"Truly you come here into the forest bringing with you life and the world
and intellectual values and news. Let us talk a little. Tell me something:
are you afraid your footprints will be visible tomorrow if there's fresh
snow tonight?"
"That's my business. I've crossed the field before and I know many paths,"
he muttered. "I'll let you have the cloth for a few crowns."
I shook my head, so the man again neatly folded the cloth and put it back
in the bag exactly as though it belonged to him.
"I'll cut it up into material for trousers; then the pieces won't be so
large, and I'll be able to sell it."
"You'd better leave enough for a whole suit in one piece," I said, "and
cut up the rest for trousers."
"You think so? Yes, maybe you're right."
We calculated how much would be necessary for a grown man's suit, and took
down the string from which the letters hung to measure our own clothes, so
as to be sure to get the measurements right. Then we cut into the edge of
the cloth, and tore it across. In addition to one complete suit, there was
enough left for two good-sized pairs of trousers.
Then the man offered to sell me other things out of his sack, and I bought
some coffee and a few rolls of tobacco. He put the money away in a leather
purse, and I saw how empty the purse was, and the circumstantial and
poverty-stricken fashion in which he put the money away, afterward feeling
the outside of his pocket.
"You haven't been able to sell me much," I said, "but I don't need any
more than that."
"Business is business," said he. "I don't complain."
It was quite decent of him.
While he was making ready to depart and clearing his bed of pine needles
out of the way, I thought pityingly of his sordid little theft. Stealing
because he was needy--a side of bacon and a length of cloth which he was
trying to sell in the forest! Theft has indeed ceased to be a matter of
great moment. This is because legal punishment for misdemeanors of all
kinds has also ceased to be of great moment. It is only a dull, human
punishment; the religious element has been removed from the law, and a
local magistrate is no longer a man of mystic power.
I well remember the last time I heard a judge explain the meaning of the
oath as it should be explained. It chilled us all to the bone to hear him.
We need some witchcraft again, and the Sixth Book of Moses, and the sin
against the Holy Ghost, and signing your name in the blood of a newly
baptized child! Steal a sack of money and silver treasure, if you like,
and hide the sack in the hills where on autumn evenings a blue flame will
hover over the spot. But don't come to me with three pairs of mittens and
a side of household bacon!
The man no longer worried about the sack; leaving it behind, he crawled
out of the hut to study the weather. The coffee and tobacco I had bought I
put back into the sack, for I did not need them. When he returned, he
said:
"I think after all I'd better stop the night here with you, if you don't
mind."
In the evening he gave no indication of being prepared to contribute any
of his own food. I cooked some coffee and gave him some dry bread to eat
with it.
"You shouldn't have expenses for me," he said.
Then he began to rummage in his sack again, pushing the bacon well down so
that the cloth might not be stained by it; after this he took off his
leather belt and put it round the sack, with a loop to carry over one
shoulder.
"Now if I take the neck of the sack over the other shoulder, I'll find it
easier to carry," he said.
I gave him my letters to post on the other side of the fjeld and he stowed
them away safely, slapping the outside of his pocket afterward; I also
gave him a special envelope in which to keep the money for the stamps, and
tied it to the neck of the sack.
"Where do you live?" I asked him.
"Where can a poor man live? Of course I live by the sea. I'm sorry to say
I have a wife and children--no use denying it."
"How many children have you?"
"Four. One's got a crippled arm and the others--there's something wrong
with all of them. It's not easy for a poor devil. My wife's ill, and a few
days ago she thought she was dying and wanted Communion."
A sad note crept into his voice. But the note was false. He was telling me
a pack of lies. When they came to look for him from the village, no
Christian would have the heart to accuse a man with such a large and sick
family. This, no doubt, was his meaning.
Man, oh man, thou art worse than a mouse!
I questioned him no further, but asked him to sing something, a ballad or
a song, since we had nothing else to do.
"I've no heart to sing now," he replied. "Except possibly a hymn."
"All right; sing a hymn, then."
"Not now. I'd like to do you a favor, but--"
His uneasiness was rising. A little later he took his sack and went out.
"Well, he's gone," I thought, "but he hasn't said the customary
peace-be-with-you. I'm glad I've come into the forest," I thought. "This
is my home, and from this day forth, no mother's son shall come within my
walls again."
I made an elaborate agreement with myself that I should have no more truck
with men.
"Madame, come here," I said. "I esteem you highly, and herewith, Madame, I
undertake to enter upon a union with you for life!"
Half an hour later, the man returned. He carried no sack.
"I thought you'd gone," I said.
"Gone? I'm not a dog," he replied. "I've met people before this, and I say
good morning when I come and peace-be-with-you when I go. You shouldn't
sneer at me, you know."
"What have you done with the sack?"
"I've carried it part of the way."
His concealing the sack in case anyone should come proved he had
forethought, for it was easier to get away scot-free without a burden on
one's back. To stop him from telling me any more lies about his poverty, I
said:
"I expect you've raised plenty of dust in your day? Still do, for that
matter?"
"Well, I do what I can," he replied cheerfully. "I can lift a barrel
easier than most, and nobody was able to dance me off the floor last
Christmas! Hush--is that someone coming?"
We listened. His eyes darted toward the entrance, and in a moment he had
chosen to meet danger halfway. He was taut and splendid; I could see his
jaw working.
"It's nothing," I said.
Resolute and strong as a bull, he crawled out of the hut and was gone for
a few minutes. When he returned, breathing heavily, he said:
"It's nothing."
We lay down for the night.
"In God's name!" he said, as he settled himself on his pine bed. I fell
asleep at once, and for some time slept deeply. But during the night
restlessness seized on the man again. "Peace be with you!" I heard him
mutter as he crawled out of the hut.
In the morning I burned the man's bed of pine needles; it made a lively
fire of crackling pine in the hut.
Outside, the ground was covered with new-fallen snow.