A day later Arne came in and announced that he had just heard on the
gard that the priest's daughter Mathilde had that very moment started
for the town, as she thought, for a few days, but, as had been decided,
to stay there for a year or two. Eli had heard nothing of this before,
and fell fainting.
It was the first time Arne had seen any one faint, and he was much
alarmed; he ran for the maid-servants, they went for the parents, who
started at once; there was confusion all over the gard, even the
shepherd-dog barked on the barn-bridge. When Arne came in again, later,
the mother was on her knees by the bedside, the father stood holding the
sick girl's head. The maid-servants were running, one for water,
another for medicine, which was kept in a cupboard, a third was
unfastening Eli's jacket at the throat.
"The Lord help and bless us!" cried the mother. "It was certainly wrong
that we said nothing to her; it was you, Baard, who would have it so.
The Lord help and bless us!"
Baard made no reply.
"I said we had better tell her; but nothing is ever done as I wish. The
Lord help and bless us! You are always so underhand with her, Baard; you
do not understand her; you do not know what it is to care for any one."
Baard still made no reply.
"She is not like others; they can bear sorrow, but it completely upsets
her, poor thing, she is so slight. And especially now when she is not
well at all. Wake up again, my dear child, and we will be kind to you!
Wake up again, Eli, my own dear child, and do not grieve us so!"
Then Baard said,--
"You are either too silent, or you talk too much;" and he looked over at
Arne, as though he did not wish him to hear all this, but to go away. As
the maid-servants remained in the room, however, Arne thought that he
might stay, too, but he walked to the window. Now the patient rallied
so far that she could look about her and recognize people; but at the
same moment her memory returned; she shrieked "Mathilde," burst into
hysterical weeping, and sobbed until it was painful to be in the room
with her. The mother tried to comfort her; the father had placed himself
where he might be seen; but the sick girl waved her hand to them. "Go
away!" she cried, "I do not love you!"
"Good gracious! You do not love your parents?" said the mother.
"No! You are cruel to me, and take from me the only joy I have!"
"Eli, Eli! Do not speak such dreadful words!" begged the mother.
"Yes, mother," she shrieked; "now I must say it! Yes, mother! You want
me to marry that hateful man, and I will not. You shut me up here, where
I am never happy, except when I am to go out! You take Mathilde from me,
the only person I love and long for in the world! O God, what will
become of me when Mathilde is no longer here--especially now that I have
so much, so much I cannot manage when I have no one to talk with?"
"But you really have so seldom been with her lately," said Baard.
"What did that matter when I had her over at the window yonder!"
answered the sick girl, and she cried in such a child-like way, that it
seemed to Arne as though he had never before seen anything like it.
"But you could not see her there," said Baard.
"I could see the gard," answered she; and the mother added, hotly,--
"You do not understand such things at all."
Then Baard said no more.
"Now I can never go to the window!" said Eli. "I went there in the
morning when I got up; in the evening I sat there in the moonlight: and
I went there when I had no one else to go to. Mathilde, Mathilde!"
She writhed in the bed, and again gave way to hysterical weeping. Baard
sat down on a stool near by and watched her.
But Eli did not get over this as soon as her parents may have expected.
Toward evening they first saw that she was likely to have a protracted
illness, the seeds of which had doubtless been gathering for some time;
and Arne was called in to assist in carrying her up to her own room. She
was unconscious, and lay very pale and still; the mother sat down beside
her; the father stood at the foot of the bed and looked on; afterwards
he went down to his work. Arne did the same; but that night when he went
to bed he prayed for her, prayed that she, young and fair as she was,
might have a happy life, and that no one might shut out joy from her.
The following day the father and mother sat talking together when Arne
came in; the mother had been shedding tears. Arne asked how things were
going; each waited for the other to speak, and therefore it was long
before he got a reply; but finally the father said, "It looks pretty
bad."
Later, Arne heard that Eli had been delirious the whole night; or, as
the father said, had been raving. Now she lay violently ill, knew no
one, would not take any food, and the parents were just sitting there,
deliberating whether they should call in the doctor. When, later, they
went up-stairs to the sick girl, and Arne was left alone again, he felt
as though life and death were both up there, but he sat outside.
In a few days, though, she was better. Once when the father was keeping
watch, she took a fancy to have Narrifas, the bird which Mathilde had
given her, standing beside the bed. Then Baard told her the truth, that
in all this confusion the bird had been forgotten, and that it was dead.
The mother came just while Baard was telling this, and she burst out in
the door,--"Good gracious me! how heedless you are, Baard, to tell such
things to that sick child! See, now she is fainting away again; Heaven
forgive you for what you have done!"
Every time the patient revived she screamed for the bird, said that it
would never go well with Mathilde since Narrifas was dead, wanted to go
to her, and fell into a swoon again. Baard stood there and looked on
until he could bear it no longer; then he wanted to help wait on her
too; but the mother pushed him away, saying that she would take care of
the sick girl alone. Then Baard gazed at both of them a long while,
after which he put on his cap with both hands, turned, and went out.
The priest and his wife came over later; for the illness had taken fresh
hold on Eli, and had become so bad that they knew not whether it was
tending to life or death.
Both the priest and the priest's wife reasoned with Baard, and urged
that he was too harsh with Eli; they had heard about the bird, and the
priest told him bluntly that such conduct was rough; he would take the
child home to the parsonage, he said, as soon as she had improved enough
to be moved. The priest's wife finally would not even see Baard; she
wept and sat with the sick girl, sent for the doctor, took his orders
herself, and came over several times each day to carry them out. Baard
went wandering about from place to place in the yard, going chiefly
where he could be alone; he would often stand still for a long time,
then straighten his cap with both hands, and find something to do.
The mother did not speak to him any more; they scarcely looked at each
other. Baard went up to the sick girl's room several times each day; he
took off his shoes at the bottom of the stairs, laid down his hat
outside of the door, which he opened cautiously. The moment he came in,
Birgit would turn as though she had not seen him, and then sit as
before, with her head in her hand, looking straight before her and at
the sick girl. The latter lay still and pale, unconscious of anything
about her. Baard would stand a while at the foot of the bed, look at
them both, and say nothing. Once, when Eli moved as though about to
awaken, he stole away directly as softly as he had come.
Arne often thought that words had now been exchanged between husband and
wife and parents and child, which had been long brewing, and which
would not soon be forgotten. He longed to get away, although he would
have liked first to know how Eli's illness would end. But this he could
learn even if he left, he thought; he went, therefore, to Baard, and
said that he wished to go home; the work for which he had come was done.
Baard sat outside on the chopping-block when Arne came to tell him this.
He sat digging in the snow with a pin. Arne knew the pin; for it was the
same that had fastened the weather vane. Without looking up Baard
said,--
"I suppose it is not pleasant to be here now, but I feel as if I did not
want you to leave."
Baard said no more; nor did Arne speak. He stood a while, then went away
and busied himself with some work, as though it were decided that he
should remain.
Later, when Arne was called in to dinner, Baard still sat on the
chopping-block. Arne went over to him and asked how Eli was getting on.
"I think she must be pretty bad to-day," said Baard; "I see that mother
is crying."
Arne felt as though some one had bidden him to sit down, and he sat down
directly opposite Baard on the end of a fallen tree.
"I have been thinking of your father these days," said Baard, so
unexpectedly, that Arne could make no reply. "You know, I dare say, what
there was between us two?"
"Yes, I know."
"Ah, well, you only know half, as might have been expected, and
naturally lay the greatest blame on me."
Arne answered presently: "You have doubtless settled that matter with
your God, as my father has surely done."
"Ah, well, that may be as one takes it," answered Baard. "When I found
this pin again, it seemed so strange to me that you should come here and
loosen the vane. Just as well first as last, thought I." He had taken
off his cap and sat looking into it.
Arne did not yet understand that by this Baard meant that he now wanted
to talk with him about his father. Indeed, he still did not understand
it, even after Baard was well under way, so little was this like the
man. But what had been working before in his mind, he gradually
comprehended as the story advanced, and if he had hitherto had respect
for this blundering but thoroughly good man, it was not lessened now.
"I might have been about fourteen years old," said Baard, then paused,
as he did from time to time throughout his whole story, said a few words
more, and paused again in such a manner that his story bore the strong
impress of having every word weighed. "I might have been about fourteen
years old when I became acquainted with your father, who was of the same
age. He was very wild, and could not bear to have any one above him. And
what he never could forgive me was, that I was the head of the class
when we were confirmed, and he was number two. He often offered to
wrestle with me, but nothing ever came of it; I suppose because we were
neither of us sure of ourselves. But it is strange that he fought every
day, and no misfortune befell him; the one time I tried my hand it
turned out as badly as could be; but, to be sure, I had waited a long
time too.
"Nils fluttered about all the girls and they about him. There was only
one I wanted, but he took her from me at every dance, at every wedding,
at every party; it was the one to whom I am now married.... I often had
a desire, as I sat looking on, to make a trial of strength with him,
just because of this matter; but I was afraid I might lose, and I knew
that if I did so I should lose her too. When the others had gone, I
would lift the weights he had lifted, kick the beam he had kicked, but
the next time he danced away from me with the girl, I did not dare
tackle him, although it chanced once, as Nils stood joking with her
right before my face, that I laid hold of a good sized fellow who stood
by and tossed him against the beam, as though for sport. Nils grew pale,
too, that time.
"If he had only been kind to the girl; but he was false to her, and that
evening after evening. I almost think she cared more for him each time.
Then it was that the last thing happened. I thought now it must either
break or bear. Nor did the Lord want him to go about any longer; and
therefore he fell a little more heavily than I had intended. I never saw
him after that."
They sat for a long time silent. Finally Baard continued:--
"I offered myself again. She answered neither yes nor no; and so I
thought she would like me better afterwards. We were married; the
wedding took place down in the valley, at the house of her father's
sister, who left her property to her; we began with plenty, and what we
then had has increased. Our gards lay alongside of each other, and they
have since been thrown into one, as had been my idea from boyhood up.
But many other things did not turn out as I had planned."
He was long silent; Arne thought, for a while, he was weeping; it was
not so. But he spoke in a still gentler tone than usual when he began
again,--
"At first she was quiet and very sorrowful. I had nothing to say for her
comfort, and so I was silent. Later, she fell at times into that
commanding way that you have perhaps noticed in her; yet it was after
all a change, and so I was silent then, too. But a truly happy day I
have not had since I was married, and that has been now for twenty
years."
He broke the pin in two; then he sat a while looking at the pieces.
"When Eli grew to be a large girl, I thought she would find more
happiness among strangers than here. It is seldom that I have insisted
on anything; it usually has been wrong, too, when I have; and so it was
with this. The mother yearned for her child, although only the lake
parted them; and at last I found out that Eli was not under the best
influences over at the parsonage, for there is really much good-natured
nonsense about the priest's family; but I found it out too late. Now she
seems to care for neither father nor mother."
He had taken his cap off again; now his long hair fell over his eyes; he
stroked it aside, and put on his cap with both hands, as though about to
go; but as in getting up he turned toward the house, he stopped and
added, with a glance at the chamber window,--
"I thought it was best she and Mathilde should not bid each other
good-by; but that proved to be wrong. I told her the little bird was
dead, for it was my fault, you know, and it seemed to me right to
confess; but that was wrong too. And so it is with everything. I have
always meant to do the best, but it has turned out to be the worst; and
now it has gone so far that they speak ill of me, both wife and
daughter, and I am alone here."
A girl now called out to them that dinner was getting cold. Baard got
up. "I hear the horses neighing," said he, "somebody must have forgotten
them;" and with this he went over to the stable to give them hay.