sort yesterday in the fellow's face--yes, such a student was the kind
of a fellow to send back a money order!
There began to be a sort of an ugly grin on his face. But suddenly
he assumed a good-natured, free and easy mien. "Three dollars, you
say?--If I had three in the house, my boy! But here, by fits and starts
in the summer, it is as if the ready money was clean swept away."
He stuck his unoccupied hand in the breast of his uniform coat, and
looked vacantly out into the air. "Ah! hm-hm," came after a dreadfully
oppressive pause. "If I was only sure of getting them back again, I
would see if I could pick up three or four shillings at any rate in
Ma's household box--so that you could get down to the sheriff or the
judge. They are excellent people, I know them; they help at the first
word."
The captain, puffing vigorously at his pipe, went into the kitchen to
Ma, who was standing in the pantry and dealing out the breakfast.
She had the hay-making and the whole of the outside affairs upon her
shoulders.
He was away quite a little time.
"Well, if Ma did not have the three dollars after all! So I have got
them for you. And so good-by from Gilje! Let us hear when you get
there."
"You shall hear in a money order," and the student strode jubilantly
away.
It is true that at first Ma had stopped for a moment and pinched her
lips together, and then she had declared as her most settled opinion
that, if the captain was going to help at all, it must be with all
three. He did not seem one of those who shirked everything--was not one
who was all surface--and it would not do at all to let him beg at the
judge's, the sheriff's, and perhaps the minister's, because he could
not get a loan of more than three shillings at Gilje.
From time to time Thinka told of all that she and the student had
talked about together.
"What did he say then?" urged Inger-Johanna.
"Oh, he was entertaining almost all the time; I have never heard any
one so entertaining."
"Yes, but do you remember that he said anything?"
"Oh, yes, he asked why you were reading French. Perhaps you were to be
trained to be a parrot, so that you could chatter when you came to the
city.
"So,--how did he know that I was going to the city?"
"He asked how old you were; and then I said that you were to be
confirmed and to go there. He was very well acquainted at the
governor's house; he had done extra writing, or something of that sort,
at the office, since he had been a student."
"That kind of acquaintance, yes."
"But you wouldn't suit exactly there, he said; and do you know why?"
"No."
"Do you want to know? He thought you had too much backbone."
"What--did he say?"
She wrinkled her eyebrows and looked up sharply, so that Thinka
hastened to add: "Whoever comes there must be able to wind like a
sewing thread around the governor's wife, he said; it would be a shame
for your beautiful neck to get a twist so early."
Inger-Johanna threw her head back and smiled: "Did you ever hear such a
man!"
* * * * *
Thinka had gone to Ryfylke. Her place at the table, in the living-room,
in the bed-chamber, was empty air. The captain started out time after
time to call her.
And now the last afternoon had come, when Inger-Johanna was also going
away.
The sealskin trunk with new iron bands stood open in the hall ready for
packing. The cariole was standing in the shed, greased so that the oil
was running out of the ends of the axles, and Great-Ola, who was to
start the next morning on the three days' journey, was giving Svarten
oats.
The captain had been terribly busy that day: no one understood how to
pack as he did.
Ma handed over to him one piece of the new precious stuff after the
other; the linen from Gilje would bear the eye of the governor's wife.
But the misfortune of it was that the blood rushed so to Jäger's head
when he stooped over.
"Hullo, good! I don't understand what you are thinking of, Ma, to come
with all that load of cotton stockings at once! It is this, this, this
I want."
Naturally, used to travelling as he was--"But it is so bad for you to
stoop over, Jäger."
He straightened up hurriedly. "Do you think Great-Ola has the wit to
rub Svarten with Riga liniment on the bruise on his neck and to take
the bottle with him in his bag? If I had not thought of that now,
Svarten would have had to trot with it. Run down and tell him that,
Thea.--Oh, no!" he drew a despairing breath; "I must go myself, and
see that it is done right."
There was a pause until his footfall had ceased to creak on the lowest
step. Then Ma began to pack with precipitous haste: "It is best to
spare your father from the rush of blood to his head."
The contents of the trunk rose layer upon layer, until the white napkin
was at last spread over it and covered the whole, and it only remained
to sit upon the lid and force the key to turn in the lock.
Towards supper time the worst hubbub and trouble were over. Ma's
hasty-pudding, as smooth as velvet, with raspberry sauce, was standing
on the table, and solemnly reminded them that again there would be one
less in the daily circle.
They ate in silence without any other sound than the rattling of the
spoons.
"There, child, take my large cup. Take it when your father bids you."
Certainly she is beautiful, the apple of his eye. Only look at her
hands when she is eating! She is as delicate and pale as a nun.
He sighed, greatly down-hearted, and shoved his plate from him.
Tears burst from Inger-Johanna's eyes.
No one would have any more.
Now he walked and whistled and gazed on the floor.
It was a pity to see how unhappy father was.
"You must write every month, child--at length and about everything--do
you hear?--large and small, whatever you are thinking of, so that your
father may have something to take pleasure in," Ma admonished, while
they were clearing off the table. "And listen now, Inger-Johanna," she
continued when they were alone in the pantry: "If it is so that the
governor's wife wants to read your letters, then put a little cross by
the signature. But if there is anything the matter, tell it to old Aunt
Alette out in the bishop's mansion; then I shall know it when Great-Ola
is in for the city load. You know your father can bear so little that
is disagreeable."
"The governor's wife read what I write to you and father! That I will
defy her to do."
"You must accommodate yourself to her wishes, child. You can do it
easily when you try, and your aunt is extremely kind and good to those
she likes, when she has things her own way. You know how much may
depend on her liking you, and--you understand--getting a little fond of
you. She has certainly not asked you there without thinking of keeping
you in the place of a daughter."
"Any one else's daughter? Take me from you and father? No, in that case
I would rather never go there."
She seated herself on the edge of the meal-chest and began to sob
violently.
"Come, come, Inger-Johanna." Ma stroked her hair with her hand. "We do
not wish to lose you; you know that well enough,"--her voice trembled.
"It is for your own advantage, child. What do you think you three
girls have to depend upon, if your father should be taken away? We
must be glad if a place offers, and even take good care not to lose
it; remember that, always remember that, Inger-Johanna. You have
intelligence enough, if you can also learn to control your will; that
is your danger, child."
Inger-Johanna looked up at her mother with an expression almost of
terror. She had a bitter struggle to understand. In her, in whom she
had always found aid, there was suddenly a glimpse of the helpless.
"I can hardly bear to lose the young one out of my sight to-night, and
you leave me alone in there," came the captain, creaking in the door.
"You haven't a thought of how desolate and lonesome it will be for me,
Ma." He blew out like a whale.
"We are all coming in now, and perhaps father will sing a little this
evening," Ma said encouragingly.
The captain's fine, now a little hoarse, bass was his pride and renown
from his youth up.
The clavichord was cleared of its books and papers--the cover must be
entirely lifted when father was to sing.
It stood there with its yellow teeth, its thin, high tone, and its four
dead keys; and Ma must play the accompaniment, in which always, in some
part or other, she was left lying behind, like a sack that has fallen
out of a wagon, while the horse patiently trots on over the road. His
impatience she bore with stoical tranquillity.
This evening he went through _Heimkringlas panna_, _du höga Nord_, and
_Vikingebalken_, to
_Lo! the chase's empress cometh! Hapless Frithjof, glance away!
Like a star on spring cloud sitteth she upon her courser gray._
He sang so that the window-panes rattled.
_Chapter IV_
The year had turned. It was as long after Christmas as the middle of
February.
In the evening the captain was sitting, with two candles in tin
candlesticks, smoking and reading _Hermoder_. At the other end of the
table the light was used by Jörgen, who was studying his lessons; he
must worry out the hours that had been assigned, whether he knew the
lessons or not.
The frosty panes shone almost as white as marble in the moonlight,
which printed the whole of a pale window on the door panel in the
lower, unlighted end of the sitting-room.
Certainly there were bells!
Jörgen raised his head, covered with coarse, yellow hair, from his
book. It was the second time he had heard them, far away on the hill;
but, like the sentinels of Haakon Adelstensfostre at the beacon, of
whom he was just reading, he did not dare to jump up from his reading
and give the alarm until he was sure.
"I think there are bells on the road," he gently remarked, "far off."
"Nonsense! attend to your lesson."
But, notwithstanding he pretended that he was deeply absorbed in the
esthetic depths of _Hermoder_, the captain also sat with open ears.
"The trader's bells--they are so dull and low," Jörgen put in again.
"If you disturb me again, Jörgen, you shall hear the bells about your
own ears."
The trader, Öjseth, was the last one the captain could think of wishing
to see at the farm. He kept writing and writing after those paltry
thirty dollars of his, as if he believed he would lose them. "Hm! hm!"
He grew somewhat red in the face, and read on, determined not to see
the man before he was standing in the room.
The bells plainly stopped before the door.
"Hm! hm!"
Jörgen moved uneasily.
"If you move off the spot, boy, I'll break your arms and legs in
pieces!" foamed the captain, now red as copper. "Sit--sit still and
read!"
He intended also to sit still himself. That scoundrel of a trader--he
should fasten his horse himself at the doorsteps, and help himself as
he could.
"I hear them talking--Great-Ola."
"Hold your tongue!" said the captain in a murderous deep bass, and with
a pair of eyes fixed on his son as if he could eat him.
"Yes; but, father, it is really--"
A pull on his forelock and a box on the ears sent him across the floor.
"The doctor," roared Jörgen.
The truth of his martyrdom was established in the same moment, because
the short, square form of the military doctor appeared in the door.
His fur coat was all unbuttoned, and the tip of his long scarf trailed
behind him on the threshold. He held his watch out: "What time is it?"
"Now, then, may the devil take your body and soul to hell, where you
long ago belonged, if it isn't you, Rist!"
"What time is it? I say--Look!"
"And here I go and lick Jörgen for--well, well, boy, you shall be
excused from your lesson and can ask for syrup on your porridge this
evening. Go out to Ma, and tell her Rist is here."
The captain opened the kitchen door: "Hullo, Marit! Siri! A girl in
here to pull off the doctor's boots! All the diseases of the country
are in your clothes."
"What time is it, I say--can you see?"
"Twenty-five minutes of seven."
"Twenty-one miles in two hours and a quarter--from Jölstad here, with
my bay!"
The doctor had got his fur coat off. The short, muscular man, with
broad face and reddish-gray whiskers, stood there in a fur cap,
swallowed up in a pair of long travelling boots.
"No, no," he exclaimed to the girl, who was making an effort to pull
them off. "Oh, listen, Jäger; will you go out and feel of the bay's
hind leg, if there is a wind-gall? He began to stumble a little, just
here on the hill, I thought, and to limp."
"He has very likely got bruised." The captain eagerly grabbed his hat
from the clavichord and went with him.
Outside by the sleigh they stood, thinly clothed in the severe frost,
and felt over the hamstring and lifted up the left hind foot of the
bay. For a final examination, they went into the stable.
When they came out there was a veritable wild dispute.
"I tell you, you might just as well have said he had glanders in his
hind legs. If you are not a better judge of curing men than you are
of horses, I wouldn't give four shillings for your whole medical
examination."
"That brown horse of yours, Jäger--that is a strange fodder he takes.
Doesn't he content himself with crib-splinters?" retorted the doctor,
slyly bantering.
"What? Did you see that, you--knacker?"
"Heard it, heard it; he gnawed like a saw there in the crib. He has
cheated you unmercifully--that man from Filtvedt, you know."
"Oh, oh, in a year he will be tall enough for a cavalry horse. But
this I shall concede, it was a good trade when you got the bay for
sixty-five."
"Sixty and a binding dram, not a doit more. But I would not sell him,
if you offered me a hundred on the spot."
Ma was waiting in her parlor.
Now, it was Aslak of Vaelta who had cut his foot last Thursday hewing
timber--Ma had bandaged him--and then Anders, who lived in the cottage,
was in a lung fever. The parish clerk had been there and bled him; six
children up in that hut--not good if he should be taken away.
"We will put a good Spanish-fly blister on his back, and, if that does
not make him better, then a good bleeding in addition."
"He came near fainting the last time," suggested Ma, doubtfully.
"Bleed--bleed--it is the blood which must be got away from the chest,
or the inflammation will make an end of him. I will go and see him
to-morrow morning--and for Thea's throat, camphor oil and a piece of
woollen cloth, and to bed to sweat--and a good spoonful of castor-oil
to-night--you can also rub the old beggar woman about the body with
camphor, if she complains too much. I will give you some more."
After supper the old friend of the house sat with his pipe and his
glass of punch at one end of the sofa, and the captain at the other.
The red tint of the doctor's nose and cheeks was not exclusively to
be attributed to the passage from the cold to the snug warmth of
the room. He had the reputation of rather frequently consoling his
bachelorhood with ardent spirits.
They had talked themselves tired about horses and last year's
reminiscences of the camp, and had now come to more domestic affairs.
"The news, you see, is blown here both from the city and the West; old
Aunt Alette wrote before Christmas that the governor's wife had found
out she must drive with both snaffle and curb."
"I thought so," said the doctor, chewing his mouthpiece. "The first
thing of importance in managing is to study the nature of the beast;
and Inger-Johanna's is to rear; she must be treated gently."
"And that sister-in-law never believed that so much inborn stuff could
grow up in the wild mountain region."
The captain began to puff impatiently. Ma would surely sometime get
supper ready and come in, so he could get to his daughter's letters.
"You can believe he is a real pelican, that old judge down in Ryfylke!
Orders them round and bellows--keeps them hot both in the office and in
the house. I wonder if he won't sometime apply for an office somewhere
else; for that is what he threatens to do every time he sees an office
vacant, Thinka writes. Let us have the letters, Ma, and my spectacles,"
he exclaimed, when she came in. "The first is of November, so you
shall hear about your goddaughter's coming to the governor's, Rist."
He hummed over a part of the beginning and then read:
When Great-Ola put my baggage inside the street door, I almost wanted
to seat myself in the cariole and drive the three days home again; but
then at once I thought, best to march straight on, as father says!
I went past the servant and inside the hall door. It was very light
there, and a great many outside garments and hats and caps were hanging
on the pegs, and twice two servant-girls flew through with trays and
teacups, without troubling themselves about me in the least. But I
thought that the one who had fallen into the midst of things was your
beloved daughter. My outside garments were off in a jiffy; I knocked
once, twice, three times. I hardly knew what to do with myself, so I
gently turned the knob. Thank heaven, there was no one there. There was
another door with a portière, which I only needed to shove a little
aside, and then--I was plunged right into the centre of it. Nay, how
shall I describe it? It was a corner room that I had entered: there was
only mahogany furniture and upholstered easy chairs, and pictures in
gilded frames over the sofa; the other pictures were in dark frames;
but I did not see a doit of all that, for I thought at first that it
was dark. But it wasn't dark at all. There was just a shade over
the astral lamp on the table, and neither more nor less than a whole
company. There in the lion's den, with the married ladies on the corner
sofa, sat a number of people drinking tea.
I stood there in the middle of the floor, and the reddish brown
linsey-woolsey, I believed, could surely defend itself.
"Aunt Zittow," I ventured.
"Who is it?--What? Can it be my dear Inger-Johanna? My husband's
niece!" was said from the table. "You have come just like a wild
mountain rose, child, with the rain still on your face--and so cold!"
as she touched me. But I saw very well that she had her eye on my
dress. I am sure it is too long in the waist, I thought; that is what
I said at home. But then I forgot the whole dress, for it was indeed
my aunt, and she embraced me and said, "You are heartily welcome, my
dear child! I think now a cup of good hot tea will do her good, Miss
Jörgensen,--and will you ask Mina to put her room in order upstairs!"
And then she seated me on a soft cushioned chair by the side of the
wall.
There I sat in the twilight, with a teacup in my lap, and biscuits--how
I got them I cannot remember--and thought, is it I or not I?
At first it was not easy to see those who sat about in the soft stuffed
chairs; what I saw nearest to me was a piece of a foot, with spurs and
a broad red stripe along the side, which rocked up and down the whole
time. Now and then a head with a fine lace cap bobbed up into the light
to put down a cup or to replenish it. The lamp-shade made just a round
ring in the room, not a foot from the table.
Oh, how warm and delicate it was!
In the light under the astral lamp-shade, aunt was sitting, bowed down
over a little black contrivance with the image of a negro on it, and
was burning pastilles; her hair, on both sides of her forehead, was
made into stiff, grayish curls.
The bright, shining tea-kettle stood singing over the beautiful blue
cups of that old Copenhagen porcelain, of which you have four pairs in
the cabinet, which came from grandmother's. I could not help looking
all the time on aunt's face, with the great earrings showing through
the lace. I thought the antique tea-kettle, which is like a vase or
urn, resembled her so much, with the haughty stiff curve of her chin!
It was just as if they belonged together from--I don't know from what
time, it could not be from the time of the creation, I suppose. And
then when the conversation among them came to a stop and it was still
as if there were not a human being there, the machine puffed and
snorted as it were with aunt's fine Danish twist to the R: _Arvet!
Arvet!_ (inherited)--and in between it bubbled Zittow, von Zittow.
It was what you told me, mother, about the Danish Zittow, who was
diplomatist in Brussels, that was buzzing in me.
"The young one! She has got it in her blood," whinnied the doctor.
But it really did not look as if aunt thought there was any hurry about
seeing uncle. And then when aunt sent Miss Jörgensen with some tea into
the next room, where they were playing cards, I at once asked if I
could be allowed to go with her.
"With all my heart, my child, it would be a shame to tax your patience
any longer. And then, Miss Jörgensen, take our little traveller up to
her room, and see that she has something to eat, and let her go to
bed." But I saw very plainly that she pulled the lamp-shade down on the
side I was going; that I thought of afterwards.
"What? what? what?" said my uncle. You should have seen him gaze at me.
He looked so much like you, mother, about the forehead and eyes that I
threw my arms around his neck.
He held me before him with his arms stretched out. "But really I think
it is Aunt Eleonore all over! Well, well, now don't fancy you are such
a beauty!"
That was the reception.
Shortly after I was lying in bed in my elegant little blue room, with
curtains with long fringes. There were pastilles on the stove, and Miss
Jörgensen--just think, she called me Miss!--almost undressed me and put
me between all the soft down quilts.
There I lay and thought it all over, and became hotter and hotter in
my head and face, till at last it seemed as if I was thumping in the
cariole with Svarten and Ola.
"No, the cariole came home again empty," said the captain with a sigh.
"Look out if you don't get her back to Gilje again in a carriage,"
added the doctor.
"She was so handsome, Rist," exclaimed the captain, quite moved. "It
seems as if I see her, standing there in the middle of the floor at
brother-in-law's, with her heavy black hair dressed upon her neck. From
the time when she used to run about here, with the three long braids
down her back, it was as if she developed into a swan all at once, when
she came to dress in the clothes of a full-grown person--You remember
her on confirmation day, Rist?"
"But, dear Jäger," said Ma, trying to subdue him.
The captain cautiously unfolded a letter, closely written on a large
sheet of letter paper.
"And now you shall hear; this is dated January 23d."
The money which I brought with me--
"Well, well--"
The bill of Larsen for--
"You can certainly skip over to the next page," remarked Ma with a
certain emphasis.
"Well, yes, hm, hm,--mere trifles--here it is."
To think that father, and you also, mother, cannot see my two new
dresses! Aunt is inconceivably good. It is impossible to walk any other
way than beautifully in this kind of shoes; and that aunt says I do;
it is just as if you always felt a dancing-floor under your feet. And
yesterday aunt gave me a pair of patent leather sandals with buckles on
the ankles. Did you ever hear of such! Yes--I kissed her for that, too,
this time; she could say what she liked. For you must know, she says
that the first rule of life for a lady is a kind of confident, reserved
repose, which, however, may be cordial! I have it naturally, aunt says,
and only need to cultivate it. I am going to learn to play on the piano
and go through a regular course of lessons in dancing.
Aunt is so extremely good to me, only she will have the windows shut
when I want them open. Of course I don't mean in the sitting-room,
where they have pasted themselves in with double panes, but up in my
own room. Just fancy, first double windows and then stuffy curtains,
and then all the houses, which are near us across the street; you can't
breathe, and much use it is to air out the rooms by the two upper panes
twice a day!
Aunt says that I shall gradually get accustomed to the city air. But
I don't see how I can, when I never get acquainted with it. Not once
during the whole winter have I frozen my fingers! We go out for a short
drive in the forenoon, and then I go with aunt in the shops in the
afternoon, and that is the whole of it. And you can believe it is quite
another thing to go out here than at home; when I only jumped over a
little pile of shovelled-up snow, in order to get into the sleigh more
quickly, aunt said that every one could instantly see manners from my
state of nature, as she always says. For all the movements I make, I
might just as well have chains on both legs, like the prisoners we see
some days in the fort.