speak the word only....'" He threw himself forward, hid his face in
his hands, and sobbed violently. Then, after lying thus a long while,
he said, word for word out of the Scriptures, just as he had learned
it more than twenty years ago, "'But he answered and said, I am not
sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Then came she
and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. But he answered and said,
It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs.
And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall
from their master's table.'"
Then he was silent, and his weeping became subdued and calm.
The mother had been long awake, without looking up; but now when she
heard him weeping thus like one who is saved, she raised herself on
her elbows, and gazed earnestly at him.
But scarcely did Nils perceive her before he called out, "Are you
looking up, you ugly vixen! I suppose you would like to see what a
state you have brought me to. Well, so I look, just so!" ... He rose;
and she hid herself under the fur coverlet. "Nay, don't hide, I'm
sure to find you," he said, stretching out his right hand and
fumbling with his forefinger on the bed-clothes, "Tickle, tickle," he
said, turning aside the fur coverlet, and putting his forefinger on
her throat.
"Father!" cried Arne.
"How shrivelled and thin you've become already, there's no depth of
flesh here!" She writhed beneath his touch, and seized his hand with
both hers, but could not free herself.
"Father!" repeated Arne.
"Well at last you're roused. How she wriggles, the ugly thing! Can't
you scream to make believe I am beating you? Tickle, tickle! I only
want to take away your breath."
"Father!" Arne said once more, running to the corner of the room, and
snatching up an axe which stood there.
"Is it only out of perverseness, you don't scream? you had better
beware; for I've taken such a strange fancy into my head. Tickle,
tickle! Now I think I shall soon get rid of that screaming of yours."
"Father!" Arne shouted, rushing towards him with the axe uplifted.
But before Arne could reach him, he started up with a piercing cry,
laid his hand upon his heart, and fell heavily down. "Jesus Christ!"
he muttered, and then lay quite still.
Arne stood as if rooted in the ground, and gradually lowered the axe.
He grew dizzy and bewildered, and scarcely knew where he was. Then
the mother began to move to and fro in the bed, and to breathe
heavily, as if oppressed by some great weight lying upon her. Arne
saw that she needed help; but yet he felt unable to render it. At
last she raised herself a little, and saw the father lying stretched
on the floor, and Arne standing beside him with the axe.
"Merciful Lord, what have you done?" she cried, springing out of the
bed, putting on her skirt and coming nearer.
"He fell down himself," said Arne, at last regaining power to speak.
"Arne, Arne, I don't believe you," said the mother in a stern
reproachful voice: "now Jesus help you!" And she threw herself upon
the dead man with loud wailing.
But the boy awoke from his stupor, dropped the axe and fell down on
his knees: "As true as I hope for mercy from God, I've not done it. I
almost thought of doing it; I was so bewildered; but then he fell
down himself; and here I've been standing ever since."
The mother looked at him, and believed him. "Then our Lord has been
here Himself," she said quietly, sitting down on the floor and gazing
before her.
Nils lay quite stiff, with open eyes and mouth, and hands drawn near
together, as though he had at the last moment tried to fold them, but
had been unable to do so. The first thing the mother now did was to
fold them. "Let us look closer at him," she said then, going over to
the fireplace, where the fire was almost out. Arne followed her, for
he felt afraid of standing alone. She gave him a lighted fir-splinter
to hold; then she once more went over to the dead body and stood by
one side of it, while the son stood at the other, letting the light
fall upon it.
"Yes, he's quite gone," she said; and then, after a little while, she
continued, "and gone in an evil hour, I'm afraid."
Arne's hands trembled so much that the burning ashes of the splinter
fell upon the father's clothes and set them on fire; but the boy did
not perceive it, neither did the mother at first, for she was
weeping. But soon she became aware of it through the bad smell, and
she cried out in fear. When now the boy looked, it seemed to him as
though the father himself was burning, and he dropped the splinter
upon him, sinking down in a swoon. Up and down, and round and round,
the room moved with him; the table moved, the bed moved; the axe
hewed; the father rose and came to him; and then all of them came
rolling upon him. Then he felt as if a soft cooling breeze passed
over his face; and he cried out and awoke. The first thing he did was
to look at the father, to assure himself that he still lay quietly.
And a feeling of inexpressible happiness came over the boy's mind
when he saw that the father was dead--really dead; and he rose as
though he were entering upon a new life.
The mother had extinguished the burning clothes, and began to lay out
the body. She made the bed, and then said to Arne, "Take hold of your
father, you're so strong, and help me to lay him nicely." They laid
him on the bed, and Margit shut his eyes and mouth, stretched his
limbs, and folded his hands once more.
Then they both stood looking at him. It was only a little past
midnight, and they had to stay there with him till morning. Arne made
a good fire, and the mother sat down by it. While sitting there, she
looked back upon the many miserable days she had passed with Nils,
and she thanked God for taking him away. "But still I had some happy
days with him, too," she said after a while.
Arne took a seat opposite her; and, turning to him, she went on, "And
to think that he should have such an end as this! even if he has not
lived as he ought, truly he has suffered for it." She wept, looked
over to the dead man, and continued, "But now God grant I may be
repaid for all I have gone through with him. Arne, you must remember
it was for your sake I suffered it all." The boy began to weep too.
"Therefore, you must never leave me," she sobbed; "you are now my
only comfort."
"I never will leave you; that I promise before God," the boy said, as
earnestly as if he had thought of saying it for years. He felt a
longing to go over to her; yet he could not.
She grew calmer, and, looking kindly over at the dead man, she said,
"After all, there was a great deal of good in him; but the world
dealt hardly by him.... But now he's gone to our Lord, and He'll be
kinder to him, I'm sure." Then, as if she had been following out this
thought within herself, she added, "We must pray for him. If I could,
I would sing over him; but you, Arne, have such a fine voice, you
must go and sing to your father."
Arne fetched the hymn-book and lighted a fir-splinter; and, holding
it in one hand and the book in the other, he went to the head of the
bed and sang in a clear voice Kingo's 127th hymn:
"Regard us again in mercy, O God!
And turn Thou aside Thy terrible rod,
That now in Thy wrath laid on us we see
To chasten us sore for sin against Thee."
V.
"HE HAD IN HIS MIND A SONG."
Arne was now in his twentieth year. Yet he continued tending the
cattle upon the mountains in the summer, while in the winter he
remained at home studying.
About this time the clergyman sent a message, asking him to become
the parish schoolmaster, and saying his gifts and knowledge might
thus be made useful to his neighbors. Arne sent no answer; but the
next day, while he was driving his flock, he made the following
verses:
"O, my pet lamb, lift your head,
Though a stony path you tread,
Over all the lonely fells,
Only follow still your bells.
O, my pet lamb, walk with care;
Lest you spoil your wool, beware:
Mother now must soon be sewing
New lamb-skins, for summer's going.
O, my pet lamb, try to grow
Fat and fine where'er you go:
Know you not, my little sweeting,
A spring-lamb is dainty eating?"
One day he happened to overhear a conversation between his mother and
the late owner of the place: they were at odds about the horse of
which they were joint-owners. "I must wait and hear what Arne says,"
interposed the mother. "That sluggard!" the man exclaimed; "he would
like the horse to ramble about in the wood, just as he does himself."
Then the mother became silent, though before she had been pleading
her cause well.
Arne flushed crimson. That his mother had to bear people's jeers on
his account, never before occurred to him, and, "Perhaps she had
borne many," he thought. "But why had she not told him of it?" he
thought again.
He turned the matter over, and then it came into his mind that the
mother scarcely ever talked to him at all. But, then, he scarcely
ever talked to her either. But, after all, whom did he talk much to?
Often on Sundays, when he was sitting quietly at home, he would have
liked to read the sermon to his mother, whose eyes were weak, for she
had wept too much in her time. Still, he did not read it. Often, too,
on weekdays, when she was sitting down, and he thought the time might
hang heavy, he would have liked to offer to read some of his own
books to her: still, he did not.
"Well, never mind," thought he: "I'll soon leave off tending the
cattle on the mountains; and then I'll be more with mother." He let
this resolve ripen within him for several days: meanwhile he drove
his cattle far about in the wood, and made the following verses:
"The vale is full of trouble, but here sweet Peace may reign;
Within this quiet forest no bailiffs may distrain;
None fight, like all in the vale, in the Blessed Church's name;
But still if a church were here, perhaps 'twould be just the same.
Here all are at peace--true, the hawk is rather unkind;
I fear he is looking now the plumpest sparrow to find;
I fear yon eagle is coming to rob the kid of his breath;
But still if he lived very long he might be tired to death.
The woodman fells one tree, and another rots away:
The red fox killed the lambkin at sunset yesterday;
But the wolf killed the fox; and the wolf, too, had to die,
For Arne shot him down to-day before the dew was dry.
Back I'll go to the valley: the forest is just as bad--
I must take heed, however, or thinking will drive me mad--
I saw a boy in my dreams, though where I cannot tell--
But I know he had killed his father, and I think it was in hell."
Then he went home and told the mother she might send for a lad to
tend the cattle on the mountains; and that he would himself manage
the farm: and so it was arranged. But the mother was constantly
hovering about him, warning him not to work too hard. Then, too, she
used to get him such nice meals that he often felt quite ashamed to
take them; yet he said nothing.
He had in his mind a song having for its burden, "Over the mountains
high;" but he never could complete it, principally because he always
tried to bring the burden in every alternate line; so afterwards he
gave this up.
But several of his songs became known, and were much liked; and many
people, especially those who had known him from his childhood, were
fond of talking to him. But he was shy to all whom he did not know,
and he thought ill of them, mainly because he fancied they thought
ill of him.
In the next field to his own worked a middle-aged man named
Opplands-Knut, who used sometimes to sing, but always the same song.
After Arne had heard him singing it for several months, he thought he
would ask him whether he did not know any others. "No," Knut
answered. Then after a few more days, when he was again singing his
song, Arne asked him, "How came you to learn that one song?"
"Ah! it happened thus----" and then he said no more.
Arne went away from him straight indoors; and there he found his
mother weeping; a thing he had not seen her do ever since the
father's death. He turned back again, just as though he did not
notice it; but he felt the mother was looking sorrowfully after him,
and he was obliged to stop.
"What are you crying for, mother?" he asked. She did not answer, and
all was silent in the room. Then his words came back to him again,
and he felt they had not been spoken so kindly as they ought; and
once more, in a gentler tone, he asked, "What are you crying for,
mother?"
"Ah, I hardly know," she said, weeping still more. He stood silent a
while; but at last mustered courage to say, "Still, there must be
some reason why you are crying."
Again there was silence; but although the mother had not said one
word of blame, he felt he was very guilty towards her. "Well it just
came over me," she said after a while; and in a few moments she
added, "but really, I'm very happy;" and then she began weeping
again.
Arne hurried out, away to the ravine; and while he sat there looking
into it, he, too, began weeping. "If I only knew what I am crying
for," he said.
Then he heard Opplands-Knut singing in the fields above him:
"Ingerid Sletten of Willow-pool
Had no costly trinkets to wear;
But a cap she had that was far more fair,
Although 'twas only of wool.
It had no trimming, and now was old;
But her mother, who long had gone,
Had given it her, and so it shone
To Ingerid more than gold.
For twenty years she laid it aside,
That it might not be worn away:
'My cap I'll wear on that blissful day
When I shall become a bride.'
For thirty years she laid it aside
Lest the colors might fade away:
'My cap I'll wear when to God I pray,
A happy and grateful bride.'
For forty years she laid it aside,
Still holding her mother as dear:
'My little cap, I certainly fear
I never shall be a bride.'
She went to look for the cap one day
In the chest where it long had lain;
But, ah! her looking was all in vain:
The cap had mouldered away."
Arne listened, and the words seemed to him like music playing far
away over the mountains. He went up to Knut and asked him, "Have you
a mother?"
"No."
"Have you a father?"
"Ah, no; no father."
"Is it long since they died?"
"Ah, yes; it's long since."
"You haven't many, I dare say, who love you?"
"Ah, no; not many."
"Have you any here at all?"
"No; not here."
"But away in your own place?"
"Ah, no; not there either."
"Haven't you any at all then who love you?"
"Ah, no; I haven't any."
But Arne walked away with his heart so full of love to his mother
that it seemed as if it would burst; and all around him grew bright.
He felt he must go in again, if only for the sake of looking at her.
As he walked on the thought struck him, "What if I were to lose her?"
He stopped suddenly. "Almighty God, what would then become of me?"
Then he felt as if some dreadful accident was happening at home, and
he hurried onwards, cold drops bursting from his brow, and his feet
hardly touching the ground. He threw open the outer door, and came at
once into an atmosphere of peace. Then he gently opened the door of
the inner room. The mother had gone to bed, and lay sleeping as
calmly as a child, with the moonbeams shining full on her face.
VI.
STRANGE TALES.
A few days after, the mother and son agreed on going together to the
wedding of some relations in one of the neighboring places. The
mother had not been to a party ever since she was a girl; and both
she and Arne knew but very little of the people living around, save
their names.
Arne felt uncomfortable at this party, however, for he fancied
everybody was staring at him: and once, as he was passing through the
passage, he believed he heard something said about him, the mere
thought of which made every drop of blood rush into his face.
He kept going about looking after the man who had said it, and at
last he took a seat next him.
When they were at dinner, the man said, "Well, now, I shall tell you
a story which proves nothing can be buried so deeply that it won't
one day be brought to light;" and Arne fancied he looked at him all
the time he was saying this. He was an ugly-looking man, with scanty
red hair, hanging about a wide, round forehead, small, deep-set eyes,
a little snub-nose, and a large mouth, with pale out-turned lips,
which showed both his gums when he laughed. His hands were resting on
the table; they were large and coarse, but the wrists were slender.
He had a fierce look; and he spoke quickly, but with difficulty. The
people called him "Bragger;" and Arne knew that in bygone days, Nils,
the tailor, had treated him badly.
"Yes," continued the man, "there is indeed, a great deal of sin in
the world; and it sits nearer to us than we think.... But never mind;
I'll tell you now of a foul deed. Those of you who are old will
remember Alf--Alf, the pedlar. 'I'll call again,' Alf used to say:
and he has left that saying behind him. When he had struck a
bargain--and what a fellow for trade he was!--he would take up his
bundle, and say, 'I'll call again.' A devil of a fellow, proud
fellow, brave fellow, was he, Alf, the pedlar!
"Well he and Big Lazy-bones, Big Lazy-bones--well, you know Big
Lazy-bones?--big he was, and lazy he was, too. He took a fancy to a
coal-black horse that Alf, the pedlar, used to drive, and had trained
to hop like a summer frog. And almost before Big Lazy-bones knew what
he was about, he paid fifty dollars for this horse! Then Big
Lazy-bones, tall as he was, got into a carriage, meaning to drive
about like a king with his fifty-dollar-horse; but, though he whipped
and swore like a devil, the horse kept running against all the doors
and windows; for it was stone-blind!
"Afterwards, whenever Alf and Big Lazy-bones came across each other,
they used to quarrel and fight about this horse like two dogs. Big
Lazy-bones said he would have his money back; but he could not get a
farthing of it: and Alf drubbed him till the bristles flew. 'I'll
call again,' said Alf. A devil of a fellow, proud fellow, brave
fellow that Alf--Alf, the pedlar!
"Well, after that some years passed away without his being seen
again.
"Then, in about ten years or so, a call for him was published on the
church-hill,[2] for a great fortune had been left him. Big
Lazy-bones stood listening. 'Ah,' said he, 'I well knew it must be
money, and not men, that called out for Alf, the pedlar.'
[2] In Norway, certain public announcements are made before the
church door on Sundays after service.--Translators.
"Now, there was a good deal of talk one way and another about Alf;
and at last it seemed to be pretty clearly made out that he had been
seen for the last time on _this_ side of the ledge, and not on the
other. Well, you remember the road over the ledge--the old road?
"Of late, Big Lazy-bones had got quite a great man, and he owned both
houses and land. Then, too, he had taken to being religious; and
that, everybody knew, he didn't take to for nothing--nobody does.
People began to whisper about these things.
"Just at this time the road over the ledge had to be altered. Folks
in bygone days had a great fancy for going straight onwards; and so
the old road ran straight over the ledge; but now-a-days we like to
have things smooth and easy; and so the new road was made to run down
along the river. While they were making it, there was digging and
mining enough to bring down the whole mountain about their ears; and
the magistrates and all the officers who have to do with that sort of
thing were there. One day while the men were digging deep in the
stony ground, one of them took up something which he thought was a
stone; but it turned out to be the bones of a man's hand instead; and
a wonderfully strong hand it seemed to be, for the man who got it
fell flat down directly. That man was Big Lazy-bones. The magistrate
was just strolling about round there, and they fetched him to the
place; and then all the bones belonging to a whole man were dug out.
The Doctor, too, was fetched; and he put them all together so
cleverly that nothing was wanting but the flesh. And then it struck
some of the people that the skeleton was just about the same size
and make as Alf, the pedlar. 'I'll call again,' Alf used to say.
"And then it struck somebody else, that it was a very queer thing a
dead hand should have made a great fellow like Big Lazy-bones fall
flat down like that: and the magistrate accused him straight of
having had more to do with that dead hand than he ought--of course,
when nobody else was by. But then Big Lazy-bones foreswore it with
such fearful oaths that the magistrate turned quite giddy. 'Well,'
said the magistrate, 'if you didn't do it, I dare say you're a
fellow, now, who would not mind sleeping with the skeleton
to-night?'--'No; I shouldn't mind a bit,--not I,' said Big
Lazy-bones. So the Doctor tied the joints of the skeleton together,
and laid it in one of the beds in the barracks; and put another bed
close by it for Big Lazy-bones. The magistrate wrapped himself in his
cloak, and lay down close to the door outside. When night came on,
and Big Lazy-bones had to go in to his bedfellow, the door shut
behind him as though of itself, and he stood in the dark. But then
Big Lazy-bones set off singing psalms, for he had a mighty voice.
'Why are you singing psalms?' the magistrate asked from outside the
wall. 'May be the bells were never tolled for him,' answered Big
Lazy-bones. Then he began praying out loud, as earnestly as ever he
could. 'Why are you praying?' asked the magistrate from outside the
wall. 'No doubt, he has been a great sinner,' answered Big
Lazy-bones. Then a time after, all got so still that the magistrate
might have gone to sleep. But then came a shrieking that made the
very barracks shake: 'I'll call again!'--Then came a hellish noise
and crash: 'Out with that fifty dollars of mine!' roared Big
Lazy-bones: and the shrieking and crashing came again. Then the
magistrate burst open the door; the people rushed in with poles and
firebrands; and there lay Big Lazy-bones on the floor, with the
skeleton on the top of him."
There was a deep silence all round the table. At last a man who was
lighting his clay-pipe said, "Didn't he go mad from that very time?"
"Yes, he did."
Arne fancied everybody was looking at him, and he dared not raise his
eyes. "I say, as I said before," continued the man who had told the
tale, "nothing can be buried so deeply that it won't one day be
brought to light."
"Well, now I'll tell you about a son who beat his own father," said a
fair stout man with a round face. Arne no longer knew where he was
sitting.
"This son was a great fellow, almost a giant, belonging to a tall
family in Hardanger; and he was always at odds with somebody or
other. He and his father were always quarrelling about the yearly
allowance; and so he had no peace either at home or out.
"This made him grow more and more wicked; and the father persecuted
him. 'I won't be put down by anybody,' the son said. 'Yes, you'll be
put down by me so long as I live,' the father answered. 'If you don't
hold your tongue,' said the son, rising, 'I'll strike you.'--'Well,
do if you dare; and never in this world will you have luck again,'
answered the father, rising also.--'Do you mean to say that?' said
the son; and he rushed upon him and knocked him down. But the father
didn't try to help himself: he folded his arms and let the son do
just as he liked with him. Then he knocked him about, rolled him over
and over, and dragged him towards the door by his white hair. 'I'll
have peace in my own house, at any rate,' said he. But when they had
come to the door, the father raised himself a little and cried out,
'Not beyond the door, for so far I dragged my own father.' The son
didn't heed it, but dragged the old man's head over the threshold.
'Not beyond the door, I say!' And the old man rose, knocked down the
son and beat him as one would beat a child."
"Ah, that's a sad story," several said. Then Arne fancied he heard
some one saying, "It's a wicked thing to strike one's father;" and he
rose, turning deadly pale.
"Now I'll tell _you_ something," he said; but he hardly knew what he
was going to say: words seemed flying around him like large
snowflakes. "I'll catch them at random," he said and began:--