Some days after this, mother and son, who of late had been more
together, agreed to be present at the wedding of some relatives at a
neighboring gard. The mother had not been to any party since she was a
girl.
They knew few people at the wedding, save by name, and Arne thought it
especially strange that everybody stared at him wherever he went.
Once some words were spoken behind him in the passage; he was not sure,
but he fancied he understood them, and every drop of blood rushed into
his face whenever he thought of them.
He could not keep his eyes off the man who had spoken these words;
finally, he took a seat beside him. But as he drew up to the table he
thought the conversation took another turn.
"Well, now I am going to tell you a story, which proves that nothing can
be buried so deep down in night that it will not find its way into
daylight," said the man, and Arne was sure he looked at _him_. He was an
ill-favored man, with thin, red hair encircling a great, round brow.
Beneath were a pair of very small eyes and a little bottle-shaped nose;
but the mouth was very large, with very pale, out-turned lips. When he
laughed, he showed his gums. His hands lay on the table: they were
clumsy and coarse, but the wrists were slender. He looked sharp and
talked fast, but with much effort. People nicknamed him the
Rattle-tongue, and Arne knew that tailor Nils had dealt roughly with him
in the old days.
"Yes, there is a great deal of wickedness in this world; it comes nearer
home to us than we think. But no matter; you shall hear now of an ugly
deed. Those who are old remember Alf, Scrip Alf. 'Sure to come back!'
said Alf; that saying comes from him; for when he had struck a
bargain--and he could trade, that fellow!--he flung his scrip on his
back. 'Sure to come back,' said Alf. A devilish good fellow, fine
fellow, splendid fellow, this Alf, Scrip Alf!
"Well, there was Alf and Big Lazy-bones--aye, you knew Big
Lazy-bones?--he was big and he was lazy too. He looked too long at a
shining black horse Scrip Alf drove and had trained to spring like a
summer frog. And before Big Lazy-bones knew what he was about, he had
given fifty dollars for the nag Big Lazy-bones mounted a carriole,[13]
as large as life, to drive like a king with his fifty-dollar horse; but
now he might lash and swear until the gard was all in a smoke; the horse
ran, for all that, against all the doors and walls that were in the way;
he was stone blind.
"Afterwards, Alf and Big Lazy-bones fell to quarreling about this horse
all through the parish, just like a couple of dogs. Big Lazy-bones
wanted his money back; but you may believe he never got so much as two
Danish shillings. Scrip Alf thrashed him until the hair flew. 'Sure to
come back,' said Alf. Devilish good fellow, fine fellow, splendid
fellow, this Alf--Scrip Alf.
"Well, then, some years passed by without his being heard of again.
"It might have been ten years later that he was published on the church
hill;[14] there had been left to him a tremendous fortune. Big
Lazy-bones was standing by. 'I knew very well,' said he, 'that it was
money that was crying for Scrip Alf, and not people.'
"Now there was a great deal of gossip about Alf; and out of it all was
gathered that he had been seen last on this side of Roeren, and not on
the other. Yes, you remember the Roeren road--the old road?
"But Big Lazy-bones had succeeded in rising to great power and splendor,
owning both farm and complete outfit.
"Moreover, he had professed great piety, and everybody knew he did not
become pious for nothing--any more than other folks do. People began to
talk about it.
"It was at this time that the Roeren road was to be changed, old-time
folks wanted to go straight ahead, and so it went directly over Roeren;
but we like things level, and so the road now runs down by the river.
There was a mining and a blasting, until one might have expected Roeren
to come tumbling down. All sorts of officials came there, but the
amtmand[15] oftenest of all, for he was allowed double mileage. And now,
one day while they were digging down among the rocks, some one went to
pick up a stone, but got hold of a hand that was sticking out of the
rocks, and so strong was this hand that it sent the man who took hold of
it reeling backwards. Now he who found this hand was Big Lazy-bones. The
lensmand[16] was sauntering about there, he was called, and the skeleton
of a whole man was dug out. The doctor was sent for too; he put the
bones so skillfully together that now only the flesh was wanting. But
people claimed that this skeleton was precisely the same size as Scrip
Alf. 'Sure to come back!' said Alf.
"Every one thought it most strange that a dead hand could upset a fellow
like Big Lazy-bones, even when it did not strike at all. The lensmand
talked seriously to him about it,--of course when no one was by to hear.
But then Big Lazy-bones swore until everything grew black about the
lensmand.
"'Well, well,' said the lensmand, 'if you had nothing to do with this,
you are just the fellow to go to bed with the skeleton to-night; hey?'
'To be sure I am,' replied Big Lazy-bones. And now the doctor jointed
the bones firmly together, and placed the skeleton in one of the beds of
the barracks. In the other Big Lazy-bones was to sleep, but the lensmand
laid down in his gown, close up to the wall. When it grew dark and Big
Lazy-bones had to go in to his bed-fellow, it just seemed as though the
door shut of itself, and he stood in the dark. But Big Lazy-bones fell
to singing hymns, for he had a strong voice. 'Why are you singing
hymns?' asked the lensmand, outside of the wall. 'No one knows whether
he has had the chorister,' answered Big Lazy-bones. Afterward he fell to
praying with all his might. 'Why are you praying?' asked the lensmand,
outside of the wall. 'He has no doubt been a great sinner,' answered Big
Lazy-bones. Then for a long time all was still, and it really seemed as
though the lensmand must be sleeping. Then there was a shriek that made
the barracks shake. 'Sure to come back!' An infernal noise and uproar
arose: 'Hand over those fifty dollars of mine!' bellowed Big
Lazy-bones, and there followed a screaming and a wrestling; the
lensmand flung open the door, people rushed in with sticks and stones,
and there lay Big Lazy-bones in the middle of the floor, and on him was
the skeleton."
It was very still around the table. Finally a man who was about to light
his clay pipe, said:--
"He surely went mad after that day."
"He did."
Arne felt every one looking at him, and therefore he could not raise his
eyes.
"It is, as I have said," put in the first speaker; "nothing can be
buried so deep down in night that it will not find its way into
daylight!"
"Well, now I will tell about a son who beat his own father," said a
fair, heavily-built man, with a round face. Arne knew not where he was
sitting.
"It was a bully of a powerful race, over in Hardanger; he was the ruin
of many people. His father and he disagreed about the yearly allowance,
and the result of this was that the man had no peace at home or in the
parish.
"Owing to this he grew more and more wicked, and his father took him to
task. 'I will take rebuke from no one,' said the son. 'From me you shall
take it as long as I live,' said the father. 'If you do not hold your
tongue I will beat you,' said the son, and sprang to his feet. 'Aye, do
so if you dare, and you will never prosper in the world,' answered the
father, as he too rose. 'Do you think so?'--and the son rushed at him
and knocked him down. But the father did not resist; he crossed his arms
and let his son do as he chose with him.
"The son beat him, seized hold of him and dragged him to the door. 'I
will have peace in the house!' But when they came to the door, the
father raised himself up. 'Not farther than to the door,' said he, 'for
so far I dragged my own father.' The son paid no heed to this, but
dragged his head across the threshold. 'Not farther than to the door, I
say!' Here the old man flung his son down at his feet, and chastised
him, just as though he were a child."
"That was badly done," said several.
"Did not strike his father, though," Arne thought some one said; but he
was not sure of it.
"Now I shall tell _you_ something," said Arne, rising up, as pale as
death, not knowing what he was going to say. He only saw the words
floating about him like great snow-flakes. "I will make a grasp at them
hap-hazard!" and he began.
"A troll met a boy who was walking along a road crying. 'Of whom are you
most afraid?' said the troll, 'of yourself, or of others?' But the boy
was crying, because he had dreamed in the night that he had been forced
to kill his wicked father, and so he answered, 'I am most afraid of
myself.' 'Then be at peace with yourself, and never cry any more; for
hereafter you shall only be at war with others.' And the troll went his
way. But the first person the boy met laughed at him, and so the boy had
to laugh back again. The next person he met struck him; the boy had to
defend himself, and struck back. The third person he met tried to kill
him, and so the boy had to take his life. Then everybody said hard
things about him, and therefore he knew only hard things to say of
everybody. They locked their cupboards and doors against him, so he had
to steal his way to what he needed; he even had to steal his night's
rest. Since they would not let him do anything good, he had to do
something bad. Then the parish said, 'We must get rid of this boy; he is
so bad'; and one fine day they put him out of the way. But the boy had
not the least idea that he had done anything wicked, and so after death
he came strolling right into the presence of the Lord. There on a bench
sat the father he had not slain, and right opposite, on another bench,
sat all those who had forced him to do wrong.
"'Which bench are you afraid of?' asked the Lord, and the boy pointed to
the long one.
"'Sit down there, beside your father,' said the Lord, and the boy turned
to do so.
"Then the father fell from the bench, with a great gash in his neck. In
his place there came one in the likeness of the boy, with repentant
countenance and ghastly features; then another with drunken face and
drooping form; still another with the face of a madman, with tattered
clothes and with hideous laughter.
"'Thus it might have been with you,' said the Lord.
"'Can that really be?' replied the boy, touching the hem of the Lord's
garment.
"Then both benches fell down from heaven, and the boy stood beside the
Lord again and laughed.
"'Remember this when you awaken,' said the Lord, and at that moment the
boy awoke.
"Now the boy who dreamed thus is I, and they who tempted him by thinking
him wicked are you. I no longer fear myself, but I am afraid of you. Do
not stir up my evil passions, for it is doubtful whether I may get hold
of the Lord's garment."
He rushed out, and the men looked at each other.