There was something exhilarating in the wealth of sunshine that filled
all space without the accompaniment of corresponding heat. The spring
moisture was gone from the air, and the warm haze of summer had not yet
come. There was only light—light over the green fields and the sea
beyond, light that drew the landscape in clear lines against the blue
atmosphere, and breathed a gentle, pleasant warmth.
It was a day in the beginning of June—the first real summer day; and it
was Sunday.
Stone Farm lay bathed in sunshine. The clear golden light penetrated
everywhere; and where it could not reach, dark colors trembled like a
hot, secret breath out into the light. Open windows and doors looked
like veiled eyes in the midst of the light, and where the roof lay in
shadow, it had the appearance of velvet.
It was quiet up in the big house to-day; it was a day of rest from
wrangling too.
The large yard was divided into two by a fence, the lower part
consisting in the main of a large, steaming midden, crossed by planks
in various directions, and at the top a few inverted wheelbarrows. A
couple of pigs lay half buried in the manure, asleep, and a busy flock
of hens were eagerly scattering the pile of horse-dung from the last
morning clearance. A large cock stood in the middle of the flock,
directing the work like a bailiff.
In the upper yard a flock of white pigeons were pecking corn off the
clean stone paving. Outside the open coach-house door, a groom was
examining the dog-cart, while inside stood another groom, polishing the
best harness.
The man at the dog-cart was in shirt-sleeves and newly-polished
top-boots; he had a youthful, elastic frame, which assumed graceful
attitudes as he worked. He wore his cap on the back of his head, and
whistled softly while he cleaned the wheels outside and in, and sent
stolen glances down to the wash-house, where, below the window, one of
the maids was going through her Sunday ablutions, with shoulders and
arms bare, and her chemise pushed down below her bosom.
The big dairymaid, Karna, went past him to the pump with two large
buckets. As she returned, she splashed some water on to one of his
boots, and he looked up with an oath. She took this as an invitation to
stop, and put down her pails with a cautious glance up at the windows
of the big house.
“You’ve not had all the sleep you ought to have had, Gustav,” she said
teasingly, and laughed.
“Then it isn’t your fault, at any rate,” he answered roughly. “Can you
patch my everyday trousers for me to-day?”
“No, thank you! I don’t mend for another to get all the pleasant
words!”
“Then you can leave it alone! There are plenty who’ll mend for me
without you!” And he bent again to his work.
“I’ll see if I can get time,” said the big woman meekly. “But I’ve got
all the work in the place to do by myself this afternoon; the others
are all going out.”
“Yes, I see Bodil’s washing herself,” said Gustav, sending a squirt of
tobacco-juice out of his mouth in the direction of the wash-house
window. “I suppose she’s going to meeting, as she’s doing it so
thoroughly.”
Karna looked cunning. “She asked to be free because she wanted to go to
church. She go to church! I should just like to see her! No, she’s
going down to the tailor’s in the village, and there I suppose she’ll
meet Malmberg, a townsman of hers. I wonder she isn’t above having
anything to do with a married man.”
“She can go on the spree with any one she likes, for all I care,”
answered Gustav, kicking the last wheel into place with his foot, while
Karna stood looking at him kindly. But the next moment she spied a face
behind the curtains up in one of the windows, and hurried off with her
pails. Gustav spat contemptuously between his teeth after her. She was
really too old for his seventeen years; she must be at least forty; and
casting another long look at Bodil, he went across to the coachhouse
with oil-can and keys.
The high white house that closed the yard at its upper end, had not
been built right among the other buildings, but stood proudly aloof,
unconnected with them except by two strips of wooden paling. It had
gables on both sides, and a high basement, in which were the servants’
hall, the maids’ bedrooms, the wash-house, the mangling-room, and the
large storerooms. On the gable looking on to the yard was a clock that
did not go. Pelle called the building the Palace, and was not a little
proud of being allowed to enter the basement. The other people on the
farm did not give it such a nice name.
He was the only one whose awe of the House had nothing sinister about
it; others regarded it in the light of a hostile fortress. Every one
who crossed the paved upper yard, glanced involuntarily up at the high
veiled windows, behind which an eye might secretly be kept upon all
that went on below. It was, a little like passing a row of cannons’
mouths—it made one a little unsteady on one’s feet; and no one crossed
the clean pavement unless he was obliged. On the other hand they went
freely about the other half of the yard, which was just as much
overlooked by the House.
Down there two of the lads were playing. One of them had seized the
other’s cap and run off with it, and a wild chase ensued, in at one
barn-door and out at another all round the yard, to the accompaniment
of mischievous laughter and breathless exclamations. The yard-dog
barked with delight and tumbled madly about on its chain in its desire
to join in the game. Up by the fence the robber was overtaken and
thrown to the ground; but he managed to toss the cap up into the air,
and it descended right in front of the high stone steps of the House.
“Oh, you mean beast!” exclaimed the owner of the cap, in a voice of
despairing reproach, belaboring the other with the toes of his boots.
“Oh, you wretched bailiff’s sneak!” He suddenly stopped and measured
the distance with an appraising eye. “Will you stand me half a pint if
I dare go up and fetch the cap?” he asked in a whisper. The other
nodded and sat up quickly to see what would come of it. “Swear? You
won’t try and back out of it?” he said, lifting his hand adjuringly.
His companion solemnly drew his finger across his throat, as if cutting
it, and the oath was taken. The one who had lost the cap, hitched up
his trousers and pulled himself together, his whole figure stiffening
with determination; then he put his hands upon the fence, vaulted it,
and walked with bent head and firm step across the yard, looking like
one who had staked his all upon one card. When he had secured the cap,
and turned his back upon the House, he sent a horrible grimace down the
yard.
Bodil now came up from the basement in her best Sunday clothes, with a
black silk handkerchief on her head and a hymn-book in her hand. How
pretty she was! And brave! She went along the whole length of the House
and out! But then she could get a kiss from the farmer any day she
liked.
Outside the farm proper lay a number of large and small outbuildings
—the calves’ stable, the pigsties, the tool-shed, the cart-shed and a
smithy that was no longer used. They were all like so many mysteries,
with trap-doors that led down to pitch-dark, underground beet and
potato cellars, from which, of course, you could get by secret passages
to the strangest places underground, and other trap-doors that led up
to dark lofts, where the most wonderful treasures were preserved in the
form of old lumber.
But Pelle unfortunately had little time to go into all this. Every day
he had to help his father to look after the cattle, and with so large a
herd, the work was almost beyond their power. If he had a moment’s
breathing-space, some one was sure to be after him. He had to fetch
water for the laundry girls, to grease the pupil’s boots and run to the
village shop for spirits or chewing-tobacco for the men. There was
plenty to play with, but no one could bear to see him playing; they
were always whistling for him as if he were a dog.
He tried to make up for it by turning his work into a game, and in many
instances this was possible. Watering the cattle, for instance, was
more fun than any real game, when his father stood out in the yard and
pumped, and the boy only had to guide the water from manger to manger.
When thus occupied, he always felt something like a great engineer. But
on the other hand, much of the other work was too hard to be amusing.
At this moment the boy was wandering about among the outbuildings,
where there was no one to hunt him about. The door to the cow-stable
stood open, and he could hear the continual munching of the cows, now
and then interrupted by a snuff of contentment or the regular rattle of
a chain up and down when a cow rubbed its neck upon the post. There was
a sense of security in the sound of his father’s wooden shoes up and
down the foddering-passage.
Out of the open half-doors of the smaller outbuildings there came a
steamy warmth that smelt pleasantly of calves and pigs. The pigs were
hard at work. All through the long sty there was munching and smacking.
One old sow supped up the liquid through the corners of her mouth,
another snuffed and bubbled with her snout along the bottom of the
trough to find the rotten potatoes under the liquid. Here and there two
pigs were fighting over the trough, and emitting piercing squeals. The
calves put their slobbering noses out at the doors, gazing into the
sunny air and lowing feelingly. One little fellow, after snuffing up
air from the cow-stable in a peculiarly thorough way, turned up his lip
in a foolish grin: it was a bull- calf. He laid his chin upon the
half-door, and tried to jump over, but Pelle drove him down again. Then
he kicked up his hind legs, looked at Pelle out of the corner of his
eye, and stood with arched back, lifting his fore and hindquarters
alternately with the action of a rocking-horse. He was light-headed
with the sun.
Down on the pond, ducks and geese stood upon their heads in the water,
flourishing their red legs in the air. And all at once the whole flock
would have an attack of giddy delight in the sunshine, and splash
screaming from bank to bank, the last part of the way sliding along the
top of the water with a comical wagging of the tail.
Pelle had promised himself much from this couple of hours that were to
be entirely his own, as his father had given him a holiday until the
time came for the midday work. But now he stood in bewilderment,
overwhelmed by the wealth of possibilities. Would it be the best fun to
sail upon the pond on two tail-boards laid one across the other? There
was a manure-cart lying there now to be washed. Or should he go in and
have a game with the tiny calves? Or shoot with the old bellows in the
smithy? If he filled the nozzle with wet earth, and blew hard, quite a
nice shot could come out of it.
Pelle started and tried to make himself invisible. The farmer himself
had come round the corner, and was now standing shading his eyes with
his hand and looking down over the sloping land and the sea. When he
caught sight of Pelle, he nodded without changing his expression, and
said: “Good day, my boy! How are you getting on?” He gazed on, and
probably hardly knew that he had said it and patted the boy on the
shoulder with the end of his stick; the farmer often went about half
asleep.
But Pelle felt it as a caress of a divine nature, and immediately ran
across to the stable to tell his father what had happened to him. He
had an elevating sensation in his shoulder as if he had been knighted;
and he still felt the stick there. An intoxicating warmth flowed from
the place through his little body, sent the adventure mounting to his
head and made him swell with pride. His imagination rose and soared
into the air with some vague, dizzy idea about the farmer adopting him
as his son.
He soon came down again, for in the stable he ran straight into the
arms of the Sunday scrubbing. The Sunday wash was the only great
objection he had to make to life; everything else came and was
forgotten again, but it was always coming again. He detested it,
especially that part of it which had to do with the interior of his
ears. But there was no kind mother to help; Lasse stood ready with a
bucket of cold water, and some soft soap on a piece of broken pot, and
the boy had to divest himself of his clothes. And as if the scrubbing
were not enough, he afterwards had to put on a clean shirt—though,
fortunately, only every other Sunday. The whole thing was nice enough
to look back upon afterwards—like something gone through with, and not
to happen again for a little while.
Pelle stood at the stable door into the yard with a consequential air,
with bristling hair and clean shirt-sleeves, his hands buried in his
trouser pockets. Over his forehead his hair waved in what is called a
“cow’s lick,” said to betoken good fortune; and his face, all screwed
up as it turned towards the bright light, looked the oddest piece of
topsy-turvydom, with not a single feature in its proper place. Pelle
bent the calves of his legs out backwards, and stood gently rocking
himself to and fro as he saw Gustav doing, up on the front-door steps,
where he stood holding the reins, waiting for his master and mistress.
The mistress now appeared, with the farmer, and a maid ran down in
front to the carriage with a little stepladder, and helped her in. The
farmer stood at the top of the steps until she was seated: she had
difficulty in walking. But what a pair of eyes she had! Pelle hastily
looked away when she turned her face down towards the yard. It was
whispered among the men that she could bring misfortune upon any one by
looking at him if she liked. Now Gustav unchained the dog, which
bounded about, barking, in front of the horses as they drove out of the
courtyard.
Anyhow the sun did not shine like this on a week-day. It was quite
dazzling when the white pigeons flew in one flock over the yard,
turning as regularly as if they were a large white sheet flapping in
the sunshine; the reflection from their wings flashed over the
dung-heap and made the pigs lift their heads with an inquiring grunt.
Above, in their rooms the men sat playing “Sixty-six,” or tipping
wooden shoes, and Gustav began to play “Old Noah” on his concertina.
Pelle picked his way across the upper part of the yard to the big
dog-kennel, which could be turned on a pivot according to the direction
of the wind. He seated himself upon the angle of the roof, and made a
merry-go-round of it by pushing off with his foot every time he passed
the fence. Suddenly it occurred to him that he himself was everybody’s
dog, and had better hide himself; so he dropped down, crept into the
kennel, and curled himself up on the straw with his head between his
fore-paws. There he lay for a little while, staring at the fence and
panting with his tongue hanging out of his mouth. Then an idea came
into his head so suddenly as to make him forget all caution; and the
next moment he was sliding full tilt down the railing of the front-door
steps.
He had done this seventeen times and was deeply engrossed in the
thought of reaching fifty, when he heard a sharp whistle from the big
coach-house door. The farm pupil stood there beckoning him. Pelle,
crestfallen, obeyed the call, bitterly regretting his thoughtlessness.
He was most likely wanted now to grease boots again, perhaps for them
all.
The pupil drew him inside the door, which he shut. It was dark, and the
boy, coming in out of the bright daylight, could distinguish nothing;
what he made out little by little assumed shapeless outlines to his
frightened imagination. Voices laughed and growled confusedly in his
ears, and hands that seemed to him enormous pulled him about. Terror
seized him, and with it came crazy, disconnected recollections of
stories of robbery and murder, and he began to scream with fright. A
big hand covered the whole of his face, and in the silence that
followed his stifled scream, he heard a voice out in the yard, calling
to the maids to come and see something funny.
He was too paralyzed with terror to know what was being done with him,
and only wondered faintly what there was funny out there in the
sunshine. Would he ever see the sun again, he wondered?
As if in answer to his thought, the door was at that moment thrown
open. The light poured in and he recognized the faces about him, and
found himself standing half naked in the full daylight, his trousers
down about his heels and his shirt tucked up under his waistcoat. The
pupil stood at one side with a carriage-whip, with which he flicked at
the boy’s naked body, crying in a tone of command: “Run!” Pelle, wild
with terror and confusion, dashed into the yard, but there stood the
maids, and at sight of him they screamed with laughter, and he turned
to fly back into the coach-house. But he was met by the whip, and
forced to return into the daylight, leaping like a kangaroo and calling
forth renewed shouts of laughter. Then he stood still, crying
helplessly, under a shower of coarse remarks, especially from the
maids. He no longer noticed the whip, but only crouched down, trying to
hide himself, until at last he sank in a heap upon the stone paving,
sobbing convulsively.
Karna, large of limb, came rushing up from the basement and forced her
way through the crowd, crimson with rage and scolding as she went. On
her freckled neck and arms were brown marks left by the cows’ tails at
the last milking, looking like a sort of clumsy tattooing. She flung
her slipper in the pupil’s face, and going up to Pelle, wrapped him in
her coarse apron and carried him down to the basement.
When Lasse heard what had happened to the boy, he took a hammer and
went round to kill the farm pupil; and the look in the old man’s eyes
was such that no one desired to get in his way. The pupil had thought
his wisest course was to disappear; and when Lasse found no vent for
his wrath, he fell into a fit of trembling and weeping, and became so
really ill that the men had to administer a good mouthful of spirits to
revive him. This took instant effect, and Lasse was himself again and
able to nod consolingly to the frightened, sobbing Pelle.
“Never mind, laddie!” he said comfortingly. “Never mind! No one has
ever yet got off without being punished, and Lasse’ll break that long
limb of Satan’s head and make his brains spurt out of his nose; you
take my word for it!”
Pelle’s face brightened at the prospect of this forcible redress, and
he crept up into the loft to throw down the hay for the cattle’s midday
meal. Lasse, who was not so fond of climbing, went down the long
passage between the stalls distributing the hay. He was cogitating over
something, and Pelle could hear him talking to himself all the time.
When they had finished, Lasse went to the green chest and brought out a
black silk handkerchief that had been Bengta’s Sunday best. His
expression was solemn as he called Pelle.
“Run over to Karna with this and ask her to accept it. We’re not so
poor that we should let kindness itself go from us empty-handed. But
you mustn’t let any one see it, in case they didn’t like it. Mother
Bengta in her grave won’t be offended; she’d have proposed it herself,
if she could have spoken; but her mouth’s full of earth, poor thing!”
Lasse sighed deeply.
Even then he stood for a little while with the handkerchief in his hand
before giving it to Pelle to run with. He was by no means as sure of
Bengta as his words made out; but the old man liked to beautify her
memory, both in his own and in the boy’s mind. It could not be denied
that she had generally been a little difficult in a case of this kind,
having been particularly jealous; and she might take it into her head
to haunt them because of that handkerchief. Still she had had a heart
for both him and the boy, and it was generally in the right place—they
must say that of her! And for the rest, the Lord must judge her as
kindly as He could.
During the afternoon it was quiet on the farm. Most of the men were out
somewhere, either at the inn or with the quarry-men at the
stone-quarry. The master and mistress were out too; the farmer had
ordered the carriage directly after dinner and had driven to the town,
and half an hour later his wife set off in the pony-carriage —to keep
an eye on him, people said.
Old Lasse was sitting in an empty cow-stall, mending Pelle’s clothes,
while the boy played up and down the foddering passage. He had found in
the herdsman’s room an old boot-jack, which he placed under his knee,
pretending it was a wooden leg, and all the time he was chattering
happily, but not quite so loudly as usual, to his father. The morning’s
experience was still fresh in his mind, and had a subduing effect; it
was as if he had performed some great deed, and was now nervous about
it. There was another circumstance, too, that helped to make him
serious. The bailiff had been over to say that the animals were to go
out the next day. Pelle was to mind the young cattle, so this would be
his last free day, perhaps for the whole summer.
He paused outside the stall where his father sat. “What are you going
to kill him with, father?”
“With the hammer, I suppose.”
“Will you kill him quite dead, as dead as a dog?”
Lasse’s nod boded ill to the pupil. “Yes, indeed I shall!”
“But who’ll read the names for us then?”
The old man shook his head pensively. “That’s true enough!” he
exclaimed, scratching himself first in one place and then in another.
The name of each cow was written in chalk above its stall, but neither
Lasse nor Pelle could read. The bailiff had, indeed, gone through the
names with them once, but it was impossible to remember half a hundred
names after hearing them once—even for the boy, who had such an
uncommon good memory. If Lasse now killed the pupil, then who _would_
help them to make out the names? The bailiff would never stand their
going to him and asking him a second time.
“I suppose we shall have to content ourselves with thrashing him,” said
Lasse meditatively.
The boy went on playing for a little while, and then once more came up
to Lasse.
“Don’t you think the Swedes can thrash all the people in the world,
father?”
The old man looked thoughtful. “Ye-es—yes, I should think so.”
“Yes, because Sweden’s much bigger than the whole world, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it’s big,” said Lasse, trying to imagine its extent. There were
twenty-four provinces, of which Malmohus was only one, and Ystad
district a small part of that again; and then in one corner of Ystad
district lay Tommelilla, and his holding that he had once thought so
big with its five acres of land, was a tiny little piece of Tommelilla!
Ah, yes, Sweden was big—not bigger than the whole world, of course, for
that was only childish nonsense—but still bigger than all the rest of
the world put together. “Yes, it’s big! But what are you doing,
laddie?”
“Why, can’t you see I’m a soldier that’s had one leg shot off?”
“Oh, you’re an old crippled pensioner, are you? But you shouldn’t do
that, for God doesn’t like things like that. You might become a real
cripple, and that would be dreadful.”
“Oh, He doesn’t see, because He’s in the churches to-day!” answered the
boy; but for safety’s sake he thought it better to leave off. He
stationed himself at the stable-door, whistling, but suddenly came
running in with great eagerness: “Father, there’s the Agricultural!
Shall I run and fetch the whip?”
“No, I expect we’d better leave him alone. It might be the death of
him; fine gentlemen scamps like that can’t stand a licking. The fright
alone might kill him.” Lasse glanced doubtfully at the boy.
Pelle looked very much disappointed. “But suppose he does it again?”
“Oh, no, we won’t let him off without a good fright. I shall pick him
up and hold him out at arm’s length dangling in the air until he begs
for mercy; and then I shall put him down again just as quietly. For
Lasse doesn’t like being angry. Lasse’s a decent fellow.”
“Then you must pretend to let him go while you’re holding him high up
in the air; and then he’ll scream and think he’s going to die, and the
others’ll come and laugh at him.”
“No, no; you mustn’t tempt your father! It might come into my mind to
throw him down, and that would be murder and penal servitude for life,
that would! No, I’ll just give him a good scolding; that’s what a
classy scoundrel like that’ll feel most.”
“Yes, and then you must call him a spindle-shanked clodhopper. That’s
what the bailiff calls him when he’s angry with him.”
“No, I don’t think that would do either; but I’ll speak so seriously
with him that he won’t be likely to forget it in a hurry.”
Pelle was quite satisfied. There was no one like his father, and of
course he would be as good at blowing people up as at everything else.
He had never heard him do it, and he was looking forward to it
immensely while he hobbled along with the boot-jack. He was not using
it as a wooden leg now, for fear of tempting Providence; but he held it
under his arm like a crutch, supporting it on the edge of the
foundation wall, because it was too short. How splendid it would be to
go on two crutches like the parson’s son at home! He could jump over
the very longest puddles.
There was a sudden movement of light and shadow up under the roof, and
when Pelle turned round, he saw a strange boy standing in the doorway
out to the field. He was of the same height as Pelle, but his head was
almost as large as that of a grown man. At first sight it appeared to
be bald all over; but when the boy moved in the sun, his bare head
shone as if covered with silver scales. It was covered with fine,
whitish hair, which was thinly and fairly evenly distributed over the
face and everywhere else; and his skin was pink, as were the whites of
his eyes. His face was all drawn into wrinkles in the strong light, and
the back of his head projected unduly and looked as if it were much too
heavy.
Pelle put his hands in his trouser pockets and went up to him. “What’s
your name?” he said, and tried to expectorate between his front teeth
as Gustav was in the habit of doing. The attempt was a failure,
unfortunately, and the saliva only ran down his chin. The strange boy
grinned.
“Rud,” he said, indistinctly, as if his tongue were thick and
unmanageable. He was staring enviously at Pelle’s trouser pockets. “Is
that your father?” he asked, pointing at Lasse.
“Of course!” said Pelle, consequentially. “And he can thrash
everybody.”
“But my father can buy everybody, because he lives up there.” And Rud
pointed toward the big house.
“Oh, does he really?” said Pelle, incredulously. “Why don’t you live
there with him, then?”
“Why, I’m a bastard-child; mother says so herself.”
“The deuce she does!” said Pelle, stealing a glance at his father on
account of the little oath.
“Yes, when she’s cross. And then she beats me, but then I run away from
her.”
“Oh, you do, do you!” said a voice outside. The boys started and
retreated farther into the stable, as a big, fat woman appeared in the
doorway, and looked angrily round in the dim light. When she caught
sight of Rud, she continued her scolding. Her accent was Swedish.
“So you run away, do you, you cabbage-head! If you’d only run so far
that you couldn’t find your way back again, a body wouldn’t need to
wear herself out thrashing a misbegotten imp like you! You’ll go to the
devil anyhow, so don’t worry yourself about that! So that’s the boy’s
father, is it?” she said, suddenly breaking off as she caught sight of
Lasse.
“Yes, it is,” said Lasse, quietly. “And surely you must be schoolmaster
Johan Pihl’s Johanna from Tommelilla, who left the country nearly
twenty years ago?”
“And surely you must be the smith’s tom-cat from Sulitjelma, who had
twins out of an old wooden shoe the year before last?” retorted the big
woman, imitating his tone of voice.
“Very well; it doesn’t matter to me who you are!” said the old man in
an offended tone. “I’m not a police spy.”
“One would think you were from the way you question. Do you know when
the cattle are to go out?”
“To-morrow, if all’s well. Is it your little boy who’s going to show
Pelle how things go? The bailiff spoke of some one who’d go out with
him and show him the grazing-ground.”
“Yes, it’s that Tom Noddy there. Here, come out so that we can see you
properly, you calf! Oh, the boy’s gone. Very well. Does your boy often
get a thrashing?”
“Oh yes, sometimes,” answered Lasse, who was ashamed to confess that he
never chastised the boy.
“I don’t spare mine either. It’ll take something to make a man of such
rubbish; punishment’s half what he lives on. Then I’ll send him up here
first thing to-morrow morning; but take care he doesn’t show himself in
the yard, or there’ll be no end of a row!”
“The mistress can’t bear to see him, I suppose?” said Lasse.
“You’re just about right. She’s had nothing to do with the making of
that scarecrow. Though you wouldn’t think there was much there to be
jealous about! But I might have been a farmer’s wife at this moment and
had a nice husband too, if that high and mighty peacock up there hadn’t
seduced me. Would you believe that, you cracked old piece of
shoe-leather?” she asked with a laugh, slapping his knee with her hand.
“I can believe it very well,” said Lasse. “For you were as pretty a
girl as might be when you left home.”
“Oh, you and your ‘home’,” she said, mimicking him.
“Well, I can see that you don’t want to leave any footmarks behind you,
and I can quite well pretend to be a stranger, even if I have held you
upon my knee more than once when you were a little thing. But do you
know that your mother’s lying on her deathbed?”
“Oh no! Oh no!” she exclaimed, turning to him a face that was becoming
more and more distorted.
“I went to say good-bye to her before I left home rather more than a
month ago, and she was very ill. ‘Good-bye, Lasse,’ she said, ‘and
thank you for your neighborliness all these years. And if you meet
Johanna over there,’ she said, ‘give her my love. Things have gone
terribly badly with her, from what I’ve heard; but give her my love,
all the same. Johanna child, little child! She was nearest her mother’s
heart, and so she happened to tread upon it. Perhaps it was our fault.
You’ll give her her mother’s love, won’t you, Lasse?’ Those were her
very words, and now she’s most likely dead, so poorly as she was then.”
Johanna Pihl had no command over her feelings. It was evident that she
was not accustomed to weep, for her sobs seemed to tear her to pieces.
No tears came, but her agony was like the throes of child-birth.
“Little mother! Poor little mother!” she said every now and again, as
she sat rocking herself upon the edge of the manger.
“There, there, there!” said Lasse, patting her on the head. “I told
them they had been too hard with you. But what did you want to creep
through that window for—a child of sixteen and in the middle of the
night? You can hardly wonder that they forgot themselves a little, all
the more that he was earning no wages beyond his keep and clothes, and
was a bad fellow at that, who was always losing his place.”
“I was fond of him,” said Johanna, weeping. “He’s the only one I’ve
ever cared for. And I was so stupid that I thought he was fond of me
too, though he’d never seen me.”
“Ah, yes; you were only a child! I said so to your parents. But that
you could think of doing anything so indecent!”
“I didn’t mean to do anything wrong. I only thought that we two ought
to be together as we loved one another. No, I didn’t even think that
then. I only crept in to him, without thinking about it at all. Would
you believe that I was so innocent in those days? And nothing bad
happened either.”
“And nothing happened even?” said Lasse. “But it’s terribly sad to
think how things have turned out. It was the death of your father.”
The big woman began to cry helplessly, and Lasse was almost in tears
himself.
“Perhaps I ought never to have told you,” he said in despair. “But I
thought you must have heard about it. I suppose he thought that he, as
schoolmaster, bore the responsibility for so many, and that you’d
thrown yourself at any one in that way, and a poor farm-servant into
the bargain, cut him to the quick. It’s true enough that he mixed with
us poor folks as if we’d been his equals, but the honor was there all
the same; and he took it hardly when the fine folk wouldn’t look at him
any more. And after all it was nothing at all—nothing happened? But why
didn’t you tell them so?”
Johanna had stopped crying, and now sat with tear-stained, quivering
face, and eyes turned away.
“I did tell them, but they wouldn’t listen. I was found there of
course. I screamed for help when I found out he didn’t even know me,
but was only flattered at my coming, and wanted to take hold of me. And
then the others came running in and found me there. They laughed and
said that I’d screamed because I’d lost my innocence; and I could see
that my parents thought the same. Even they wouldn’t hear of nothing
having happened, so what could the other rabble think? And then they
paid him to come over here, and sent me away to relations.”
“Yes, and then you added to their sorrow by running away.”
“I went after him. I thought he’d get to be fond of me, if only I was
near him. He’d taken service here at Stone Farm, and I took a place
here as housemaid; but there was only one thing he wanted me for, and
that I wouldn’t have if he wasn’t fond of me. So he went about boasting
that I’d run away from home for his sake, and the other thing that was
a lie; so they all thought they could do what they liked with me.
Kongstrup was just married then, but he was no better than the others.
I’d got the place quite by chance, because the other housemaid had had
to go away somewhere to lie in; so I was awfully careful. He got her
married afterwards to a quarryman at the quarries.”
“So that’s the sort of man he is!” exclaimed Lasse. “I had my doubts
about him. But what became of the other fellow?”
“He went to work in the quarry when we’d been at the farm a couple of
years and he’d done me all the harm he could. While he was there, he
drank and quarreled most of the time. I often went to see him, for I
couldn’t get him out of my head; but he was always drunk. At last he
couldn’t stay there any longer, and disappeared, and then we heard that
he was in Nordland, playing Hell among the rocks at Blaaholt. He helped
himself to whatever he wanted at the nearest place he could find it,
and knocked people down for nothing at all. And one day they said that
he’d been declared an outlaw, so that any one that liked could kill
him. I had great confidence in the master, who, after all, was the only
person that wished me well; and he comforted me by saying that it would
be all right: Knut would know how to take care of himself.”
“Knut? Was it Knut Engström?” asked Lasse. “Well, then, I’ve heard
about him. He was breaking out as wild as the devil the last time I was
in this country, and assaulted people on the high-road in broad
daylight. He killed one man with a hammer, and when they caught him,
he’d made a long gash on his neck from the back right up to his eye.
The other man had done that, he said; he’d only defended himself. So
they couldn’t do anything to him. So that was the man, was it! But who
was it he was living with, then? They said he lived in a shed on the
heath that summer, and had a woman with him.”
“I ran away from service, and pretended to the others that I was going
home. I’d heard what a wretched state he was in. They said he was
gashed all over his head. So I went up and took care of him.”
“Then you gave in at last,” said Lasse, with a roguish wink.
“He beat me every day,” she answered hoarsely. “And when he couldn’t
get his way, he drove me away at last. I’d set my mind on his being
fond of me first.” Her voice had grown coarse and hard again.
“Then you deserved a good whipping for taking a fancy to such a
ruffian! And you may be glad your mother didn’t get to know anything
about that, for she’d never have survived it.”
At the word “mother” Johanna started. “Every one must look after
themselves,” she said in a hard voice. “I’ve had more to look to than
mother, and see how fat I’ve grown.”
Lasse shook his head. “I shouldn’t care to fight with you now. But what
happened to you afterwards?”
“I came back to Stone Farm again at Martinmas, but the mistress
wouldn’t take me on again, for she preferred my room to my company. But
Kongstrup got his way by making me dairymaid. He was as kind to me as
ever, for all that I’d stood out against him for nine years. But at
last the magistrate got tired of having Knut going about loose; he made
too much disturbance. So they had a hunt for him up on the heath. They
didn’t catch him, but he must have come back to the quarry to hide
himself, for one day when they were blasting there, his body came out
among the bits of rock, all smashed up. They drove the pieces down here
to the farm, and it made me so ill to see him come to me like that,
that I had to go to bed. There I lay shivering day and night, for it
seemed as if he’d come to me in his sorest need. Kongstrup sat with me
and comforted me when the others were at work, and he took advantage of
my misery to get his way.
“There was a younger brother of the farmer on the hill who liked me.
He’d been in America in his early days, and had plenty of money. He
didn’t care a rap what people said, and every single year he proposed
to me, always on New Year’s Day. He came that year too, and now that
Knut was dead, I couldn’t have done better than have taken him and been
mistress of a farm; but I had to refuse him after all, and I can tell
you it was hard when I made the discovery. Kongstrup wanted to send me
away when I told him about it; but that I would not have. I meant to
stay and have my child born here on the farm to which it belonged. He
didn’t care a bit about me any longer, the mistress looked at me with
her evil eyes every day, and there was no one that was kind to me. I
wasn’t so hard then as I am now, and it was all I could do to keep from
crying always. I became hard then. When anything was the matter, I
clenched my teeth so that no one should deride me. I was working in the
field the very day it happened, too. The boy was born in the middle of
a beet-field, and I carried him back to the farm myself in my apron. He
was deformed even then: the mistress’s evil eyes had done it. I said to
myself that she should always have the changeling in her sight, and
refused to go away. The farmer couldn’t quite bring himself to turn me
out by force, and so he put me into the house down by the shore.”
“Then perhaps you work on the farm here in the busy seasons?” asked
Lasse.
She sniffed contemptuously. “Work! So you think I need do that?
Kongstrup has to pay me for bringing up his son, and then there are
friends that come to me, now one and now another, and bring a little
with them—when they haven’t spent it all in drink. You may come down
and see me this evening. I’ll be good to you too.”
“No, thank you!” said Lasse, gravely. “I am a human being too, but I
won’t go to one who’s sat on my knee as if she’d been my own child.”
“Have you any gin, then?” she asked, giving him a sharp nudge.
Lasse thought there was some, and went to see. “No, not a drop,” he
said, returning with the bottle. “But I’ve got something for you here
that your mother asked me to give you as a keepsake. It was lucky I
happened to remember it.” And he handed her a packet, and looked on
happily while she opened it, feeling pleased on her account. It was a
hymn-book. “Isn’t it a beauty?” he said. “With a gold cross and
clasp—and then, it’s your mother’s.”
“What’s the good of that to me?” asked Johanna. “I don’t sing hymns.”
“Don’t you?” said Lasse, hurt. “But your mother has never known but
that you’ve kept the faith you had as a child, so you must forgive her
this once.”
“Is that all you’ve got for me?” she asked, pushing the book off her
lap.
“Yes, it is,” said Lasse, his voice trembling; and he picked up the
book.
“Who’s going to have the rest, then?”
“Well, the house was leased, and there weren’t many things left, for
it’s a long time since your father died, remember. Where you should
have been, strangers have filled the daughter’s place; and I suppose
those who’ve looked after her will get what there is. But perhaps you’d
still be in time, if you took the first steamer.”
“No, thank you! Go home and be stared at and play the penitent—no,
thank you! I’d rather the strangers got what’s left. And mother— well,
if she’s lived without my help, I suppose she can die without it too.
Well, I must be getting home. I wonder what’s become of the future
master of Stone Farm?” She laughed loudly.
Lasse would have taken his oath that she had been quite sober, and yet
she walked unsteadily as she went behind the calves’ stables to look
for her son. It was on his lips to ask whether she would not take the
hymn-book with her, but he refrained. She was not in the mood for it
now, and she might mock God; so he carefully wrapped up the book and
put it away in the green chest.
At the far end of the cow-stable a space was divided off with boards.
It had no door, and the boards were an inch apart, so that it resembled
a crate. This was the herdsman’s room. Most of the space was occupied
by a wide legless bedstead made of rough boards knocked together, with
nothing but the stone floor to rest on. Upon a deep layer of rye straw
the bed-clothes lay in a disordered heap, and the thick striped
blankets were stiff with dried cow-dung, to which feathers and bits of
straw had adhered.
Pelle lay curled up in the middle of the bed with the down quilt up to
his chin, while Lasse sat on the edge, turning over the things in the
green chest and talking to himself. He was going through his Sunday
devotions, taking out slowly, one after another, all the little things
he had brought from the broken-up home. They were all purely useful
things—balls of cotton, scraps of stuff, and such-like, that were to be
used to keep his own and the boy’s clothes in order; but to him each
thing was a relic to be handled with care, and his heart bled every
time one of them came to an end. With each article he laid down, he
slowly repeated what Bengta had said it was for when she lay dying and
was trying to arrange everything for him and the boy: “Wool for the
boy’s gray socks. Pieces to lengthen the sleeves of his Sunday jacket.
Mind you don’t wear your stockings too long before you mend them.” They
were the last wishes of the dying woman, and they were followed in the
smallest detail. Lasse remembered them word for word, in spite of his
bad memory.
Then there were little things that had belonged to Bengta herself,
cheap finery that all had its happy memory of fairs and holidays, which
he recalled in his muttered reverie.
Pelle liked this subdued murmur that he did not need to listen to or
answer, and that was so pleasant to doze off in. He lay looking out
sleepily at the bright sky, tired and with a vague feeling of something
unpleasant that was past.
Suddenly he started. He had heard the door of the cow-stable open, and
steps upon the long foddering-passage. It was the pupil. He recognized
the hated step at once.
He thrilled with delight. Now that fellow would be made to understand
that he mustn’t do anything to boys with fathers who could hold a man
out at arm’s length and scold! oh, much worse than the bailiff. He sat
up and looked eagerly at his father.
“Lasse!” came a voice from the end of the tables.
The old man growled sullenly, stirred uneasily, but did not rise.
“Las-se!” came again, after a little, impatiently and in a tone of
command.
“Yes,” said Lasse slowly, rising and going out.
“Can’t you answer when you’re called, you old Swedish rascal? Are you
deaf?”
“Oh, I can answer well enough,” said Lasse, in a trembling voice. “But
Mr. Pupil oughtn’t to—I’m a father, let me tell you—and a father’s
heart——”
“You may be a monthly nurse for all I care, but you’ve got to answer
when you’re called, or else I’ll get the bailiff to give you a
talking-to. Do you understand?”
“Yes, oh yes!—Mr. Pupil must excuse me, but I didn’t hear.”
“Well, will you please remember that Aspasia’s not to go out to pasture
to-morrow.”
“Is she going to calve?”
“Yes, of course! Did you think she was going to foal?”
Lasse laughed, as in duty bound, and followed the pupil back through
the stable. Now it would come, thought Pelle, and sat listening
intently; but he only heard his father make another excuse, close the
half-door, and come back with slow, tottering steps. Then he burst into
tears, and crept far in under the quilt.
Lasse went about for some time, grumbling to himself, and at last came
and gently drew the quilt down from the boy’s head. But Pelle buried
his face in the clothes, and when his father turned it up toward him,
he met a despairing, uncomprehending gaze that made his own wander
restlessly round the room.
“Yes,” he said, with an attempt at being cross. “It’s all very well for
you to cry! But when you don’t know where Aspasia stands, you’ve got to
be civil, I’m thinking.”
“I know Aspasia quite well,” sobbed the boy. “She’s the third from the
door here.”
Lasse was going to give a cross answer, but broke down, touched and
disarmed by the boy’s grief. He surrendered unconditionally, stooped
down until his forehead touched the boy’s, and said helplessly, “Yes,
Lasse’s a poor thing—old and poor! Any one can make a fool of him. He
can’t be angry any more, and there’s no strength in his fist, so what’s
the good of clenching it! He has to put up with everything, and let
himself be hustled about—and say thank you into the bargain—that’s how
it is with old Lasse. But you must remember that it’s for your sake he
lets himself be put upon. If it wasn’t for you, he’d shoulder his pack
and go—old though he is. But you can grow on where your father rusts.
And now you must leave off crying!” And he dried the boy’s wet eyes
with the quilt.
Pelle did not understand his father’s words, but they quieted him
nevertheless, and he soon fell asleep; but for a long time he sobbed as
he lay.
Lasse sat still upon the edge of the bed and watched the boy as he
slept, and when he had become quieter, crept away through the stable
and out. It had been a poor Sunday, and now he would go and see if any
of the men were at home and had visitors, for then there would be
spirits going round. Lasse could not find it in his heart to take any
of his wages to buy a dram with; that money would have quite enough to
do to buy bare necessaries.
On one of the beds lay a man asleep, fully dressed, and with his boots
on. He was dead drunk. All the others were out, so Lasse had to give up
all thoughts of a dram, and went across to the basement to see if there
was any gaiety going among the maids. He was not at all averse to
enjoyment of one sort or another, now that he was free and his own
master as he had been in the days of his youth.
Up by the dairy stood the three farm-laborers’ wives who used to do the
milking for the girls on Sunday evening. They were thick-set, small,
and bent with toil. They were all talking together and spoke of
illnesses and other sad things in plaintive tones. Lasse at once felt a
desire to join them, for the subject found an echo in his being like
the tones of a well-known song, and he could join in the refrain with
the experience of a lifetime. But he resisted the temptation, and went
past them down the basement steps. “Ah, yes, death will come to us
all!” said one of the women, and Lasse said the words after her to
himself as he went down.
Down there Karna was sitting mending Gustav’s moleskin trousers, while
Gustav lay upon the bench asleep with his cap over his face. He had put
his feet up on Karna’s lap, without so much as taking off his shoes;
and she had accommodated her lap, so that they should not slide off.
Lasse sat down beside her and tried to make himself agreeable. He
wanted some one to be nice to him. But Karna was unapproachable; those
dirty feet had quite turned her head. And either Lasse had forgotten
how to do it, or he was wanting in assurance, for every time he
attempted a pleasant speech, she turned it off.
“We might have such a comfortable time, we two elderly folk,” he said
hopelessly.
“Yes, and I could contribute what was wanting,” said Gustav, peeping
out from under his cap. Insolent puppy, lying there and boasting of his
seventeen years! Lasse had a good mind to go for him then and there and
chance yet one more trial of strength. But he contented himself with
sitting and looking at him until his red, lashless eyes grew watery.
Then he got up.
“Well, well, I see you want young people this evening!” he said
bitterly to Karna. “But you can’t get rid of your years, all the same!
Perhaps you’ll only get the spoon to lick after the others.”
He went across to the cow-stable and began to talk to the three
farm-laborers’ wives, who were still speaking of illness and misery and
death, as if nothing else existed in the world. Lasse nodded and said:
“Yes, yes, that’s true.” He could heartily endorse it all, and could
add much to what they said. It brought warmth to his old body, and made
him feel quite comfortable—so easy in his joints.
But when he lay on his back in bed, all the sad thoughts came back and
he could not sleep. Generally he slept like a log as soon as he lay
down, but to-day was Sunday, and he was tormented with the thought that
life had passed him by. He had promised himself so much from the
island, and it was nothing but worry and toil and trouble —nothing else
at all.
“Yes, Lasse’s old!” he suddenly said aloud, and he kept on repeating
the words with a little variation until he fell asleep: “He’s old, poor
man—and played out! Ah, so old!” Those words expressed it all.
He was awakened again by singing and shouting up on the high-road.
“And now the boy you gave me
With the black and curly hair,
He is no longer little,
No longer, no longer,
But a fine, tall strapping youth.”
It was some of the men and girls of the farm on their way home from
some entertainment. When they turned into the farm road they became
silent. It was just beginning to grow light; it must have been about
two o’clock.