractional part of my father's brains, but with what I have, they gave me this year _laudabilis praeceteris_."

"Son of my friend, Fin Arentzen Grip!" He uttered each one of the names with a certain tender recognition. "Your father was, all things considered, a man of good ability, not to say a little of a genius,--when he failed in his officer's examination, it was all due to his irregular notions. Well, so you are his son! Yes, he wrote many a composition for me--the pinch was always with the compositions, you see."

"And, Captain," began the young man again earnestly, now in a louder and more decided tone, "since I can thus, without further ceremony, confidently address you--"

"You can tell Ma," said the captain, when Inger-Johanna again came in with her taller, overgrown sister, "that it is Student Arent Grip, son of my old delightful comrade at the Military School."

The result of this last message was that the contemplated plate with a glass and bread and butter was changed to a little lunch for him and the captain, spread out on a tray.

The old bread-basket of red lacquer was filled with slices of black, sour bread, the crusts of which were cracked off. More's the pity, Ma declared, it had been spoiled in the baking, and the gray, heavy crust was due to the fact that so much of the grain on the captain's farm last year was harvested before it was ripe.

The student showed the sincerity of his forbearance of these defects through an absolutely murderous appetite. The prudential lumps of salt, which studded the fresh mountain butter with pearly tears in a superfluous abundance, he had a knack of dodging boldly and incisively, which did not escape admiring eyes; only a single short stroke of his knife on the under side of the bread and butter, and the lumps of salt rained and pattered over the plate.

"You will surely have some dried beef? I guess you have not had much to eat to-day. Go and get some more, Thinka. A little dram with the cheese, what? You can believe that we tested many a good old cheese in the den at your father's, and when we had a spree, we sent for it, and it circulated round from one party to another; and then the apples from Bergen which he got by the bushel by freighting-vessel from home! He was such a greenhorn, and so kind hearted--too confiding for such rascals as we! Oh, how we hunted through his closet and boxes!--and then we did our exercises at the same time; it was only his that the teacher corrected through the whole class." The captain emptied the second part of his long dram. "Ah!" He held his glass up against the light, and looked through it, as he was accustomed to. "But nevertheless, there was something odd about him, you know; you must see that such a one, straight from the country, does not fit in at once. Never forget when he first lectured us about perpetual motion. It was done with only five apples in a wheel, he said, and the apples must be absolutely mathematically exact. It was that which got out and ruined him, so people came to--yes, you know--comment on it, and make fun of him; and that hung on till the examination."

The student wriggled about.

The young ladies, who were sitting with their sewing by the window, also noticed how he had now forgotten himself; during the whole time he had kept one boot under the chair behind the other in order to conceal the sole of his shoes gaping wide open. They were in good spirits, and hardly dared to look at each other--son of a man who was called Perpetuum, was a cadet, and gave the cows a bath. Father was dreadfully amusing when there were strangers present.

"Not a moment's doubt that there were ideas--but there was something obstinate about him. To come, as he did, straight from the farm, and then to begin to dispute with the teacher about what is in the book, never succeeds well, especially in physics in the Military School. And you can believe that was a comedy."

"Then I will bet my head that it was not my father who was wrong, Captain."

"Hm, hm--naturally yes, his father to a dot," he mumbled--"Hm, well, you have got _praeceteris_ all the same,--will you have a drop more?" came the hospitable diversion.

"No, I thank you. But I will tell you how it was with my father. It was just as it was with a hound they had once at the judge's. There was such blood and spirit in him that you would search long to find his equal; but one day he bit a sheep, and so he had to be cured. It was done by locking him up in a sheepfold. There he stood, alone before the ram and all the sheepfold. It seemed to him splendid fun. Then the ram came leaping at him, and the dog rolled heels over head. Pshaw, that was nothing; but after the ram came tripping--before he could rise--all the fifty sheep trip--trip--trip, over him; then he was entirely confused. Again they stood opposite each other, and once more the ram rushed in on the dog, and trip--trip--trip--trip, came the feet of the whole flock of sheep over him. So they kept on for fully two hours, until the dog lay perfectly quiet and completely stunned. He was cured, never bit a sheep again. But what he was good for afterwards we had better not talk about--he had been through the Military School, Captain."

When he looked up, he met the dark, intense eyes of the mistress fixed on him; her capped head immediately bent down over the sewing again.

The captain had listened more and more eagerly. The cure of the hound interested him. It was only at the last expression he discovered that there was any hidden meaning in it.

"Hm--my dear Grip. Ah! Yes, you think that. Hm, can't agree with you. There were skilful teachers, and--ho, ho,--really we were not sheep--rather wolves to meet with, my boy. But the cure, I must admit, was disgraceful for a good dog, and in so far--well, a drop more?"

"Thank you, Captain."

"But what kind of a road do you say you have been over, my boy?"

With the food and the glass and a half of cordial which he had enjoyed, new life had come into the young man. He looked at his clothes, and was even so bold as to put his boots out; a great seam went across one knee.