When the time came to take the herds up into the woods, Arne wanted to
tend them. His father objected; the boy had never tended cattle, and he
was now in his fifteenth year. But he was so urgent that it was finally
arranged as he wished; and the entire spring, summer, and autumn he was
in the woods by himself the livelong day, only going home to sleep.
He took his books up there with him. He read and carved letters in the
bark of the trees; he went about thinking, longing, and singing. When he
came home in the evening his father was often drunk, and beat the
mother, cursed her and the parish, and talked about how he might once
have journeyed far away. Then the longing for travel entered the boy's
mind too. There was no comfort at home, and the books opened other
worlds to him; sometimes it seemed as though the air, too, wafted him
far away over the lofty mountains.
So it happened about midsummer that he met Kristian, the captain's
eldest son, who came with the servant boy to the woods after the horses,
in order to get a ride home. He was a few years older than Arne,
light-hearted and gay, unstable in all his thoughts, but nevertheless
firm in his resolves. He spoke rapidly and in broken sentences, and
usually about two things at once; rode horseback without a saddle, shot
birds on the wing, went fly-fishing, and seemed to Arne the goal of his
aspirations. He also had his head full of travel, and told Arne about
foreign lands until everything about them was radiant. He discovered
Arne's fondness for reading, and now carried up to him those books he
had read himself. After Arne had finished reading these, Kristian
brought him new ones; he sat there himself on Sundays, and taught Arne
how to find his way in the geography and the map; and all summer and
autumn Arne read until he grew pale and thin.
In the winter he was allowed to read at home; partly because he was to
be confirmed the next year, partly because he always knew how to manage
his father. He began to go to school; but there he took most comfort
when he closed his eyes and fancied himself over his books at home;
besides, there were no longer any companions for him among the peasant
boys.
His father's ill-treatment of the mother increased with years, as did
also his fondness for drink and his bodily suffering. And when Arne,
notwithstanding this, had to sit and amuse him, in order to furnish the
mother with an hour's peace, and then often talk of things he now, in
his heart, despised, he felt growing within him a hatred for his father.
This he hid far down in his heart, as he did his love for his mother.
When he was with Kristian, their talk ran on great journeys and books;
even to him he said nothing about how things were at home. But many
times after these wide-ranging talks, when he was walking home alone,
wondering what might now meet him there, he wept and prayed to God, in
the starry heavens, to grant that he might soon be allowed to go away.
In the summer he and Kristian were confirmed. Directly afterward, the
latter carried out his plan. His father had to let him go from home and
become a sailor. He presented Arne with his books, promised to write
often to him,--and went away.
Now Arne was alone.
About this time he was again filled with a desire to write songs. He no
longer patched up old ones; he made new ones, and wove into them all
that grieved him most.
But his heart grew too heavy, and his sorrow broke forth in his songs.
He now lay through long, sleepless nights, brooding, until he felt sure
that he could bear this no longer, but must journey far away, seek
Kristian, and not say a word about it to any one. He thought of his
mother, and what would become of her,--and he could scarcely look her in
the face.
He sat up late one evening reading. When his heart became too gloomy, he
took refuge in his books, and did not perceive that they increased the
venom. His father was at a wedding, but was expected home that evening;
his mother was tired, and dreaded her husband's return; had therefore
gone to bed. Arne started up at the sound of a heavy fall in the passage
and the rattling of something hard, which struck against the door. It
was his father who had come home.
Arne opened the door and looked at him.
"Is that you, my clever boy? Come and help your father up!"
He was raised up and helped in toward the bench. Arne took up the
fiddle-case, carried it in, and closed the door.
"Yes, look at me, you clever boy. I am not handsome now; this is no
longer tailor Nils. This I say--to you, that you--never shall drink
brandy; it is--the world and the flesh and the devil--He resisteth the
proud but giveth grace unto the humble.--Ah, woe, woe is me!--How far it
has gone with me!"
He sat still a while, then he sang, weeping,--
"Merciful Lord, I come to Thee;
Help, if there can be help for me;
Though by the mire of sin defiled,
I'm still thine own dear ransomed child."[8]
"Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldest come under my roof; but speak
the word only"--He flung himself down, hid his face in his hands, and
sobbed convulsively. Long he lay thus, and then he repeated word for
word from the Bible, as he had learned it probably more than twenty
years before: "Then she came and worshiped 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!"
He was silent now, and dissolved in a flood of tears.
The mother had awakened long since, but had not dared raise her eyes,
now that her husband was weeping like one who is saved; she leaned on
her elbows and looked up.
But scarcely had Nils descried her, than he shrieked out: "Are you
staring at me; you, too?--you want to see, I suppose, what you have
brought me to. Aye, this is the way I look, exactly so!" He rose up,
and she hid herself under the robe. "No, do not hide, I will find you
easily enough," said he, extending his right hand, and groping his way
along with outstretched forefinger. "Tickle, tickle!" said he, as he
drew off the covers and placed his finger on her throat.
"Father!" said Arne.
"Oh dear! how shriveled up and thin you have grown. There is not much
flesh here. Tickle, tickle."
The mother convulsively seized his hand with both of hers, but could not
free herself, and so rolled herself into a ball.
"Father!" said Arne.
"So life has come into you now. How she writhes, the fright! Tickle,
tickle!"
"Father!" said Arne. The room seemed to swim about him.
"Tickle, I say!"
She let go his hands and gave up.
"Father!" shouted Arne. He sprang to the corner, where stood an axe.
"It is only from obstinacy that you do not scream. You had better not do
so either; I have taken such a frightful fancy. Tickle, tickle!"
"Father!" shrieked Arne, seizing the axe, but remained standing as
though nailed to the spot, for at that moment the father drew himself
up, gave a piercing cry, clutched at his breast, and fell over. "Jesus
Christ!" said he, and lay quite still.
Arne knew not where he stood or what he stood over; he waited, as it
were, for the room to burst asunder, and for a strong light to break in
somewhere. The mother began to draw her breath heavily, as though she
were rolling off some great weight. She finally half rose, and saw the
father lying stretched out on the floor, the son standing beside him
with an axe.
"Merciful Lord, what have you done?" she shrieked, and started up out of
bed, threw her skirt about her, and came nearer; then Arne felt as if
his tongue were unloosed.
"He fell down himself," said he.
"Arne, Arne, I do not believe you," cried the mother, in a loud,
rebuking tone. "Now Jesus be with you!" and she flung herself over the
corpse, with piteous lamentation.
Now the boy came out of his stupor, and dropping down on his knees,
exclaimed, "As surely as I look for mercy from God, he fell as he stood
there."
"Then our Lord himself has been here," said she, quietly; and, sitting
on the floor, she fixed her eyes on the corpse.
Nils lay precisely as he fell, stiff, with open eyes and mouth. His
hands had drawn near together, as though he had tried to clasp them, but
had been unable to do so.
"Take hold of your father, you are so strong, and help me lay him on the
bed."
And they took hold of him and laid him on the bed. Margit closed his
eyes and mouth, stretched him out and folded his hands.
Mother and son stood and looked at him. All they had experienced until
then neither seemed so long nor contained so much as this moment. If the
devil himself had been there, the Lord had been there also; the
encounter had been short. All the past was now settled.
It was a little after midnight, and they had to be there with the dead
man until day dawned. Arne crossed the floor, and made a great fire on
the hearth, the mother sat down by it. And now, as she sat there, it
rushed through her mind how many evil days she had had with Nils; and
then she thanked God, in a loud, fervent prayer, for what He had done.
"But I have truly had some good days also," said she, and wept as
though she regretted her recent thankfulness; and it ended in her
taking the greatest blame on herself who had acted contrary to God's
commandment, out of love for the departed one, had been disobedient to
her mother, and therefore had been punished through this sinful love.
Arne sat down directly opposite her. The mother's eyes were fixed on the
bed.
"Arne, you must remember that it was for your sake I bore it all," and
she wept, yearning for a loving word in order to gain a support against
her own self-accusations, and comfort for all coming time. The boy
trembled and could not answer. "You must never leave me," sobbed she.
Then it came suddenly to his mind what she had been, in all this time of
sorrow, and how boundless would be her desolation should he, as a reward
for her great fidelity, forsake her now.
"Never, never!" he whispered, longing to go to her, yet unable to do
so.
They kept their seats, but their tears flowed freely together. She
prayed aloud, now for the dead man, now for herself and her boy; and
thus, amid prayers and tears, the time passed. Finally she said:--
"Arne, you have such a fine voice, you must sit over by the bed and sing
for your father."
And it seemed as though strength was forthwith given him to do so. He
got up, and went to fetch a hymn-book, then lit a torch, and with the
torch in one hand, the hymn-book in the other, he sat down at the head
of the bed and, in a clear voice, sang Kingo's one hundred and
twenty-seventh hymn:--
"Turn from us, gracious Lord, thy dire displeasure!
Let not thy bloody rod, beyond all measure,
Chasten thy children, laden with sore oppressions,
For our transgressions."[9]