blushing tints, until they seemed an entire glowing flame. And now
the snow-fields became rose-red in the east--wonderful fairy tales
in towers and castles gleamed there--the three snowy peaks then
were turned to blood, with a burning, shining flash on top of the
middle one. And again in the distance, still unlighted, blue peaks,
snow-drifts, and glens, on which the shadows were playing.
Jörgen was lying, with his father's spy-glass, watching the reindeer on
the ice-fields.
"Good-by, Miss Inger-Johanna," said Grip. "I am going over the
mountains to-night, with one of the men to guide me. There are more
people here than the hut will accommodate. But first let me say to
you," he added in a subdued tone, "that this open-hearted day on the
high mountain has been one of the few of my life.... I have not found
it necessary to say a single cowardly, bad witticism--nor to despise
myself," he added roughly. "Yes, just so--just as you stand there,
so fine and erect and haughty, under the great straw hat, I shall
remember you till we meet in the city again."
"It is a good ten miles to Svartdalsbod," suggested the captain, when
he took leave--"always welcome to Gilje, Grip."
He was already giving his farewell greetings a good distance up the
steep ascent of Torsknut.
"Does not seem to know fatigue, that fellow," said the captain.
She stood looking at him. The last rays of the sun cast a pale yellow
tinge in the evening with this transparent mirroring. There was such a
warm life in her face!
Some kind of an insect--a humble-bee or a wasp--buzzed through the open
window into the room newly tinted in blue--hummed so noisily on the
window-pane that the young girl with the luxuriant black hair and the
slightly dark, clear-cut face, who was lying sleeping into the morning,
was almost aroused.
She lay sound asleep on her side, after having come home in the night.
The impressions of the mountains' summits were still playing in her
brain. She had another trout on the line--it flashed and floundered
there in the lake--Grip came up with two sticks, which were to be
placed crossways.
Surr-humm! straight into her face, so that she woke up.
The day was already far advanced.
There on the toilet table with white hangings above it surrounding the
glass which had been put there for her return home, was the violet soap
in silver paper.
It was plainly that which attracted all the inexperienced insects to
ruin: they had found the way to an entirely new world of flowers there
and plunged blindly headlong, believing in the discovery, without any
conception of the numerous artificial products of the age outside of
the mountain region--that the fragrance of violets did not produce
violets, but only horrid, horrid pains in the stomach. There plainly
existed an entire confusion in their ideas, to judge by all the
disquiet and humming in and out of those that had recently come and
possibly began to suspect something wrong and took a turn or two up
and down in the room first, before the temptation became too great for
them, and by the earlier arrivals that slowly crept up and down on the
wall with acquired experience in life, or were lying stupefied and
floundering on the window-sill.
"Ish!--and straight up into the washing water."
She looked with a certain indignation at the cause--her violet soap.
At the same time it opened a new train of thought while she smelled it
two or three times.
"Mother's yellow soap is more honest."
She quickly threw it out of the window, and with a towel carefully
wiped those that had fallen on the field of battle off the sill.
Later in the forenoon, Ma and Inger-Johanna stood down in the garden,
picking sugar peas for dinner.
"Only the ripest, Inger-Johanna, which are becoming too hard and
woody, till your father comes home. What will your aunt say when
she hears that we have let you go with your father so far up in the
wilderness--she certainly will not think such a trip very inviting, or
comprehend that you can be so eloquent over stone and rocks."
"No, she thinks that nothing can compete with their Tulleröd," said
Inger-Johanna, smiling.
"Pass the plate over to me, so that I may empty it into the basket,"
came from Ma.
"So aunt writes that Rönnow is going to stay all winter in Paris."
"Rönnow, yes--but I shall amuse myself very well by reading aloud to
her this winter _Gedecke's Travels in Switzerland_,--and then give her
small doses of my trip."
"Now you are talking without thinking, Inger-Johanna. There is always a
great difference between that which is within the circle of culture and
desolate wild tracts up here in the mountain region."
Ma's bonnet-covered head bowed down behind the pea-vines.
"Father says that it is surely because they want to use him at
Stockholm that he is going to perfect himself in French."
"Yes, he is certainly going to become something great. You can believe
we find it ever so snug and pleasant when we are sometimes at home
alone and I read aloud to aunt."
Ma's large bonnet, spotted with blue, rose up, and with a table knife
in her hand she passed the empty plate back. "And he has the bearing
which suits, the higher he gets."
"Quite perfect--but I don't know how it is, one does not care to think
about him up here in the country."
Ma stood a moment with the table knife in her hand.
"That will do," she said, as she took up the basket, somewhat
troubled--"We shan't have many peas this year," she added, sighing.
_Chapter VII_
The kitchen at Gilje was completely given over to Christmas
preparations.
There was a cold draught from the porch, an odor in the air of mace,
ginger, and cloves--a roar of chopping-knives, and dull rumbling and
beating so that the floor shook from the wooden mortar, where Great-Ola
himself was stationed with a white apron and a napkin around his head.
At the head of the long kitchen table Ma was sitting, with a
darning-needle and linen thread, sewing collared beef, while some of
the crofter women and Thea, white as angels, were scraping meat for the
fine meat-balls.
There, on the kitchen bench, with bloody, murderous arms, sat Thinka,
who had recently returned home, stuffing sausages over a large trough.
It went with great skill through the filler, and she fastened up the
ends with wooden skewers, and struggled with one dark, disagreeable,
gigantic leech after another, while their brothers or sisters were
boiling in the mighty kettle, around which the flames crackled and
floated off in the open fireplace.
The captain had come into the kitchen, and stood surveying the field
of battle with a sort of pleasure. There were many kinds of agreeable
prospects here for the thoughts to dwell upon, and samples of the
finished products were continually being sent up to the office for him
to give his opinion on.
"I'll show you how you should chop, girls," he said sportively, and
took the knives from Torbjörg.
The two chopping-knives in his hands went up and down in the
chopping-tray so furiously that they could hardly be distinguished, and
awakened unmistakable admiration in the whole kitchen, while all paused
in bewilderment at the masterpiece.
It is true, it continued for only two or three minutes, while Torbjörg
and Aslak must stand with linen towels on their heads and chop all day.
But victory is still victory, and when the captain afterwards went
into the sitting-room, humming contentedly, it was not without a
little amused recollection of his strategy,--for, "yes, upon my soul,"
he could feel that his arms ached afterwards, nevertheless. And he
rubbed them two or three times before he tied a napkin around his neck
and seated himself at the table in order to do justice to the warm
blood-pudding, with raisins and butter on it, which Thinka brought in
to him.
"A little mustard, Thinka."
Thinka's quiet figure glided to the corner cupboard after the desired
article.
"The plate might have been warmer for this kind of thing--it really
ought to be almost burning hot for the raisins and butter."
The always handy Thinka was out by the chimney in a moment with a
plate. She came in again with it in a napkin; it could not be held in
any other way.
"Just pour it all over on to this plate, father, and then you will see."
One of the happy domestic traits which Thinka had disclosed since her
return home was a wonderful knack of managing her father; there was
hardly any trace of peevishness any longer.
Thinka's quiet, agreeable pliancy and cool, even poise spread comfort
in the house. The captain knew that he only needed to put her on the
track of some good idea or other in the way of food, and something
always came of it. She was so handy, while, when Ma yielded, it was
always done so clumsily and with difficulty, just as if she creaked on
being moved, so to speak, that he became fretful, and began to dispute
in spite of it, notwithstanding she knew very well he could not bear it.
A very great deal had been done since Monday morning, and to-morrow
evening it was to be hoped they would be ready. Two cows, a heifer, and
a hog, that was no little slaughtering--besides the sheep carcasses.
"The sheriff--the sheriff's horse is in the yard," was suddenly
reported in the twilight into the bustle of the kitchen.
The sheriff! It was lightning that struck.
"Hurry up to the office and get your father down to receive him,
Jörgen," said Ma, composing herself. "You will have to take off the
towels and then stop pounding, Great-Ola, exasperating as it is."
"They smell it when the pudding smokes in the kettle, I think,"
exclaimed Marit, in her lively mountain dialect. "Isn't it the second
year he has come here just at the time of the Christmas slaughtering?
So they are rid of the menfolk lying in the way at home among
themselves."
"Your tongue wags, Marit," said Ma, reprovingly. "The sheriff certainly
does not find it any too pleasant at home since he lost his wife, poor
man."
But it was dreadfully unfortunate that he came just now--excessively
unfortunate. She must keep her ground; it wouldn't do to stop things
out here now. The captain came hastily out into the kitchen. "The
sheriff will stay here till to-morrow--it can't be helped, Ma. I will
take care of him, if we only get a little something to eat."
"Yes, that is easy to say, Jäger--just as all of us have our hands
full."
"Some minced meat--fried meat-balls--a little blood-pudding. That is
easy enough. I told him that he would have slaughter-time fare--and
then, Thinka," he nodded to her, "a little toddy as soon as possible."
Thinka had already started; she only stopped a moment at her bureau
upstairs.
She was naturally so unassuming, and was not accustomed to feel
embarrassed. Therefore she brought in the toddy tray like the wind,
stopping only to put a clean blue apron on; and, after having spoken
to the sheriff, went to the cupboard after rum and arrack, and to the
tobacco table after some lighters, which she put down by the tray for
the gentlemen before she vanished out through the kitchen door again.
"You must wash your hands, Torbjörg, and put things to rights in the
guest-chamber; and then we must send a messenger for Anne Vaelta to
help us, little as she is fit for. Jörgen, hurry!" came from Ma, who
saw herself more and more deprived of her most needed forces.
Great-Ola had put up the sheriff's horse, and now stood pounding again
at the mortar in his white surplice--thump, thump, thump, thump.
"Are you out of your senses out here? Don't you think?" said the
captain, bouncing in; he spoke in a low voice, but for that reason the
more passionately. "Aren't you going to mangle, too? Then the sheriff
would get a thundering with a vengeance, both over his head and under
his feet. It shakes the floor."
A look of despair came over Ma's face; in the sudden, dark, wild glance
of her eye there almost shone rebellion--now he was beginning to drive
her too far--But it ended in a resigned, "You can take the mortar with
you out on the stone floor of the porch, Great-Ola."
And Thinka had to attend to the work of putting things in order and
carrying in the supper, so that it was only necessary for Ma to sit
there a little while, as they were eating, though she was on pins and
needles, it is true; but she must act as if there was nothing the
matter.
When Ma came in, there was a little formal talk in the beginning
between her and the sheriff about the heavy loss he had suffered.
She had not met him since he lost his wife, three months ago. It was
lonesome for him now that he had only his sister, Miss Gülcke, with
him. Both Viggo and Baldrian, which was a short name for Baltazar, were
at the Latin school, and would not come home again till next year, when
Viggo would enter the university.
The sheriff winked a little, and made a mournful gesture as if he
wanted to convey an idea of sadly wiping one eyelash, but no more. He
had given an exhibition of grief within nearly every threshold in the
district by this time, and here he was in the house of people of too
much common sense not to excuse him from any more protracted outburst
just before a spread table with hot plates.
It developed into a rather long session at the table--with ever
stronger compliments, as often as there was opportunity during the
meal-time to catch a glimpse of the hostess, for every new dish that
Thinka brought in smoking deliciously straight from the pan--actually a
slaughtering feast--with a fine bottle of old ale in addition--for the
new Christmas brew was too fresh as yet--and two or three good drams
brought in just at the right time.
The sheriff also understood very well what was going on in the house,
and how the hostess and Thinka were managing it.
The grown-up daughter cleared off the table and took care of everything
so handily and comfortably without any bother and fuss--and so
considerately. They had their pipes and a glass of toddy by their side
again there on the sofa, with a fresh steaming pitcher, before they
were aware of it.
The small inquisitive eyes of Sheriff Gülcke stood far apart; they
looked into two corners at once, while his round, bald head shone on
the one he talked to. He sat looking at the blond, rather slender
young lady, with the delicate, light complexion, who busied herself so
silently and gracefully.
"You are a fortunate man, you are, Captain," he said, speaking into the
air.
"Have a little taste, Sheriff," said the captain consolingly, and they
touched glasses.
"Nay, you who have a house full of comfort can talk--cushions about you
in every corner--so you can export to the city--But I, you see,"--his
eyes became moist--"sit there in my office over the records. I was very
much coddled, you know--oh, well, don't let us talk about it. I must
have my punishment for one thing and another, I suppose, as well as
others.
"Isn't it true, Miss Kathinka," he asked when she came in, "it is
a bad sheriff who wholly unbidden falls straight down upon you in
slaughtering-time? But you must lend him a little home comfort, since
it is all over with such things at his own home.
"Bless me, I had almost forgotten it," he exclaimed eagerly, and
hastened, with his pipe in his mouth, to his document case, which hung
on a chair near the door. "I have the second volume of _The Last of the
Mohicans_ for you from Bine Scharfenberg, and was to get--nay, what was
it? It is on a memorandum--_A Capricious Woman_, by Emilie Carlén."
He took it out eagerly and handed it over to her, not without a certain
gallantry.
"Now you must not forget to give it to me to-morrow morning, Miss
Kathinka," he said threateningly, "or else you will make me very
unhappy down at Bine Scharfenberg's. It won't do to offend her, you
know."
Even while the sheriff was speaking, Thinka's eye glided eagerly over
the first lines--only to make sure about the continuation--and in a
twinkling she was down again from her room with the read-through book
by Carlén and the first volume of the Mohicans done up in paper and
tied with a bit of thread.
"You are as prompt as a man of business, Miss Thinka," he said
jokingly, as with a sort of slow carefulness he put the package into
his case; his two small eyes shone tenderly upon her.
Notwithstanding there had been slaughtering and hubbub ever since early
in the morning, Thinka must still, after she had gone to bed, allow
herself to peep a little in the entertaining book.
It was one chapter, and one more, and still one more, with ever
weakening determination to end with the next.
Still at two o'clock in the morning she lay with her candlestick behind
her on the pillow, and steadily read _The Last of the Mohicans_, with
all the vicissitudes of the pursuits and dangers of the noble Uncas.
Ma wondered, it is true, that so many of the slender tallow candles
were needed this winter.
The sheriff must have a little warm breakfast before going away in the
morning.
And now he took leave, and thanked them for the hours that had been
so agreeable and cheering, although he came so inconveniently--oh,
madame, he knew he came at an inconvenient time. "Although now you have
certainly got a right hand in household matters. Yes, Miss Thinka, I
have tested you; one does not have the eye of a policeman for nothing.
"Invisible, and yet always at hand, like a quiet spirit in the
house--is not that the best that can be said of a woman?" he asked,
complimenting her fervently, when he had got his scarf around his
fur coat, and went down to the sleigh with beaming eyes and a little
grayish stubble of beard--for he had not shaved himself to-day.
"Pleasant man, the sheriff. His heart is in the right place," said the
captain when, enlivened and rubbing his hands from the cold, he came in
again into the sitting-room.
But father became ill after all the rich food at the slaughtering-time.
The army doctor advised him to drink water and exercise a good deal; a
toddy spree now and then would not do him any harm.
And it did not improve the rush of blood to his head that Christmas
came so soon after.
Father was depressed, but was reluctant to be bled, except the
customary twice a year, in the spring and autumn.
After the little party for Buchholtz, the judge's chief clerk, on
Thursday, he was much worse. He went about unhappy, and saw loss and
neglect and erroneous reckonings in all quarters.
There was no help for it, a messenger must go now after the parish
clerk, Öjseth.
Besides his clerical duties, he taught the youth, vaccinated, and let
blood.
What he was good for in the first named direction shall be left unsaid;
but in the last it could safely be said that he had very much, nay,
barrels, of the blood of the district on his conscience, and not least
that of the full-blooded captain, whom he had bled regularly now for a
series of years.
The effect was magnificent. After the sultry and oppressive stormy and
pessimistic mood, which filled, so to speak, every groove in the house
and oppressed all faces, even down to Pasop--a brilliant fair weather,
jokes with Thinka, and wild plans that the family should go down in the
summer and see the manoeuvres.
It was at the point of complete good humor that Ma resolutely seized
the opportunity to speak about Jörgen's going to school--all that Aunt
Alette had offered of board and lodging, and what she thought could be
managed otherwise.
There was a reckoning and studying, with demonstration and
counter-demonstration, down to the finest details of the cost of
existence in the city.
The captain represented the items of expenditure and the debit side
in the form of indignant questions and conjectures for every single
one, as to whether she wanted to ruin him, and Ma stubbornly and
persistently defended the credit side, while she went over and went
over again all the items to be deducted.
When, time after time, things whirled round and round in the continual
repetition, so that she got confused, there were bad hours before she
succeeded in righting herself in the storm.
The captain must be accustomed to it slowly, until it penetrated so
far into him that he began to see and think. But, like a persistent,
untiring cruiser, she always had the goal before her eyes and drew near
to it imperceptibly.
"This ready money"--it was for Ma to touch a sore, which nevertheless
must be opened. The result was that the captain allowed himself to be
convinced, and now became himself the most zealous for the plan.
Jörgen was examined in all directions. He was obliged to sit in the
office, and the captain subjected him to the cramming process.
* * * * *
"That's as old as the hills," read the captain. "If you swing a
hen round and put her down backwards with a chalk mark in front of
her beak, she will lie perfectly still; will not dare to move. She
certainly believes it is a string that holds her. I have tried it ever
so many times--that you may safely tell her, Thinka."
"But why does Inger-Johanna write that?" asked Ma, rather seriously.
"Oh, oh,--for nothing--only so--"
Thinka had yesterday received her own letter, enclosed in that to her
parents; it was a letter in regard to Ma's approaching birthday, which
was under discussion between the sisters. And Inger-Johanna had given
her a lecture in it, something almost inciting her to rebellion and to
stick to her flame there in the west, if there really was any fire in
it. That about the hen and the chalk mark was something at second-hand
from Grip. Women could be made to believe everything possible, and
gladly suffered death when they got such a chalk mark before their
beaks!
That might be true enough, Thinka thought. But now, when all were so
against it, and she saw how it would distress her father and mother,
then--she sighed and had a lump in her throat--the chalk mark was
really thicker than she could manage, nevertheless.
Inger-Johanna's letter had made her very heavy hearted. She felt so
unhappy that she could have cried, if any one only looked at her; and
as Ma did that several times during the day, she probably went about a
little red-eyed.
At night she read _Arwed Gyllenstjerna_, by Van der Velde, so that the
bitter tears flowed.
Her sister's letter also contained something on her own account, which
was not meant for her father and mother.
For you see, Thinka, when you have gone through balls here as I have,
you do not any longer skip about blindly with all the lights in your
eyes. You know a little by yourself; one way or another, there ought to
be something in the manner of the person. Oh, this ball chat! I say,
as Grip does: I am tired, tired, tired of it. Aunt isn't any longer so
eager that I shall be there, though many times more eager than I.
There I am now looked upon as haughty and critical and whatever else
it is, only because I will not continually find something to talk
away about! Aunt now thinks that I have got a certain coldness of my
own in my "too lively nature," a reserved calm, which is imposing and
piquant--that is what she wants, I suppose! In all probability just
like the ice in the steaming hot pudding among the Chinese, which we
read about, you remember, in the _Bee_.
Aunt has so many whims this winter. Now we two must talk nothing but
French together! But that she should write to Captain Rönnow that I was
so perfect in it, I did not like at all; I have no desire to figure as
a school-girl before him when he returns; neither is my pronunciation
so "sweet," as she says!
I really don't understand her any longer. If there was any one who
could and ought to defend Grip at this time, it should be she; but
instead of that, she attacks him whenever she can.
He has begun to keep a free Sunday-school or lecture for those who
choose to come, in a hall out on Storgaden. It is something, you know,
which creates a sensation. And aunt shrugs her shoulders, and looks
forward to the time when he will vanish out of good society, although
she has always been the first to interest herself in him and to say
that he came with something new. It is extremely mean of her, I think.
_Chapter VIII_
Jörgen must start on his journey before the sleighing disappeared, for
the bad roads when the frost was coming out might last till St. John's
Day, and to harness the horses in such going would be stark madness.
If he were not to lose a whole year, he must go early and be prepared
privately for admission to school.
Jörgen was lost in meditations and thoughts about all that from which
he was about to be separated. The gun, the sleds, the skis, the
turning-lathe, the tools, the wind-mill, and the corn-mill left behind
there on the hills, all must be devised with discretion--naturally to
Thea first and foremost, on condition that she should take care of them
till he came home again.