We came to the vicarage on a Saturday. After much doubting, Grindhusen
had at last agreed to take me as his mate. I had bought provisions and
some working clothes, and stood there now, in blouse and high boots,
ready to start work. I was free and unknown; I learned to walk with a
long, slouching stride, and for the look of a laboring man, I had
that already both in face and hands. We were to put up at the vicarage
itself, and cook our food in the brew-house across the yard.
And so we started on our digging.
I did my share of the work, and Grindhusen had no fault to find with me
as a work-mate. “You'll turn out a first-rate hand at this, after all,”
he said.
Then after we'd been working a bit, the priest came out to look, and we
took off our hats. He was an oldish man, quiet and gentle in his ways
and speech; tiny wrinkles spread out fanwise from the corners of his
eyes, like the traces of a thousand kindly smiles. He was sorry to
interrupt, and hoped we wouldn't mind--but they'd so much trouble every
year with the fowls slipping through into the garden. Could we leave
the well just for a little, and come round and look at the garden wall?
There was one place in particular....
Grindhusen answered: surely; we'd manage that for him all right.
So we went up and set the crumbling wall to rights. While we were
busy there a young lady came out and stood looking on. We greeted
her politely, and I thought her a beautiful creature to see. Then a
half-grown lad came out to look, and asked all sorts of questions.
The two were brother and sister, no doubt. And the work went on easily
enough with the young folk there looking on.
Then evening came. Grindhusen went off home, leaving me behind. I slept
in the hayloft for the night.
Next day was Sunday. I dared not put on my town clothes lest they should
seem above my station, but cleaned up my working things as neatly as
I could, and idled about the place in the quiet of Sunday morning. I
chatted to the farm-hands and joined them in talking nonsense to the
maids; when the bell began ringing for church, I sent in to ask if I
might borrow a Prayer Book, and the priest's son brought me one himself.
One of the men lent me a coat; it wasn't big enough, really, but, taking
off my blouse and vest, I made it do. And so I went to church.
That inward calm I had been at such pains to build up on the island
proved all too little yet; at the first thrill of the organ I was torn
from my setting and came near to sobbing aloud. “Keep quiet, you fool,”
I said to myself, “it's only neurasthenia.” I had chosen a seat well
apart from the rest, and hid my emotion as best I could. I was glad when
that service was over.
When I had boiled my meat and had some dinner, I was invited into the
kitchen for a cup of coffee. And while I sat there, in came Frøkenen,
the young lady I had seen the day before; I stood up and bowed a
greeting, and she nodded in return. She was charming, with her youth and
her pretty hands. When I got up to go, I forgot myself and said:
“Most kind of you, I'm sure, my dear young lady!”
She glanced at me in astonishment, frowned, and the colour spread in
her cheeks till they burned. Then with a toss of her head she turned and
left the room. She was very young.
Well, I had done a nice thing now!
Miserable at heart, I sneaked up into the woods to hide. Impertinent
fool, why hadn't I held my tongue! Of all the ridiculous things to
say....
The vicarage buildings lay on the slope of a small hill; from the top,
the land stretched away flat and level, with alternating timber and
clearing. It struck me that here would be the proper place to dig the
well, and then run a pipe-line down the slope to the house. Judging
the height as nearly as I can, it seems more than enough to give the
pressure needed; on the way back I pace out the approximate length: two
hundred and fifty feet.
But what business was it of mine, after all? For Heaven's sake let me
not go making the same mistake again, and insulting folk by talking
above my station.
V
Grindhusen came out again on Monday morning, and we fell to digging as
before. The old priest came out to look, and asked if we couldn't fix
a post for him on the road up to the church. He needed it badly, that
post; it had stood there before, but had got blown down; he used it for
nailing up notices and announcements.
We set up a new post, and took pains to get it straight and upstanding
as a candle in a stick. And by the way of thanks we hooded the top with
zinc.
While I was at work on the hood, I got Grindhusen to suggest that the
post should be painted red; he had still a trifle of red paint left over
from the work at Gunhild's cottage. But the priest wanted it white,
and Grindhusen was afraid to contradict, and carefully agreed to all
he said, until at last I put in a word, and said that notices on white
paper would show up better against red. At that the priest smiled, with
the endless wrinkles round his eyes, and said: “Yes, yes, of course,
you're quite right.”
And that was enough; just that bit of a smile and saying I was right
made me all glad and proud again within.
Then Frøkenen came up, and said a few words to Grindhusen; even jested
with him, asking what that red cardinal was to be stuck up there for on
the road. But to me she said nothing at all, and did not even look at me
when I took off my hat.
Dinner was a sore trial to me that day, not that the food was bad, no,
but Grindhusen, he ate his soup in a disgusting fashion, and his mouth
was all greasy with fat.
“What'll he be like when it comes to eating porridge?” I thought to
myself hysterically.
Then when he leaned back on the bench to rest after his meal in the same
greasy state, I called to him straight out:
“For Heaven's sake, man, aren't you going to wipe your mouth?”
He stared at me, wiping his mouth with one hand. “Mouth?” he said.
I tried to turn it off then as a joke, and said: “Haha, I had you
there!” But I was displeased with myself, for all that, and went out of
the brewhouse directly after.
Then I fell to thinking of Frøkenen. “I'll make her answer when I give a
greeting,” I said to myself. “I'll let her see before very long that
I'm not altogether a fool.” There was that business of the well and
the pipe-line, now; what if I were to work out a plan for the whole
installation all complete! I had no instruments to take the height and
fall of the hill ... well, I could make one that would serve. And I set
to work. A wooden tube, with two ordinary lamp-glasses fixed in with
putty, and the whole filled with water.
Soon it was found there were many little things needed seeing to
about the vicarage--odd matters here and there. A stone step to be set
straight again, a wall to be repaired; the bridgeway to the barn had to
be strengthened before the corn could be brought in. The priest liked to
have everything sound and in order about the place--and it was all one
to us, seeing we were paid by the day. But as time went on I grew more
and more impatient of my work-mate's company. It was torture to me, for
instance, to see him pick up a loaf from the table, hold it close in to
his chest, and cut off a slice with a greasy pocket-knife that he was
always putting in his mouth. And then, again, he would go all through
the week, from Sunday to Sunday, without a wash. And in the morning,
before the sun was up, and the evening, after it had gone, there was
always a shiny drop hanging from the tip of his nose. And then his
nails! And as for his ears, they were simply deformed.
Alas! I was an upstart creature, that had learned fine manners in
the cafés in town. And since I could not keep myself from telling my
companion now and then what I thought of his uncleanly ways, there grew
up a certain ill-feeling between us, and I feared we should have to
separate before long. As it was, we hardly spoke now beyond what was
needed.
And there was the well, as undug as ever. Sunday came, and Grindhusen
had gone home.
I had got my apparatus finished now, and in the afternoon I climbed up
to the roof of the main building and set it up there. I saw at once
that the sight cut the hillside several metres below the top. Good. Even
reckoning a whole metre down to the water-level, there would still be
pressure enough and to spare.
While I was busy up there the priest's son caught sight of me. Harald
Meltzer was his name. And what was I doing up there? Measuring the hill;
what for? What did I want to know the height for? Would I let him try?
Later on I got hold of a line ten metres long, and measured the hill
from foot to summit, with Harald to help. When we came down to the
house, I asked to see the priest himself, and told him of my plan.