Part 5

"I certainly might be set up as a scarecrow for a terror and warning to all those who will depart from the highway. It was all because at the post station I met a deer-hunter, an excellent fellow. The chap talked to me so long of what there was on the mountain that I wanted to go with him."

"Extremely reasonable," muttered the captain, "when a man is paying for his son in Christiania."

"I had become curious, I must tell you, and so started off for the heart of the mountains."

"Is he not even more aggravatingly mad than his father,--to start in haphazard over the black, pathless mountain?"

"The track led over the débris and stones at the foot at first for five hours. But I don't know what it is upon the mountain; it was as if something got into my legs. The air was so fine and light, as if I had been drinking champagne; it intoxicated me. I should have liked to walk on my hands, and it would have been of no consequence to any one in the whole wide world, for I was on the summit. And never in my life have I seen such a view as when we stood, in the afternoon, on the mountain crest,--only cool, white, shining snow, and dark blue sky, peak on peak, one behind the other, in a glory as far as the eye could reach."

"Yes, we have snow enough, my boy. It stands close up against the walls of the house here all winter, as clear, white, and cold as any one could wish. We find ourselves very well satisfied with that,--but show me a beautiful green meadow or a fine field of grain, my boy."

"It seemed to me as if one great fellow of a mountain stood by the side of another and said: You poor, thin-legged, puny being, are you not going to be blown away in the blue draught, here on the snow-field, like a scrap of paper? If you wish to know what is great, take your standard from us."

"You got _praeceteris_, you said, my man? Yes, yes, yes, yes! What do you say if we get the shoemaker to put a little patch on your shoes to-night?"

It was as much as an invitation to stay all night!--Extremely tempting to postpone the request till next day. "Thank you, Captain, I will not deny that it might be decidedly practical."

"Tell the shoemaker, Jörgen, to take them as soon as he has put the heel-irons on those I am to have for the survey of the roads."

Oh! So he is going away, perhaps early to-morrow morning; it must be done this evening, nevertheless! Now, when the daughters were beginning to clear off the table, it was best to watch his chance.

The captain began walking up and down the floor with short steps. "Yes, yes, true! Yes, yes, true! Would you like to see some fine pigs, Grip?"

The student immediately sprang up. The way out! He grabbed his cap. "Do you keep many, Captain?" he asked, extremely interested.

"Come!--oh, it is no matter about going through the kitchen--come out a little while on the porch steps. Do you see that light spot in the woods up there? That is where we took the timber for the cow-house and the pigsty, two years ago."

He went out into the farmyard bare-headed.

"Marit, Marit, here is some one who wants to see your pigs. Now you shall be reviewed. There are a sow and seven--you see. Ugh, ugh, yes. Hear your little ones, Marit!--But it was the brick wall, you see. Right here was a swamp hole; it oozed through from the brook above. And now--see the drain there?--as dry as tinder."

Now or never the petition must be presented.

"And now they live like lords all together there," continued the captain.

"All seven of the dollars--what am I saying, all five of the pigs."

"What?"

"Here is your hat, father!"--Jörgen came from the house--"and there are some of the people down from Fosse standing there and waiting."

"So? We will only just look into the stable a little."

There stood Svarten and Brunen, just unharnessed, still dripping wet and with stiff hair after the work at the plough.

"Fine stall, eh?--and very light; the horses don't come out of the door half blind. Ho, Svarten, are you sweaty now?"

There was a warm and pleasant smell of the stable--and finally--

"Captain, I am going to make a re--"

"But, Ola," interrupted the latter, "see Brunen's crib there! I don't like those bits. It can't be that he bites it?"

"Ha, ha, ha--no, by no means." Ola grinned slyly; he was not going to admit in a stranger's presence that the captain's new bay was a cribber!

The captain had become very red; he pulled off his cap, and hurriedly walked along with it in his hand--"such a rascal of a horse-trader!"

He no longer looked as if he would listen to a request.

Out of the afternoon shade by the stable walls the two men just spoken of appeared.

"Is this a time of day to come to people?" he blurted out. "Ah well--go up to the office."

At this he strode over the yard, peeped into the well, and turned towards the window of the sitting-room.

"Girls! Inger-Johanna--Thinka," he called in a loud tone. "Ask Ma if that piece of meat is going to lie there by the well and rot."

"Marit has taken it up, we are going to have it for supper," Thinka tried to whisper.

"Oh! Is it necessary on that account to keep it where Pasop can get it?--Show the student down into the garden, so that he can get some currants," he called out of the door, as he went up by the stables to his office.

Arent Grip's head, covered with thick brown hair, with the scanty flat cap upon it, could now be seen for a good long time among the currant bushes by the side of Thinka's little tall, blond one. At first he talked a great deal, and the sprightly, bright, brown eyes were not in the least wicked, Thinka thought. She began to feel rather a warm interest in him.

He found his boots in the morning standing mended before his bed, and a tray with coffee and breakfast came up to him. He had said he must be off early.

Now it all depended on making his decisive leap with closed eyes in the dark.

When he came down, the captain stood on the stairs with his pipe. Over his fat neck, where the buckle of his military stock shone, grayish locks of hair stuck out under his reddish wig. He was looking out a little discontentedly into the morning fog, speculating on whether it would settle or rise so that he would dare order the mowing to go on.

"So you are going to start, my boy?"

"Captain, can--will you lend me--" in his first courage of the morning he had thought of five, but it sank to four even while he was on the stairs, and now in the presence of the captain to--"three dollars? I have used up every shilling I had to get to Christiania with. You shall have them by money order immediately."

The captain hemmed and hawed. He had almost suspected something of the sort yesterday in the fellow's face--yes, such a student was the kind of a fellow to send back a money order!

There began to be a sort of an ugly grin on his face. But suddenly he assumed a good-natured, free and easy mien. "Three dollars, you say?--If I had three in the house, my boy! But here, by fits and starts in the summer, it is as if the ready money was clean swept away." He stuck his unoccupied hand in the breast of his uniform coat, and looked vacantly out into the air. "Ah! hm-hm," came after a dreadfully oppressive pause. "If I was only sure of getting them back again, I would see if I could pick up three or four shillings at any rate in Ma's household box--so that you could get down to the sheriff or the judge. They are excellent people, I know them; they help at the first word."

The captain, puffing vigorously at his pipe, went into the kitchen to Ma, who was standing in the pantry and dealing out the breakfast. She had the hay-making and the whole of the outside affairs upon her shoulders.

He was away quite a little time.

"Well, if Ma did not have the three dollars after all! So I have got them for you. And so good-by from Gilje! Let us hear when you get there."

"You shall hear in a money order," and the student strode jubilantly away.

It is true that at first Ma had stopped for a moment and pinched her lips together, and then she had declared as her most settled opinion that, if the captain was going to help at all, it must be with all three. He did not seem one of those who shirked everything--was not one who was all surface--and it would not do at all to let him beg at the judge's, the sheriff's, and perhaps the minister's, because he could not get a loan of more than three shillings at Gilje.

From time to time Thinka told of all that she and the student had talked about together.

"What did he say then?" urged Inger-Johanna.

"Oh, he was entertaining almost all the time; I have never heard any one so entertaining."

"Yes, but do you remember that he said anything?"

"Oh, yes, he asked why you were reading French. Perhaps you were to be trained to be a parrot, so that you could chatter when you came to the city.

"So,--how did he know that I was going to the city?"

"He asked how old you were; and then I said that you were to be confirmed and to go there. He was very well acquainted at the governor's house; he had done extra writing, or something of that sort, at the office, since he had been a student."

"That kind of acquaintance, yes."

"But you wouldn't suit exactly there, he said; and do you know why?"

"No."

"Do you want to know? He thought you had too much backbone."

"What--did he say?"

She wrinkled her eyebrows and looked up sharply, so that Thinka hastened to add: "Whoever comes there must be able to wind like a sewing thread around the governor's wife, he said; it would be a shame for your beautiful neck to get a twist so early."

Inger-Johanna threw her head back and smiled: "Did you ever hear such a man!"

* * * * *

Thinka had gone to Ryfylke. Her place at the table, in the living-room, in the bed-chamber, was empty air. The captain started out time after time to call her.

And now the last afternoon had come, when Inger-Johanna was also going away.

The sealskin trunk with new iron bands stood open in the hall ready for packing. The cariole was standing in the shed, greased so that the oil was running out of the ends of the axles, and Great-Ola, who was to start the next morning on the three days' journey, was giving Svarten oats.

The captain had been terribly busy that day: no one understood how to pack as he did.

Ma handed over to him one piece of the new precious stuff after the other; the linen from Gilje would bear the eye of the governor's wife.

But the misfortune of it was that the blood rushed so to Jäger's head when he stooped over.

"Hullo, good! I don't understand what you are thinking of, Ma, to come with all that load of cotton stockings at once! It is this, this, this I want."

Naturally, used to travelling as he was--"But it is so bad for you to stoop over, Jäger."

He straightened up hurriedly. "Do you think Great-Ola has the wit to rub Svarten with Riga liniment on the bruise on his neck and to take the bottle with him in his bag? If I had not thought of that now, Svarten would have had to trot with it. Run down and tell him that, Thea.--Oh, no!" he drew a despairing breath; "I must go myself, and see that it is done right."

There was a pause until his footfall had ceased to creak on the lowest step. Then Ma began to pack with precipitous haste: "It is best to spare your father from the rush of blood to his head."

The contents of the trunk rose layer upon layer, until the white napkin was at last spread over it and covered the whole, and it only remained to sit upon the lid and force the key to turn in the lock.

Towards supper time the worst hubbub and trouble were over. Ma's hasty-pudding, as smooth as velvet, with raspberry sauce, was standing on the table, and solemnly reminded them that again there would be one less in the daily circle.

They ate in silence without any other sound than the rattling of the spoons.

"There, child, take my large cup. Take it when your father bids you."

Certainly she is beautiful, the apple of his eye. Only look at her hands when she is eating! She is as delicate and pale as a nun.

He sighed, greatly down-hearted, and shoved his plate from him.

Tears burst from Inger-Johanna's eyes.

No one would have any more.

Now he walked and whistled and gazed on the floor.

It was a pity to see how unhappy father was.

"You must write every month, child--at length and about everything--do you hear?--large and small, whatever you are thinking of, so that your father may have something to take pleasure in," Ma admonished, while they were clearing off the table. "And listen now, Inger-Johanna," she continued when they were alone in the pantry: "If it is so that the governor's wife wants to read your letters, then put a little cross by the signature. But if there is anything the matter, tell it to old Aunt Alette out in the bishop's mansion; then I shall know it when Great-Ola is in for the city load. You know your father can bear so little that is disagreeable."

"The governor's wife read what I write to you and father! That I will defy her to do."

"You must accommodate yourself to her wishes, child. You can do it easily when you try, and your aunt is extremely kind and good to those she likes, when she has things her own way. You know how much may depend on her liking you, and--you understand--getting a little fond of you. She has certainly not asked you there without thinking of keeping you in the place of a daughter."

"Any one else's daughter? Take me from you and father? No, in that case I would rather never go there."

She seated herself on the edge of the meal-chest and began to sob violently.

"Come, come, Inger-Johanna." Ma stroked her hair with her hand. "We do not wish to lose you; you know that well enough,"--her voice trembled. "It is for your own advantage, child. What do you think you three girls have to depend upon, if your father should be taken away? We must be glad if a place offers, and even take good care not to lose it; remember that, always remember that, Inger-Johanna. You have intelligence enough, if you can also learn to control your will; that is your danger, child."

Inger-Johanna looked up at her mother with an expression almost of terror. She had a bitter struggle to understand. In her, in whom she had always found aid, there was suddenly a glimpse of the helpless.

"I can hardly bear to lose the young one out of my sight to-night, and you leave me alone in there," came the captain, creaking in the door. "You haven't a thought of how desolate and lonesome it will be for me, Ma." He blew out like a whale.

"We are all coming in now, and perhaps father will sing a little this evening," Ma said encouragingly.

The captain's fine, now a little hoarse, bass was his pride and renown from his youth up.

The clavichord was cleared of its books and papers--the cover must be entirely lifted when father was to sing.

It stood there with its yellow teeth, its thin, high tone, and its four dead keys; and Ma must play the accompaniment, in which always, in some part or other, she was left lying behind, like a sack that has fallen out of a wagon, while the horse patiently trots on over the road. His impatience she bore with stoical tranquillity.

This evening he went through _Heimkringlas panna_, _du höga Nord_, and _Vikingebalken_, to

_Lo! the chase's empress cometh! Hapless Frithjof, glance away! Like a star on spring cloud sitteth she upon her courser gray._

He sang so that the window-panes rattled.

_Chapter IV_

The year had turned. It was as long after Christmas as the middle of February.

In the evening the captain was sitting, with two candles in tin candlesticks, smoking and reading _Hermoder_. At the other end of the table the light was used by Jörgen, who was studying his lessons; he must worry out the hours that had been assigned, whether he knew the lessons or not.

The frosty panes shone almost as white as marble in the moonlight, which printed the whole of a pale window on the door panel in the lower, unlighted end of the sitting-room.

Certainly there were bells!

Jörgen raised his head, covered with coarse, yellow hair, from his book. It was the second time he had heard them, far away on the hill; but, like the sentinels of Haakon Adelstensfostre at the beacon, of whom he was just reading, he did not dare to jump up from his reading and give the alarm until he was sure.

"I think there are bells on the road," he gently remarked, "far off."

"Nonsense! attend to your lesson."

But, notwithstanding he pretended that he was deeply absorbed in the esthetic depths of _Hermoder_, the captain also sat with open ears.

"The trader's bells--they are so dull and low," Jörgen put in again.

"If you disturb me again, Jörgen, you shall hear the bells about your own ears."

The trader, Öjseth, was the last one the captain could think of wishing to see at the farm. He kept writing and writing after those paltry thirty dollars of his, as if he believed he would lose them. "Hm! hm!" He grew somewhat red in the face, and read on, determined not to see the man before he was standing in the room.

The bells plainly stopped before the door.

"Hm! hm!"

Jörgen moved uneasily.

"If you move off the spot, boy, I'll break your arms and legs in pieces!" foamed the captain, now red as copper. "Sit--sit still and read!"

He intended also to sit still himself. That scoundrel of a trader--he should fasten his horse himself at the doorsteps, and help himself as he could.

"I hear them talking--Great-Ola."

"Hold your tongue!" said the captain in a murderous deep bass, and with a pair of eyes fixed on his son as if he could eat him.

"Yes; but, father, it is really--"

A pull on his forelock and a box on the ears sent him across the floor.

"The doctor," roared Jörgen.

The truth of his martyrdom was established in the same moment, because the short, square form of the military doctor appeared in the door.

His fur coat was all unbuttoned, and the tip of his long scarf trailed behind him on the threshold. He held his watch out: "What time is it?"

"Now, then, may the devil take your body and soul to hell, where you long ago belonged, if it isn't you, Rist!"

"What time is it? I say--Look!"

"And here I go and lick Jörgen for--well, well, boy, you shall be excused from your lesson and can ask for syrup on your porridge this evening. Go out to Ma, and tell her Rist is here."

The captain opened the kitchen door: "Hullo, Marit! Siri! A girl in here to pull off the doctor's boots! All the diseases of the country are in your clothes."

"What time is it, I say--can you see?"

"Twenty-five minutes of seven."

"Twenty-one miles in two hours and a quarter--from Jölstad here, with my bay!"

The doctor had got his fur coat off. The short, muscular man, with broad face and reddish-gray whiskers, stood there in a fur cap, swallowed up in a pair of long travelling boots.

"No, no," he exclaimed to the girl, who was making an effort to pull them off. "Oh, listen, Jäger; will you go out and feel of the bay's hind leg, if there is a wind-gall? He began to stumble a little, just here on the hill, I thought, and to limp."

"He has very likely got bruised." The captain eagerly grabbed his hat from the clavichord and went with him.

Outside by the sleigh they stood, thinly clothed in the severe frost, and felt over the hamstring and lifted up the left hind foot of the bay. For a final examination, they went into the stable.

When they came out there was a veritable wild dispute.

"I tell you, you might just as well have said he had glanders in his hind legs. If you are not a better judge of curing men than you are of horses, I wouldn't give four shillings for your whole medical examination."

"That brown horse of yours, Jäger--that is a strange fodder he takes. Doesn't he content himself with crib-splinters?" retorted the doctor, slyly bantering.

"What? Did you see that, you--knacker?"

"Heard it, heard it; he gnawed like a saw there in the crib. He has cheated you unmercifully--that man from Filtvedt, you know."

"Oh, oh, in a year he will be tall enough for a cavalry horse. But this I shall concede, it was a good trade when you got the bay for sixty-five."

"Sixty and a binding dram, not a doit more. But I would not sell him, if you offered me a hundred on the spot."

Ma was waiting in her parlor.

Now, it was Aslak of Vaelta who had cut his foot last Thursday hewing timber--Ma had bandaged him--and then Anders, who lived in the cottage, was in a lung fever. The parish clerk had been there and bled him; six children up in that hut--not good if he should be taken away.

"We will put a good Spanish-fly blister on his back, and, if that does not make him better, then a good bleeding in addition."

"He came near fainting the last time," suggested Ma, doubtfully.

"Bleed--bleed--it is the blood which must be got away from the chest, or the inflammation will make an end of him. I will go and see him to-morrow morning--and for Thea's throat, camphor oil and a piece of woollen cloth, and to bed to sweat--and a good spoonful of castor-oil to-night--you can also rub the old beggar woman about the body with camphor, if she complains too much. I will give you some more."

After supper the old friend of the house sat with his pipe and his glass of punch at one end of the sofa, and the captain at the other. The red tint of the doctor's nose and cheeks was not exclusively to be attributed to the passage from the cold to the snug warmth of the room. He had the reputation of rather frequently consoling his bachelorhood with ardent spirits.