IV

I was never short of game those days, but shot all I cared to--a hare, a

grouse, a ptarmigan--and when I happened to be down near the shore and

came within range of some seabird or other, I shot it too. It was a

pleasant time; the days grew longer and the air clearer; I packed up

things for a couple of days and set off up into the hills, up to the

mountain peaks. I met reindeer Lapps, and they gave me cheese--rich

little cheeses tasting of herbs. I went up that way more than once.

Then, going home again, I always shot some bird or other to put in my

bag. I sat down and put Æsop on the lead. Miles below me was the sea;

the mountainsides were wet and black with the water running down them,

dripping and trickling always with the same little sound. That little

sound of the water far up on the hills has shortened many an hour for me

when I sat looking about. Here, I thought to myself, is a little endless

song trickling away all to itself, and no one ever hears it, and no one

ever thinks of it, and still it trickles on nevertheless, to itself, all

the time, all the time! And I felt that the mountains were no longer

quite deserted, as long as I could hear that little trickling song. Now

and again something would happen: a clap of thunder shaking the earth, a

mass of rock slipping loose and rushing down towards the sea, leaving a

trail of smoking dust behind. Æsop turned his nose to the wind at once,

sniffing in surprise at the smell of burning that he could not

understand. When the melting of the snow had made rifts in the hillside,

a shot, or even a sharp cry, was enough to loosen a great block and send

it tumbling down...

An hour might pass, or perhaps more--the time went so quickly. I let

Æsop loose, slung my bag over the other shoulder, and set off towards

home. It was getting late. Lower down in the forest, I came unfailingly

upon my old, well-known path, a narrow ribbon of a path, with the

strangest bends and turns. I followed each one of them, taking my

time--there was no hurry. No one waiting for me at home. Free as a

lord, a ruler, I could ramble about there in the peaceful woods, just as

idly as I pleased. All the birds were silent; only the grouse was

calling far away--it was always calling.

I came out of the wood and saw two figures ahead, two persons moving. I

came up with them. One was Edwarda, and I recognized her, and gave a

greeting; the Doctor was with her. I had to show them my gun; they

looked at my compass, my bag; I invited them to my hut, and they

promised to come some day.

It was evening now. I went home and lit a fire, roasted a bird, and had

a meal. To-morrow there would be another day...

All things quiet and still. I lay that evening looking out the window.

There was a fairy glimmer at that hour over wood and field; the sun had

gone down, and dyed the horizon with a rich red light that stood there

still as oil. The sky all open and clean; I stared into that clear sea,

and it seemed as if I were lying face to face with the uttermost depth

of the world; my heart beating tensely against it, and at home there.

God knows, I thought to myself, God knows why the sky is dressed in gold

and mauve to-night, if there is not some festival going on up there in

the world, some great feast with music from the stars, and boats gliding

along river ways. It looks so!--And I closed my eyes, and followed the

boats, and thoughts and thoughts floated through my mind...

So more than one day passed.

I wandered about, noting how the snow turned to water, how the ice

loosed its hold. Many a day I did not even fire a shot, when I had food

enough in the hut--only wandered about in my freedom, and let the time

pass. Whichever way I turned, there was always just as much to see

and hear--all things changing a little every day. Even the osier

thickets and the juniper stood waiting for the spring. One day I went

out to the mill; it was still icebound, but the earth around it had been

trampled through many and many a year, showing how men and more men had

come that way with sacks of corn on their shoulders, to be ground. It

was like walking among human beings to go there; and there were many

dates and letters cut in the walls.

Well, well...

V

Shall I write more? No, no. Only a little for my own amusement's sake,

and because it passes the time for me to tell of how the spring came two

years back, and how everything looked then. Earth and sea began to smell

a little; there was a sweetish, rotting smell from the dead leaves in

the wood, and the magpies flew with twigs in their beaks, building their

nests. A couple of days more, and the brooks began to swell and foam;

here and there a butterfly was to be seen, and the fishermen came home

from their stations. The trader's two boats came in laden deep with

fish, and anchored off the drying grounds; there was life and commotion

all of a sudden out on the biggest of the islands, where the fish were

to be spread on the rocks to dry. I could see it all from my window.

But no noise reached the hut; I was alone, and remained so. Now and

again someone would pass. I saw Eva, the blacksmith's girl; she had got

a couple of freckles on her nose.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“Out for firewood,” she answered quietly. She had a rope in her hand to

carry the wood, and her white kerchief on her head. I stood watching

her, but she did not turn round.

After that I saw no one for days.

The spring was urging, and the forest listened; it was a great delight

to watch the thrushes sitting in the tree-tops staring at the sun and

crying; sometimes I would get up as early as two in the morning, just

for a share of the joy that went out from bird and beast at sunrise.

The spring had reached me too, maybe, and my blood beat at times as if

it were footsteps. I sat in the hut, and thought of overhauling my

fishing rods and lines and gear, but moved never a finger to any work at

all, for a glad, mysterious restlessness that was in and out of my heart

all the while. Then suddenly Æsop sprang up, stood and stiffened, and

gave a short bark. Someone coming to the hut! I pulled off my cap

quickly, and heard Edwarda's voice already at the door. Kindly and

without ceremony she and the Doctor had come to pay me a visit, as they

had said.

“Yes,” I heard her say, “he is at home.” And she stepped forward, and

gave me her hand in her simple girlish way. “We were here yesterday, but

you were out,” she said.

She sat down on the rug over my wooden bedstead and looked round the

hut; the Doctor sat down beside me on the long bench. We talked, chatted

away at ease; I told them things, such as what kinds of animals there

were in the woods, and what game I could not shoot because of the closed

season. It was the closed season for grouse just now.

The Doctor did not say much this time either, but catching sight of my

powder-horn, with a figure of Pan carved on it, he started to explain

the myth of Pan.

“But,” said Edwarda suddenly, “what do you live on when it's closed

season for all game?”

“Fish,” I said. “Fish mostly. But there's always something to eat.”

“But you might come up to us for your meals,” she said. “There was an

Englishman here last year--he had taken the hut--and he often came to us

for meals.”

Edwarda looked at me and I at her. I felt at the moment something

touching my heart like a little fleeting welcome. It must have been the

spring, and the bright day; I have thought it over since. Also, I

admired the curve of her eyebrows.

She said something about my place; how I had arranged things in the hut.

I had hung up skins of several sorts on the walls, and birds' wings; it

looked like a shaggy den on the inside. She liked it. “Yes, a den,” she

said.

I had nothing to offer my visitors that they would care about; I thought

of it, and would have roasted a bird for them, just for amusement--let

them eat it hunter's fashion, with their fingers. It might amuse them.

And I cooked the bird.

Edwarda told about the Englishman. An old man, an eccentric, who talked

aloud to himself. He was a Roman Catholic, and always carried a little

prayer-book, with red and black letters, about with him wherever he

went.

“Was he an Irishman then?” asked the Doctor.

“An Irishman...?”

“Yes--since he was a Roman Catholic.”

Edwarda blushed, and stammered and looked away.

“Well, yes, perhaps he was an Irishman.”

After that she lost her liveliness. I felt sorry for her, and tried to

put matters straight again. I said:

“No, of course you are right: he was an Englishman. Irishmen don't go

travelling about in Norway.”

We agreed to row over one day and see the fish-drying grounds...

When I had seen my visitors a few steps on their way, I walked home

again and sat down to work at my fishing gear. My hand-net had been hung

from a nail by the door, and several of the meshes were damaged by rust;

I sharpened up some hooks, knotted them to lengths of line, and looked

to the other nets. How hard it seemed to do any work at all to-day!

Thoughts that had nothing to do with the business in hand kept coming

and going; it occurred to me that I had done wrong in letting Edwarda

sit on the bed all the time, instead of offering her a seat on the

bench. I saw before me suddenly her brown face and neck; she had

fastened her apron a little low down in front, to be long-waisted, as

was the fashion; the girlish contour of her thumb affected me tenderly,

and the little wrinkles above the knuckle were full of kindliness. Her

mouth was large and rich.

I rose up and opened the door and looked out. I could hear nothing, and

indeed there was nothing to listen for. I closed the door again; Æsop

came up from his resting-place and noticed that I was restless about

something. Then it struck me that I might run after Edwarda and ask her

for a little silk thread to mend my net with. It would not be any

pretence--I could take down the net and show her where the meshes were

spoiled by rust. I was already outside the door when I remembered that I

had silk thread myself in my fly-book; more indeed than I wanted. And I

went back slowly, discouraged--to think that I had silk thread myself.

A breath of something strange met me as I entered the hut again; it

seemed as if I were no longer alone there.