Chapter I

Produced by Donald Lainson

THE GREAT HUNGER

By Johan Bojer

Translated from the Norwegian by

W. J. Alexander Worster and C. Archer

THE GREAT HUNGER

Book I

Chapter I

For sheer havoc, there is no gale like a good northwester, when it roars

in, through the long winter evenings, driving the spindrift before it

between the rocky walls of the fjord. It churns the water to a froth

of rushing wave crests, while the boats along the beach are flung in

somersaults up to the doors of the grey fisher huts, and solid old barn

gangways are lifted and sent flying like unwieldy birds over the fields.

“Mercy on us!” cry the maids, for it is milking-time, and they have

to fight their way on hands and knees across the yard to the cowshed,

dragging a lantern that WILL go out and a milk-pail that WON’T be held.

And “Lord preserve us!” mutter the old wives seated round the stove

within doors--and their thoughts are far away in the north with the

Lofoten fishermen, out at sea, maybe, this very night.

But on a calm spring day, the fjord just steals in smooth and shining

by ness and bay. And at low water there is a whole wonderland of strange

little islands, sand-banks, and weed-fringed rocks left high and dry,

with clear pools between, where bare-legged urchins splash about, and

tiny flat-fish as big as a halfpenny dart away to every side. The air is

filled with a smell of salt sea-water and warm, wet beach-waste, and

the sea-pie, see-sawing about on a big stone in the water, lifts his red

beak cheerily sunwards and pipes: “Kluip, kluip! the spring has come!”

On just such a day, two boys of fourteen or thereabouts came hurrying

out from one of the fishermen’s huts down towards the beach. Boys

are never so busy as when they are up to some piece of mischief, and

evidently the pair had business of this sort in hand. Peer Troen,

fair-haired and sallow-faced, was pushing a wheelbarrow; his companion,

Martin Bruvold, a dark youth with freckles, carried a tub. And both

talked mysteriously in whispers, casting anxious glances out over the

water.

Peer Troen was, of course, the ringleader. That he always was: the

forest fire of last year was laid at his door. And now he had made it

clear to some of his friends that boys had just as much right to lay

out deep-sea lines as men. All through the winter they had been kept at

grown-up work, cutting peat and carrying wood; why should they be left

now to fool about with the inshore fishing, and bring home nothing

better than flounders and coal-fish and silly codlings? The big deep-sea

line they were forbidden to touch--that was so--but the Lofoten fishery

was at its height, and none of the men would be back till it was over.

So the boys had baited up the line on the sly down at the boathouse the

day before, and laid it out across the deepest part of the fjord.

Now the thing about a deep-sea line is that it may bring to the surface

fish so big and so fearsome that the like has never been seen before.

Yesterday, however, there had been trouble of a different sort. To their

dismay, the boys had found that they had not sinkers enough to weight

the shore end of the line; and it looked as if they might have to give

up the whole thing. But Peer, ever ready, had hit on the novel idea of

making one end fast to the trunk of a small fir growing at the outermost

point of the ness, and carrying the line from there out over the open

fjord. Then a stone at the farther end, and with the magic words, “Fie,

fish!” it was paid out overboard, vanishing into the green depths. The

deed was done. True, there were a couple of hooks dangling in mid-air

at the shore end, between the tree and the water, and, while they might

serve to catch an eider duck, or a guillemot, if any one should chance

to come rowing past in the dark and get hung up--why, the boys might

find they had made a human catch. No wonder, then, that they whispered

eagerly and hurried down to the boat.

“Here comes Peter Ronningen,” cried Martin suddenly.

This was the third member of the crew, a lanky youth with whitish

eyebrows and a foolish face. He stammered, and made a queer noise

when he laughed: “Chee-hee-hee.” Twice he had been turned down in the

confirmation classes; after all, what was the use of learning lessons

out of a book when nobody ever had patience to wait while he said them?

Together they ran the boat down to the water’s edge, got it afloat, and

scrambled in, with much waving of patched trouser legs. “Hi!” cried a

voice up on the beach, “let me come too!”

“There’s Klaus,” said Martin. “Shall we take him along?”

“No,” said Peter Ronningen.

“Oh yes, let’s,” said Peer.

Klaus Brock, the son of the district doctor, was a blue-eyed youngster

in knickerbockers and a sailor blouse. He was playing truant, no

doubt--Klaus had his lessons at home with a private tutor--and would

certainly get a thrashing from his father when he got home.

“Hurry up,” called Peer, getting out an oar. Klaus clambered in, and the

white-straked four-oar surged across the bay, rocking a little as the

boys pulled out of stroke. Martin was rowing at the bow, his eyes fixed

on Peer, who sat in the stern in command with his eyes dancing, full of

great things to be done. Martin, poor fellow, was half afraid already;

he never could understand why Peer, who was to be a parson when he grew

up, was always hitting upon things to do that were evidently sinful in

the sight of the Lord.

Peer was a town boy, who had been put out to board with a fisherman in

the village. His mother had been no better than she should be, so people

said, but she was dead now, and the father at any rate must be a rich

gentleman, for he sent the boy a present of ten whole crowns every

Christmas, so that Peer always had money in his pocket. Naturally, then,

he was looked up to by the other boys, and took the lead in all things

as a chieftain by right.

The boat moved on past the grey rocks, the beach and the huts above it

growing blue and faint in the distance. Up among the distant hills a red

wooden farm-house on its white foundation wall stood out clear.

Here was the ness at last, and there stood the fir. Peer climbed up

and loosed the end of the line, while the others leaned over the side,

watching the cord where it vanished in the depths. What would it bring

to light when it came up?

“Row!” ordered Peer, and began hauling in.

The boat was headed straight out across the fjord, and the long line

with its trailing hooks hauled in and coiled up neatly in the bottom

of a shallow tub. Peer’s heart was beating. There came a tug--the

first--and the faint shimmer of a fish deep down in the water. Pooh!

only a big cod. Peer heaved it in with a careless swing over the

gunwale. Next came a ling--a deep water fish at any rate this time. Then

a tusk, and another, and another; these would please the women, being

good eating, and perhaps make them hold their tongues when the men came

home. Now the line jerks heavily; what is coming? A grey shadow comes in

sight. “Here with the gaff!” cries Peer, and Peter throws it across to

him. “What is it, what is it?” shriek the other three. “Steady! don’t

upset the boat; a catfish.” A stroke of the gaff over the side, and a

clumsy grey body is heaved into the boat, where it rolls about, hissing

and biting at the bottom-boards and baler, the splinters crackling under

its teeth. “Mind, mind!” cries Klaus--he was always nervous in a boat.

But Peer was hauling in again. They were nearly half-way across the

fjord by now, and the line came up from mysterious depths, which no

fisherman had ever sounded. The strain on Peer began to show in his

looks; the others sat watching his face. “Is the line heavy?” asked

Klaus. “Keep still, can’t you?” put in Martin, glancing along the

slanting line to where it vanished far below. Peer was still hauling. A

sense of something uncanny seemed to be thrilling up into his hands

from the deep sea. The feel of the line was strange. There was no great

weight, not even the clean tug-tug of an ordinary fish; it was as if a

giant hand were pulling gently, very gently, to draw him overboard and

down into the depths. Then suddenly a violent jerk almost dragged him

over the side.

“Look out! What is it?” cried the three together.

“Sit down in the boat,” shouted Peer. And with the true fisherman’s

sense of discipline they obeyed.

Peer was gripping the line firmly with one hand, the other clutching one

of the thwarts. “Have we another gaff?” he jerked out breathlessly.

“Here’s one.” Peter Ronningen pulled out a second iron-hooked cudgel.

“You take it, Martin, and stand by.”

“But what--what is it?”

“Don’t know what it is. But it’s something big.”

“Cut the line, and row for your lives!” wailed the doctor’s son. Strange

he should be such a coward at sea, a fellow who’d tackle a man twice his

size on dry land.

Once more Peer was jerked almost overboard. He thought of the forest

fire the year before--it would never do to have another such mishap

on his shoulders. Suppose the great monster did come up and capsize

them--they were ever so far from land. What a to do there would be

if they were all drowned, and it came out that it was his fault.

Involuntarily he felt for his knife to cut the line--then thrust it back

again, and went on hauling.

Here it comes--a great shadow heaving up through the water. The huge

beast flings itself round, sending a flurry of bubbles to the surface.

And there!--a gleam of white; a row of great white teeth on the

underside. Aha! now he knows what it is! The Greenland shark is the

fiercest monster of the northern seas, quite able to make short work of

a few boys or so.

“Steady now, Martin--ready with the gaff.”

The brute was wallowing on the surface now, the water boiling around

him. His tail lashed the sea to foam, a big, pointed head showed up,

squirming under the hook. “Now!” cried Peer, and two gaffs struck at

the same moment, the boat heeled over, letting in a rush of water, and

Klaus, dropping his oars, sprang into the bow, with a cry of “Jesus,

save us!”

Next second a heavy body, big as a grown man, was heaved in over the

gunwale, and two boys were all but shot out the other way. And now the

fun began. The boys loosed their hold of the gaffs, and sprang apart to

give the creature room. There it lay raging, the great black beast of

prey, with its sharp threatening snout and wicked red eyes ablaze. The

strong tail lashed out, hurling oars and balers overboard, the long

teeth snapped at the bottom-boards and thwarts. Now and again it would

leap high up in the air, only to fall back again, writhing furiously,

hissing and spitting and frothing at the mouth, its red eyes glaring

from one to another of the terrified captors, as if saying: “Come

on--just a little nearer!”

Meanwhile, Martin Bruvold was in terror that the shark would smash the

boat to pieces. He drew his knife and took a step forward--a flash in

the air, and the steel went in deep between the back fins, sending up

a spurt of blood. “Look out!” cried the others, but Martin had already

sprung back out of reach of the black tail. And now the dance of death

began anew. The knife was fixed to the grip in the creature’s back;

one gaff had buried its hook between the eyes, and another hung on the

flank--the wooden shafts were flung this way and that at every bound,

and the boat’s frame shook and groaned under the blows.

“She’ll smash the boat and we’ll go to the bottom,” cried Peer.

And now HIS knife flashed out and sent a stream of blood spouting from

between the shoulders, but the blow cost him his foothold--and in a

moment the two bodies were rolling over and over together in the bottom

of the boat.

“Oh, Lord Jesus!” shrieked Klaus, clinging to the stempost. “She’ll kill

him! She’ll kill him!”

Peer was half up now, on his knees, but as he reached out a hand to

grasp the side, the brute’s jaws seized on his arm. The boy’s face

was contorted with pain--another moment and the sharp teeth would have

bitten through, when, swift as thought, Peter Ronningen dropped his

oars and sent his knife straight in between the beast’s eyes. The blade

pierced through to the brain, and the grip of the teeth relaxed.

“C-c-cursed d-d-devil!” stammered Peter, as he scrambled back to

his oars. Another moment, and Peer had dragged himself clear and was

kneeling by the forward thwart, holding the ragged sleeve of his wounded

arm, while the blood trickled through his fingers.

When at last they were pulling homeward, the little boat overloaded with

the weight of the great carcase, all at once they stopped rowing.

“Where is Klaus?” asked Peer--for the doctor’s son was gone from where

he had sat, clinging to the stem.

“Why--there he is--in the bottom!”

There lay the big lout of fifteen, who already boasted of his

love-affairs, learned German, and was to be a gentleman like his

father--there he lay on the bottom-boards in the bow in a dead faint.

The others were frightened at first, but Peer, who was sitting washing

his wounded arm, took a dipper full of water and flung it in the

unconscious one’s face. The next instant Klaus had started up sitting,

caught wildly at the gunwale, and shrieked out:

“Cut the line, and row for your lives!”

A roar of laughter went up from the rest; they dropped their oars and

sat doubled up and gasping. But on the beach, before going home,

they agreed to say nothing about Klaus’s fainting fit. And for weeks

afterwards the four scamps’ exploit was the talk of the village, so that

they felt there was not much fear of their getting the thrashing they

deserved when the men came home.

Chapter II

When Peer, as quite a little fellow, had been sent to live with the old

couple at Troen, he had already passed several times from one adopted

home to another, though this he did not remember. He was one of the

madcaps of the village now, but it was not long since he had been a

solitary child, moping apart from the rest. Why did people always say

“Poor child!” whenever they were speaking about his real mother? Why did

they do it? Why, even Peter Ronningen, when he was angry, would stammer

out: “You ba-ba-bastard!” But Peer called the pock-marked good-wife at

Troen “mother” and her bandy-legged husband “father,” and lent the old

man a hand wherever he was wanted--in the smithy or in the boats at the

fishing.

His childhood was passed among folk who counted it sinful to smile, and

whose minds were gloomy as the grey sea-fog with poverty, psalm-singing,

and the fear of hell.

One day, coming home from his work at the peat bog, he found the elders

snuffling and sighing over their afternoon meal. Peer wiped the sweat

from his forehead, and asked what was the matter.

The eldest son shoved a spoonful of porridge into his mouth, wiped his

eyes, swallowed, and said: “Poor Peer!”

“Aye, poor little chap,” sighed the old man, thrusting his horn spoon

into a crack in the wall that served as a rack.

“Neither father nor mother now,” whimpered the eldest daughter, looking

over to the window.

“Mother? Is she--”

“Ay, dearie, yes,” sighed the old woman. “She’s gone for sure--gone to

meet her Judge.”

Later, as the day went on, Peer tried to cry too. The worst thing of all

was that every one in the house seemed so perfectly certain where his

mother had gone to. And to heaven it certainly was not. But how could

they be so sure about it?

Peer had seen her only once, one summer’s day when she had come out

to see the place. She wore a light dress and a big straw hat, and he

thought he had never seen anything so beautiful before. She made no

secret of it among the neighbours that Peer was not her only child;

there was a little girl, too, named Louise, who was with some folks

away up in the inland parishes. She was in high spirits, and told risky

stories and sang songs by no means sacred. The old people shook their

heads over her--the younger ones watched her with sidelong glances. And

when she left, she kissed Peer, and turned round more than once to look

back at him, flushed under her big hat, and smiling; and it seemed to

Peer that she must surely be the loveliest creature in all the world.

But now--now she had gone to a place where the ungodly dwell in

such frightful torment, and no hope of salvation for her through all

eternity--and Peer all the while could only think of her in a light

dress and a big straw hat, all song and happy laughter.

Then came the question: Who was to pay for the boy now? True, his

baptismal certificate said that he had a father--his name was Holm,

and he lived in Christiania--but, from what the mother had said, it was

understood that he had disappeared long ago. What was to be done with

the boy?

Never till now had Peer rightly understood that he was a stranger here,

for all that he called the old couple father and mother.

He lay awake night after night up in the loft, listening to the talk

about him going on in the room below--the good-wife crying and saying:

“No, no!”, the others saying how hard the times were, and that Peer

was quite old enough now to be put to service as a goat-herd on some

up-country farm.

Then Peer would draw the skin-rug up over his head. But often, when one

of the elders chanced to be awake at night, he could hear some one in

the loft sobbing in his sleep. In the daytime he took up as little room

as he could at the table, and ate as little as humanly possible; but

every morning he woke up in fear that to-day--to-day he would have to

bid the old foster-mother farewell and go out among strangers.

Then something new and unheard of plumped down into the little cottage

by the fjord.

There came a registered letter with great dabs of sealing-wax all over

it, and a handwriting so gentlemanly as to be almost unreadable. Every

one crowded round the eldest son to see it opened--and out fell five

ten-crown notes. “Mercy on us!” they cried in amazement, and “Can it

be for us?” The next thing was to puzzle out what was written in the

letter. And who should that turn out to be from but--no other than

Peer’s father, though he did not say it in so many words. “Be good to

the boy,” the letter said. “You will receive fifty crowns from me every

half-year. See that he gets plenty to eat and goes dry and well shod.

Faithfully your, P. Holm, Captain.”

“Why, Peer--he’s--he’s--Your father’s a captain, an officer,” stammered

the eldest girl, and fell back a step to stare at the boy.

“And we’re to get twice as much for him as before,” said the son,

holding the notes fast and gazing up at the ceiling, as if he were

informing Heaven of the fact.

But the old wife was thinking of something else as she folded her hands

in thankfulness--now she needn’t lose the boy.

“Properly fed!” No need to fear for that. Peer had treacle with his

porridge that very day, though it was only a week-day. And the eldest

son gave him a pair of stockings, and made him sit down and put them on

then and there; and the same night, when he went to bed, the eldest girl

came and tucked him up in a new skin-rug, not quite so hairless as the

old one. His father a captain! It seemed too wonderful to be true.

From that day times were changed for Peer. People looked at him with

very different eyes. No one said “Poor boy” of him now. The other boys

left off calling him bad names; the grown-ups said he had a future

before him. “You’ll see,” they would say, “that father of yours will get

you on; you’ll be a parson yet, ay, maybe a bishop, too.” At Christmas,

there came a ten-crown note all for himself, to do just as he liked

with. Peer changed it into silver, so that his purse was near bursting

with prosperity. No wonder he began to go about with his nose in the

air, and play the little prince and chieftain among the boys. Even Klaus

Brock, the doctor’s son, made up to him, and taught him to play cards.

But--“You surely don’t mean to go and be a parson,” he would say.

For all this, no one could say that Peer was too proud to help with the

fishing, or make himself useful in the smithy. But when the sparks flew

showering from the glowing iron, he could not help seeing visions of his

own--visions that flew out into the future. Aye, he WOULD be a priest.

He might be a sinner now, and a wild young scamp; he certainly did curse

and swear like a trooper at times, if only to show the other boys that

it was all nonsense about the earth opening and swallowing you up. But

a priest he would be, all the same. None of your parsons with spectacles

and a pot belly: no, but a sort of heavenly messenger with snowy white

robes and a face of glory. Perhaps some day he might even come so far

that he could go down into that place of torment where his mother lay,

and bring her up again, up to salvation. And when, in autumn evenings,

he stood outside his palace, a white-haired bishop, he would lift up his

finger, and all the stars should break into song.

Clang, clang, sang the anvil under the hammer’s beat.

In the still summer evenings a troop of boys go climbing up the naked

slopes towards the high wooded ranges to fetch home the cows for the

milking. The higher they climb, the farther and farther their sight can

travel out over the sea. And an hour or two later, as the sun goes down,

here comes a long string of red-flanked cattle trailing down, with a

faint jangle of bells, over the far-off ridges. The boys halloo them

on--“Ohoo-oo-oo!”--and swing their ringed rowan staves, and spit red

juice of the alder bark that they are chewing as men chew tobacco. Far

below them they see the farm lands, grey in shadow, and, beyond, the

waters of the fjord, yellow in the evening light, a mirror where red

clouds and white sails and hills of liquid blue are shining. And away

out on the farthest headland, the lonely star of the coast light over

the grey sea.

On such an evening Peer came down from the hills just in time to see a

gentleman in a carriole turn off from the highway and take the by-road

down towards Troen. The horse balked suddenly at a small bridge, and

when the driver reined him in and gave him a cut with his whip, the

beast reared, swung about, and sent the cart fairly dancing round on its

high wheels. “Oh, well, then, I’ll have to walk,” cried the gentleman

angrily, and, flinging the reins to the lad behind him, he jumped down.

Just at this moment Peer came up.

“Here, boy,” began the traveller, “just take this bag, will you? And--”

He broke off suddenly, took a step backward, and looked hard at the boy.

“What--surely it can’t be--Is it you, Peer?”

“Ye-es,” said Peer, gaping a little, and took off his cap.

“Well, now, that’s funny. My name is Holm. Well, well--well, well!”

The lad in the cart had driven off, and the gentleman from the city and

the pale country boy with the patched trousers stood looking at each

other.

The newcomer was a man of fifty or so, but still straight and active,

though his hair and close-trimmed beard were sprinkled with grey. His

eyes twinkled gaily under the brim of his black felt hat; his long

overcoat was open, showing a gold chain across his waistcoat. With a

pair of gloves and an umbrella in one hand, a light travelling bag

in the other, and his beautifully polished shoes--a grand gentleman,

thought Peer, if ever there was one. And this was his father!

“So that’s how you look, my boy? Not very big for your age--nearly

sixteen now, aren’t you? Do they give you enough to eat?”

“Yes,” said Peer, with conviction.

The pair walked down together, towards the grey cottage by the fjord.

Suddenly the man stopped, and looked at it through half-shut eyes.

“Is that where you’ve been living all these years?”

“Yes.”

“In that little hut there?”

“Yes. That’s the place--Troen they call it.”

“Why, that wall there bulges so, I should think the whole affair would

collapse soon.”

Peer tried to laugh at this, but felt something like a lump in his

throat. It hurt to hear fine folks talk like that of father and mother’s

little house.

There was a great flurry when the strange gentleman appeared in the

doorway. The old wife was kneading away at the dough for a cake, the

front of her all white with flour; the old man sat with his spectacles

on, patching a shoe, and the two girls sprang up from their spinning

wheels. “Well, here I am. My name’s Holm,” said the traveller, looking

round and smiling. “Mercy on us! the Captain his own self,” murmured the

old woman, wiping her hands on her skirt.

He was an affable gentleman, and soon set them all at their ease. He sat

down in the seat of honour, drumming with his fingers on the table, and

talking easily as if quite at home. One of the girls had been in service

for a while in a Consul’s family in the town, and knew the ways of

gentlefolk, and she fetched a bowl of milk and offered it with a curtsy

and a: “Will the Captain please to take some milk?” “Thanks, thanks,”

said the visitor. “And what is your name, my dear? Come, there’s nothing

to blush about. Nicoline? First-rate! And you? Lusiana? That’s right.”

He looked at the red-rimmed basin, and, taking it up, all but emptied it

at a draught, then, wiping his beard, took breath. “Phu!--that was good.

Well, so here I am.” And he looked around the room and at each of them

in turn, and smiled, and drummed with his fingers, and said, “Well,

well--well, well,” and seemed much amused with everything in general.

“By the way, Nicoline,” he said suddenly, “since you’re so well up in

titles, I’m not ‘Captain’ any more now; they’ve sent me up this way as

Lieutenant-Colonel, and my wife has just had a house left her in your

town here, so we may be coming to settle down in these parts. And

perhaps you’d better send letters to me through a friend in future. But

we can talk about all that by and by. Well, well--well, well.” And all

the time he was drumming with his fingers on the table and smiling. Peer

noticed that he wore gold sleeve-links and a fine gold stud in his broad

white shirt-front.

And then a little packet was produced. “Hi, Peer, come and look; here’s

something for you.” And the “something” was nothing less than a real

silver watch--and Peer was quite unhappy for the moment because he

couldn’t dash off at once and show it to all the other boys. “There’s

a father for you,” said the old wife, clapping her hands, and almost

in tears. But the visitor patted her on the shoulder. “Father? father?

H’m--that’s not a thing any one can be so sure about. Hahaha!” And

“hahaha” echoed the old man, still sitting with the awl in his hand.

This was the sort of joke he could appreciate.

Then the visitor went out and strolled about the place, with his

hands under his coat tails, and looked at the sky, and the fjord, and

murmured, “Well, well--well, well,” and Peer followed him about all

the while, and gazed at him as he might have gazed at a star. He was to

sleep in a neighbour’s house, where there was a room that had a bed with

sheets on it, and Peer went across with him and carried his bag. It was

Martin Bruvold’s parents who were to house the traveller, and people

stood round staring at the place. Martin himself was waiting outside.

“This a friend of yours, Peer? Here, then, my boy, here’s something to

buy a big farm with.” This time it was a five-crown note, and Martin

stood fingering it, hardly able to believe his eyes. Peer’s father was

something like a father.

It was a fine thing, too, to see a grand gentleman undress. “I’ll have

things like that some day,” thought Peer, watching each new wonder that

came out of the bag. There was a silver-backed brush, that he brushed

his hair and beard with, walking up and down in his underclothes and

humming to himself. And then there was another shirt, with red stripes

round the collar, just to wear in bed. Peer nodded to himself, taking

it all in. And when the stranger was in bed he took out a flask with a

silver cork, that screwed off and turned into a cup, and had a dram for

a nightcap; and then he reached for a long pipe with a beaded cord, and

when it was drawing well he stretched himself out comfortably and smiled

at Peer.

“Well, now, my boy--are you getting on well at school?”

Peer put his hands behind him and set one foot forward. “Yes--he says

so--teacher does.”

“How much is twelve times twelve?”

That was a stumper! Peer hadn’t got beyond ten times ten.

“Do they teach you gymnastics at the school?”

“Gym--? What’s that?”

“Jumping and vaulting and climbing ropes and drilling in squads--what?”

“But isn’t it--isn’t that wicked?”

“Wicked! Hahaha! Wicked, did you say? So that’s the way they look

at things here, is it? Well, well--well, well! Hahaha! Hand me that

matchbox, my boy. H’m!” He puffed away for a while in silence. Then,

suddenly:

“See here, boy. Did you know you’d a little sister?”

“Yes, I know.”

“Half-sister, that is to say. I didn’t quite know how it was myself. But

I may as well tell you, my boy, that I paid the same for you all along,

the same as now. Only I sent the money by your mother, and she--well,

she, poor girl, had another one to look after, and no father to pay for

it. So she made my money do for both. Hahaha! Well, poor girl, we

can’t blame her for that. Anyhow, we’ll have to look after that little

half-sister of yours now, I suppose, till she grows up. Don’t you think

so yourself?”

Peer felt the tears coming. Think so!--indeed he did.

Next day Peer’s father went away. He stood there, ready to start, in the

living-room at Troen, stiff felt hat and overcoat and all, and said,

in a tone like the sheriff’s when he gives out a public notice at the

church door:

“And, by the way, you’re to have the boy confirmed this year.”

“Yes, to be sure we will,” the old mother hastened to say.

“Then I wish him to be properly dressed, like the best of the other

youngsters. And there’s fifty crowns for him to give the school-teacher

and the parson as a parting gift.” He handed over some more notes.

“Afterwards,” he went on, “I mean, of course, to look after him until

he can make his own way in a respectable position. But first we must see

what he has a turn for, and what he’d like to be himself. He’d better

come to town and talk it over with me--but I’ll write and arrange all

that after he’s confirmed. Then in case anything unexpected should

happen to me, there’s some money laid by for him in a savings bank

account; he can apply to a friend of mine, who knows all about it. Well,

good-bye, and very many thanks!”

And the great man smiled to right and left, and shook them all by the

hand, and waved his hat and was gone.

For the next few days Peer walked on air, and found it hard to keep his

footing at all on the common earth. People were for ever filling his

head with talk about that savings bank account--it might be only a few

thousands of crowns--but then again, it might run up to a million. A

million! and here he was, eating herrings for dinner, and talking to

Tom, Dick, and Harry just like any one else. A million crowns!

Late in the autumn came the confirmation, and the old wooden church,

with its tarred walls, nestled among its mighty tree-tops, sent its

chimes ringing and ringing out into the blue autumn air. It seemed

to Peer like some kindly old grandmother, calling so lovingly: “Come,

come--old and young--old and young--from fjord and valley--northways and

southways; come, come--this day of all days--this day of all days--come,

come, come!” So it had stood, ringing out the chimes for one generation

after another through hundreds of years, and now it is calling to us.

And the young folks are there, looking at one another in their new

clothes, and blowing their noses on clean white handkerchiefs, so

carefully folded. There comes Peter Ronningen, passed by good luck this

year, but forced to turn out in a jacket borrowed from Peer, as

the tailor wasn’t ready with his own new things. The boys say

“how-do-you-do” and try to smile like grown-up folks. One or two of them

may have some little account dating from old school-fights waiting to

be settled--but, never mind--just as well to forget old scores now. Peer

caught sight of Johan Koja, who stole a pencil from him last summer,

but, after all, even that didn’t seem worth making a fuss about. “Well,

how’ve you been getting on since last summer?” they ask each other, as

they move together up the stone steps to the big church door, through

which the peal of the organ comes rolling out to meet them.

How good it seems, and how kind, the little church, where all you see

bids you welcome! Through the stained-glass windows with their tiny

leaded panes falls a light so soft that even poor ugly faces seem

beautiful. The organ tones are the very light itself turned into sweet

sound. On one side of the nave you can see all the boys’ heads, sleek

with water; on the other the little mothers to be, in grown-up dress

to-day for the first time, kerchief on head and hymn-book in hand, and

with careful faces. And now they all sing. The elder folks have taken

their places farther back to-day, but they join in, looking up now and

again from the book to those young heads in front, and wondering how

they will fare in life. And the young folk themselves are thinking as

they sing, “To-day is the beginning of new things. Play and frolic are

over and done with; from today we’re grown-up.” But the church and all

in it seemed to say: “If ever you are in heavy trouble, come hither to

me.” Just look at that altar-piece there--the wood-carvings are a whole

Bible in themselves--but Moses with the Tables of the Law is gentle of

face to-day; you can see he means no harm after all. St. Peter, with the

keys, pointing upwards, looks like a kind old uncle, bringing something

good home from market. And then the angels on the walls, pictured or

carved in wood, have borrowed the voice of the organ and the tones of

the hymn, and they widen out the vaulted roof into the dome of heaven;

while light and song and worshippers melt together and soar upwards

toward the infinite spaces.

Peer was thinking all the time: I don’t care if I’m rich as rich, I WILL

be a priest. And then perhaps with all my money I can build a church

that no one ever saw the like of. And the first couple I’ll marry there

shall be Martin Bruvold and little sister Louise--if only he’ll have

her. Just wait and see!

A few days later he wrote to his father, asking if he might come into

town now and go to school. A long time passed, and then at last a letter

came in a strange hand-writing, and all the grown folks at Troen came

together again to read it. But what was their amazement when they read:

“You will possibly have learned by now from the newspapers that your

benefactor, Colonel Holm, has met his death by a fall from a horse. I

must therefore request you to call on me personally at your earliest

convenience, as I have several matters to settle with you. Yours

faithfully, J. Grundt, Senior Master.”

They stood and looked at one another.

Peer was crying--chiefly, it must be admitted, at the thought of having

to bid good-bye to all the Troen folks and the two cows, and the calf,

and the grey cat. He might have to go right on to Christiania, no later

than to-morrow--to go to school there; and when he came back--why, very

likely the old mother might not be there any more.

So all three of them were heavy-hearted, when the pock-marked good-wife,

and the bow-legged old man, came down with him to the pier. And soon he

was standing on the deck of the fjord steamer, gazing at the two figures

growing smaller and smaller on the shore. And then one hut after another

in the little hamlet disappeared behind the ness--Troen itself was

gone now--and the hills and the woods where he had cut ring staves

and searched for stray cattle--swiftly all known things drew away and

vanished, until at last the whole parish was gone, and his childhood

over.

Chapter III

As evening fell, he saw a multitude of lights spread out on every side

far ahead in the darkness. And next, with his little wooden chest on his

shoulder, he was finding his way up through the streets by the quay to

a lodging-house for country folk, which he knew from former visits, when

he had come to the town with the Lofoten boats.

Next morning, clad in his country homespun, he marched up along River

Street, over the bridge, and up the hill to the villa quarter, where he

had to ask the way. At last he arrived outside a white-painted wooden

house standing back in a garden. Here was the place--the place where his

fate was to be decided. After the country fashion he walked in at the

kitchen door.

A stout servant maid in a big white apron was rattling the rings of the

kitchen range into place; there was a pleasing smell of coffee and good

things to eat. Suddenly a door opened, and a figure in a dressing-gown

appeared--a tall red-haired man with gold spectacles astride on a long

red nose, his thick hair and scrubby little moustaches touched

with grey. He gasped once or twice and then started

sneezing--hoc-hoc-put-putsch!--wiped his nose with a large

pocket-handkerchief, and grumbled out: “Ugh!--this wretched cold--can’t

get rid of it. How about my socks, Bertha, my good girl; do you think

they are quite dry now?”

“I’ve had them hung up ever since I lit the fire this morning,” said the

girl, tossing her head.

“But who is this young gentleman, may I ask?” The gold spectacles were

turned full on Peer, who rose and bowed.

“Said he wanted to speak to you, sir,” put in the maid.

“Ah. From the country, I see. Have you anything to sell, my lad?”

“No,” said Peer. He had had a letter. . . .

The red head seemed positively frightened at this--and the dressing-gown

faltered backwards, as if to find support. He cast a hurried glance at

the girl, and then beckoned with a long fore-finger to Peer. “Yes, yes,

perfectly so. Be so good as to come this way, my lad.”

Peer found himself in a room with rows of books all round the walls, and

a big writing-table in the centre. “Sit down, my boy.” The schoolmaster

went and picked out a long pipe, and filled it, clearing his throat

nervously, with an occasional glance at the boy. “H’m--so this is you.

This is Peer--h’m.” He lit his pipe and puffed a little, found himself

again obliged to sneeze--but at last settled down in a chair at the

writing-table, stretched out his long legs, and puffed away again.

“So that’s what you look like?” With a quick movement he reached for a

photograph in a frame. Peer caught a glimpse of his father in uniform.

The schoolmaster lifted his spectacles, stared at the picture, then let

down his spectacles again and fell to scrutinising Peer’s face. There

was a silence for a while, and then he said: “Ah, indeed--I see--h’m.”

Then turning to Peer:

“Well, my lad, it was very sudden--your benefactor’s end--most

unexpected. He is to be buried to-day.”

“Benefactor?” thought Peer. “Why doesn’t he say ‘your father’?”

The schoolmaster was gazing at the window. “He informed me some time ago

of--h’m--of all the--all the benefits he had conferred on you--h’m! And

he begged me to keep an eye on you myself in case anything happened to

him. And now”--the spectacles swung round towards Peer--“now you are

starting out in life by yourself, hey?”

“Yes,” said Peer, shifting a little in his seat.

“You will have to decide now what walk in life you are to--er--devote

yourself to.”

“Yes,” said Peer again, sitting up straighter.

“You would perhaps like to be a fisherman--like the good people you’ve

been brought up among?”

“No.” Peer shook his head disdainfully. Was this man trying to make a

fool of him?

“Some trade, then, perhaps?”

“No!”

“Oh, then I suppose it’s to be America. Well, you will easily find

company to go with. Such numbers are going nowadays--I am sorry to say.

. . .”

Peer pulled himself together. “Oh, no, not that at all.” Better get it

out at once. “I wish to be a priest,” he said, speaking with a careful

town accent.

The schoolmaster rose from his seat, holding his long pipe up in the air

in one hand, and pressing his ear forward with the other, as though to

hear better. “What?--what did you say?”

“A priest,” repeated Peer, but he moved behind his chair as he spoke,

for it looked as if the schoolmaster might fling the pipe at his head.

But suddenly the red face broke into a smile, exposing such an array of

greenish teeth as Peer had never seen before. Then he said in a sort of

singsong, nodding: “A priest? Oh, indeed! Quite a small matter!” He rose

and wandered once or twice up and down the room, then stopped,

nodded, and said in a fatherly tone--to one of the bookshelves:

“H’m--really--really--we’re a little ambitious, are we not?”

He turned on Peer suddenly. “Look here, my young friend--don’t you think

your benefactor has been quite generous enough to you already?”

“Yes, indeed he has,” said Peer, his voice beginning to tremble a

little.

“There are thousands of boys in your position who are thrown out in the

world after confirmation and left to shift for themselves, without a

soul to lend them a helping hand.”

“Yes,” gasped Peer, looking round involuntarily towards the door.

“I can’t understand--who can have put these wild ideas into your head?”

With an effort Peer managed to get out: “It’s always been what I wanted.

And he--father--”

“Who? Father--? Do you mean your benefactor?”

“Well, he was my father, wasn’t he?” burst out Peer.

The schoolmaster tottered back and sank into a chair, staring at Peer as

if he thought him a quite hopeless subject. At last he recovered so far

as to say: “Look here, my lad, don’t you think you might be content to

call him--now and for the future--just your benefactor? Don’t you think

he deserves it?”

“Oh, yes,” whispered Peer, almost in tears.

“You are thinking, of course--you and those who have put all this

nonsense into your head--of the money which he--h’m--”

“Yes--isn’t there a savings bank account--?”

“Aha! There we are! Yes, indeed. There is a savings bank account--in my

care.” He rose, and hunted out from a drawer a small green-covered book.

Peer could not take his eyes from it. “Here it is. The sum entered here

to your account amounts to eighteen hundred crowns.”

Crash! Peer felt as if he had fallen through the floor into the

cellarage. All his dreams vanished into thin air--the million

crowns--priest and bishop--Christiania--and all the rest.

“On the day when you are in a fair way to set up independently as an

artisan, a farmer, or a fisherman--and when you seem to me, to the best

of my judgment, to deserve such help--then and not till then I place

this book at your disposal. Do you understand what I say?”

“Yes.”

“I am perfectly sure that I am in full agreement with the wishes of

the donor in deciding that the money must remain untouched in my safe

keeping until then.”

“Yes,” whispered Peer.

“What?--are you crying?”

“N-no. Good-morning--”

“No, pray don’t go yet. Sit down. There are one or two things we must

get settled at once. First of all--you must trust me, my good boy. Do

you believe that I wish you well, or do you not?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then it is agreed that all these fancies about going to college and so

forth must be driven out of your head once for all?”

“Y-yes, sir.”

“You can see yourself that, even supposing you had the mental

qualifications, such a sum, generous as it is in itself, would not

suffice to carry you far.”

“No-no, sir.”

“On the other hand, if you wish it, I will gladly arrange to get you an

apprentice’s place with a good handicraftsman here. You would have free

board there, and--well, if you should want clothes the first year or so,

I dare say we could manage that. You will be better without pocket-money

to fling about until you can earn it for yourself.”

Peer sighed, and drooped as he stood. When he saw the green-backed book

locked into its drawer again, and heard the keys rattle as they went

back into a pocket under the dressing-gown, he felt as if some one were

pointing a jeering finger at him, and saying, “Yah!”

“Then there’s another thing. About your name. What name have you thought

of taking, my lad--surname, I mean?”

“My name is Peer Holm!” said the boy, instinctively drawing himself up

as he had done when the bishop had patted his head at the confirmation

and asked his name.

The schoolmaster pursed up his lips, took off his spectacles and wiped

them, put them on again, and turned to the bookshelves with a sigh. “Ah,

indeed!--yes--yes--I almost thought as much.”

Then he came forward and laid a hand kindly on Peer’s shoulder.

“My dear boy--that is out of the question.”

A shiver went through Peer. Had he done something wrong again?

“See here, my boy--have you considered that there may be others of that

name in this same place?”

“Yes--but--”

“Wait a minute--and that you would occasion these--others--the deepest

pain and distress if it should become known that--well, how matters

stand. You see, I am treating you as a grown-up man--a gentleman. And

I feel sure you would not wish to inflict a great sorrow--a crushing

blow--upon a widow and her innocent children. There, there, my boy,

there’s nothing to cry about. Life, my young friend, life has troubles

that must be faced. What is the name of the farm, or house, where you

have lived up to now?”

“T--Troen.”

“Troen--a very good name indeed. Then from to-day on you will call

yourself Peer Troen.”

“Y-yes, sir.”

“And if any one should ask about your father, remember that you are

bound in honour and conscience not to mention your benefactor’s name.”

“Y-yes.”

“Well, then, as soon as you have made up your mind, come at once and let

me know. We shall be great friends yet, you will see. You’re sure you

wouldn’t like to try America? Well, well, come along out to the kitchen

and see if we can find you some breakfast.”

Peer found himself a moment after sitting on a chair in the kitchen,

where there was such a good smell of coffee. “Bertha,” said the

schoolmaster coaxingly, “you’ll find something good for breakfast for my

young friend here, won’t you?” He waved a farewell with his hand, took

down his socks from a string above the stove, and disappeared through

the door again.

Chapter IV

When a country boy in blue homespun, with a peaked cap on his blond

head, goes wandering at random through the streets of a town, it is no

particular concern of any one else. He moves along, gazing in at shop

windows, hands deep in his pockets, whistling, looking at everything

around him--or at nothing at all. And yet--perhaps in the head under

that peaked cap it seems as if a whole little world had suddenly

collapsed, and he may be whistling hard to keep from crying in the

streets for people to see. He steps aside to avoid a cart, and runs into

a man, who drops his cigar in the gutter. “Confounded country lout!”

says the man angrily, but passes on and has forgotten boy and all the

next moment. But a little farther on a big dog comes dashing out of a

yard and unluckily upsets a fat old woman on the pavement, and the boy

with the peaked cap, for all his troubles, cannot help doubling up and

roaring with laughter.

That afternoon, Peer sat on one of the ramparts below the fortress,

biting at a stalk of grass, and twirling the end in his fingers. Below

him lay town and fjord in the mild October sunlight; the rumble of

traffic, the noises from workshops and harbour, came up to him through

the rust-brown luminous haze. There he sat, while the sentry on the

wall above marched back and forth, with his rifle on his shoulder,

left--right--left.

You may climb very high up indeed, and fall down very deep, and no such

terrible harm done after all, as long as you don’t absolutely break your

neck. And gradually Peer began to realise that he was still alive, after

all. It is a bad business when the world goes against you, even though

you may have some one to turn to for advice and sympathy. But when all

the people round you are utter strangers, there is nothing to be done

but sit down and twirl a straw, and think things out a bit for yourself.

Peer’s thoughts were of a thing in a long dressing-gown that had taken

his bank book and locked it up and rattled the keys at him and said

“Yah!” and deposed him from his bishopric and tried to sneeze and

squeeze him into a trade, where he’d have to carry a pressing-iron all

his life and be Peer Troen, Tailor. But he wouldn’t have that. He sat

there bracing himself up, and trying to gather together from somewhere

a thing he had never had much need of before--to wit, a will of his own,

something to set up against the whole wide world. What was he to do now?

He felt he would like to go back to Troen first of all, and talk things

over with the old father and mother; they would be sorry for him there,

and say “Poor boy,” and pray for him--but after a day or two, he knew,

they would begin to glance at him at meals, and remember that there was

no one to pay for him now, and that times were hard. No, that was no

refuge for him now. But what could he do, then? Clearly it was not such

a simple matter to be all alone in the world.

A little later he found himself on a hillside by the Cathedral

churchyard, sitting under the yellowing trees, and wondering dreamily

where his father was to be buried. What a difference between him and

that schoolmaster man! No preaching with him; no whining about what his

boy might call himself or might not. Why must he go and die?

It was strange to think of that fine strong man, who had brushed his

hair and beard so carefully with his silver-backed brush--to think that

he was lying still in a coffin now, and would soon be covered up with

earth.

People were coming up the hill now, and passing in to the churchyard.

The men wore black clothes and tall shiny hats--but there were some

officers too, with plumes and sashes. And then a regimental band--with

its brass instruments. Peer slipped into the churchyard with the crowd,

but kept apart from the rest, and took up his stand a little way off,

beside a big monument. “It must be father’s funeral,” he thought to

himself, and was broad awake at once.

This, he guessed, must be the Cadet School, that came marching in, and

formed up in two lines from the mortuary chapel to the open grave.

The place was nearly full of people now; there were women holding

handkerchiefs to their eyes, and an elderly lady in black went into

the chapel, on the arm of a tall man in uniform. “That must be father’s

wife,” thought Peer, “and the young ladies there in black are--my

half-sisters, and that young lieutenant--my half-brother.” How strange

it all was! A sound of singing came from the chapel. And a little later

six sergeants came out, carrying a coffin all heaped with flowers.

“Present arms!” And the soldiers presented, and the band played a slow

march and moved off in front of the coffin, between the two lines of

soldiers. And then came a great following of mourners. The lady in black

came out again, sobbing behind her handkerchief, and hardly able to

follow, though she clung to the tall officer’s arm. But in front of

the pair, just behind the coffin itself, walked a tall man in splendid

uniform, with gold epaulettes, plumed hat, and sword, bearing a cushion

with two jewelled stars. And the long, long train of mourners moved

slowly, gently on, and there--there by the grave, stood the priest,

holding a spade.

Peer was anxious to hear what the priest would have to say about his

father. Involuntarily he stole a little nearer, though he felt somehow

that it would not do to come too close.

A hymn was sung at the graveside, the band accompanying. Peer took off

his cap. He was too taken up to notice that one of the mourners was

watching him intently, and presently left the group and came towards

him. The man wore spectacles, and a shiny tall hat, and it was not until

he began to sneeze that Peer recognised him. It was the schoolmaster,

glaring at him now with a face so full of horror and fury that the

spectacles almost seemed to be spitting fire.

“You--you--Are you mad?” he whispered in Peer’s face, clenching his

black gloved hands. “What are you doing here? Do you want to cause a

catastrophe to-day of all days? Go--get away at once, do you hear me?

Go! For heaven’s sake, get away from here before any one sees.” Peer

turned and fled, hearing behind him as he went a threatening “If ever

you dare--again--,” while the voices and the band, swelling higher in

the hymn, seemed to strike him in the back and drive him on.

He was far down in the town before he could stop and pull himself

together. One thing was clear--after this he could never face that

schoolmaster again. All was lost. Could he even be sure that what he had

done wasn’t so frightfully wrong that he would have to go to prison for

it?

Next day the Troen folk were sitting at their dinner when the eldest son

looked out of the window and said: “There’s Peer coming.”

“Mercy on us!” cried the good-wife, as he came in. “What is the matter,

Peer? Are you ill?”

Ah, it was good that night to creep in under the old familiar skin-rug

once more. And the old mother sat on the bedside and talked to him

of the Lord, by way of comfort. Peer clenched his hands under the

clothes--somehow he thought now of the Lord as a sort of schoolmaster

in a dressing-gown. Yet it was some comfort all the same to have the old

soul sit there and talk to him.

Peer had much to put up with in the days that followed--much tittering

and whispers of “Look! there goes the priest,” as he went by. At

table, he felt ashamed of every mouthful he took; he hunted for jobs as

day-labourer on distant farms so as to earn a little to help pay for

his keep. And when the winter came he would have to do as the others

did--hire himself out, young and small as he was, for the Lofoten

fishing.

But one day after church Klaus Brock drew him aside and got him to talk

things over at length. First, Klaus told him that he himself was going

away--he was to begin in one of the mechanical workshops in town, and

go from there to the Technical College, to qualify for an engineer. And

next he wanted to hear the whole truth about what had happened to

Peer that day in town. For when people went slapping their thighs and

sniggering about the young would-be priest that had turned out a

beggar, Klaus felt he would like to give the lot of them a darned good

hammering.

So the two sixteen-year-old boys wandered up and down talking, and

in the days to come Peer never forgot how his old accomplice in the

shark-fishing had stood by him now. “Do like me,” urged Klaus. “You’re

a bit of a smith already, man; go to the workshops, and read up in your

spare time for the entrance exam to the Technical. Then three years at

the College--the eighteen hundred crowns will cover that--and there you

are, an engineer--and needn’t even owe any one a halfpenny.”

Peer shook his head; he was sure he would never dare to show his face

before that schoolmaster again, much less ask for the money in the bank.

No; the whole thing was over and done with for him.

“But devil take it, man, surely you can see that this ape of a

schoolmaster dare not keep you out of your money. Let me come with you;

we’ll go up and tackle him together, and then--then you’ll see.” And

Klaus clenched his fists and thrust out one shoulder fiercely.

But when January came, there was Peer in oil-skins, in the foc’s’le of

a Lofoten fishing-smack, ploughing the long sea-road north to the

fishing-grounds, in frost and snow-storms. All through that winter he

lived the fisherman’s life: on land, in one of the tiny fisher-booths

where a five-man crew is packed like sardines in an air so thick you can

cut it with a knife; at sea, where in a fair wind you stand half the day

doing nothing and freezing stiff the while--and a foul wind means out

oars, and row, row, row, over an endless plain of rolling icy combers;

row, row, till one’s hands are lumps of bleeding flesh. Peer lived

through it all, thinking now and then, when he could think at all, how

the grand gentlefolk had driven him out to this life because he was

impertinent enough to exist. And when the fourteen weeks were past, and

the Lofoten boats stood into the fjord again on a mild spring day, it

was easy for Peer to reckon out his earnings, which were just nothing at

all. He had had to borrow money for his outfit and food, and he would be

lucky if his boy’s share was enough to cover what he owed.

A few weeks later a boy stood by the yard gate of an engineering works

in the town just as the bell was ringing and the men came streaming out,

and asked for Klaus Brock.

“Hullo, Peer--that you? Been to Lofoten and made your fortune?”

The two boys stood a moment taking stock of one another: Klaus

grimy-faced and in working-clothes--Peer weather-beaten and tanned by

storm and spray.

The manager of the factory was Klaus’s uncle, and the same afternoon his

nephew came into the office with a new hand wanting to be taken on as

apprentice. He had done some smithy work before, he said; and he was

taken on forthwith, at a wage of twopence an hour.

“And what’s your name?”

“Peer--er”--the rest stuck in his throat.

“Holm,” put in Klaus.

“Peer Holm? Very well, that’ll do.”

The two boys went out with a feeling of having done something rather

daring. And anyway, if trouble should come along, there would be two of

them now to tackle it.

Chapter V

In a narrow alley off Sea Street lived Gorseth the job-master, with a

household consisting of a lean and skinny wife, two half-starved horses,

and a few ramshackle flies and sledges. The job-master himself was a

hulking toper with red nose and beery-yellow eyes, who spent his nights

in drinking and got home in the small hours of the morning when his wife

was just about getting up. All through the morning she went about the

place scolding and storming at him for a drunken ne’er-do-well, while

Gorseth himself lay comfortably snoring.

When Peer arrived on the scene with his box on his shoulder, Gorseth was

on his knees in the yard, greasing a pair of leather carriage-aprons,

while his wife, sunken-lipped and fierce-eyed, stood in the kitchen

doorway, abusing him for a profligate, a swine, and the scum of the

earth. Gorseth lay there on all-fours, with the sun shining on his bald

head, smearing on the grease; but every now and then he would lift his

head and snarl out, “Hold your jaw, you damned old jade!”

“Haven’t you a room to let?” Peer asked.

A beery nose was turned towards him, and the man dragged himself up and

wiped his hands on his trousers. “Right you are,” said he, and led the

way across the yard, up some stairs, and into a little room with two

panes of glass looking on to the street and a half-window on the yard.

The room had a bed with sheets, a couple of chairs, and a table in front

of the half-window. Six and six a month. Agreed. Peer took it on the

spot, paid down the first month’s rent, and having got rid of the man

sat down on his chest and looked about him. Many people have never a

roof to their heads, but here was he, Peer, with a home of his own.

Outside in the yard the woman had begun yelping her abuse again, the

horses in the stable beneath were stamping and whinnying, but Peer

had lodged in fisher-booths and peasants’ quarters and was not too

particular. Here he was for the first time in a place of his own, and

within its walls was master of the house and his own master.

Food was the next thing. He went out and bought in supplies, stocking

his chest with plain country fare. At dinner time he sat on the lid,

as fishermen do, and made a good solid meal of flat bannocks and cold

bacon.

And now he fell-to at his new work. There was no question of whether it

was what he wanted or not; here was a chance of getting up in the world,

and that without having to beg any one’s leave. He meant to get on. And

it was not long before his dreams began to take a new shape from his new

life. He stood at the bottom of a ladder, a blacksmith’s boy--but up

at the top sat a mighty Chief Engineer, with gold spectacles and white

waistcoat. That was where he would be one day. And if any schoolmaster

came along and tried to keep him back this time--well, just let him

try it. They had turned him out of a churchyard once--he would have his

revenge for that some day. It might take him years and years to do it,

but one fine day he would be as good as the best of them, and would pay

them back in full.

In the misty mornings, as he tramped in to his work, dinner-pail in

hand, his footsteps on the plank bridge seemed hammering out with

concentrated will: “To-day I shall learn something new--new--new!”

The great works down at the harbour--shipyard, foundry, and machine

shops--were a whole city in themselves. And into this world of fire and

smoke and glowing iron, steam-hammers, racing wheels, and bustle and

noise, he was thrusting his way, intent upon one thing, to learn and

learn and ever learn. There were plenty of those by him who were content

to know their way about the little corner where they stood--but they

would never get any farther. They would end their days broken-down

workmen--HE would carve his way through till he stood among the masters.

He had first to put in some months’ work in the smithy, then he would

be passed on to the machine shops, then to work with the carpenters

and painters, and finally in the shipyard. The whole thing would take

a couple of years. But the works and all therein were already a kind of

new Bible to him; a book of books, which he must learn by heart. Only

wait!

And what a place it was for new adventures! Many times a day he

would find himself gazing at some new wonder; sheer miracle and

revelation--yet withal no creation of God’s grace, but an invention of

men. Press a button, and behold, a miracle springs to life. He would

stare at the things, and the strain of understanding them would

sometimes keep him awake at night. There was something behind this,

something that must be--spirit, even though it did not come from God.

These engineers were priests of a sort, albeit they did not preach nor

pray. It was a new world.

One day he was put to riveting work on an enormous boiler, and for the

first time found himself working with a power that was not the power of

his own hands. It was a tube, full of compressed air, that drove home

the rivets in quick succession with a clashing wail from the boiler that

sounded all over the town. Peer’s head and ears ached with the noise,

but he smiled all the same. He was used to toil himself, in weariness of

body; now he stood here master, was mind and soul and directing will. He

felt it now for the first time, and it sent a thrill of triumph through

every nerve of his body.

But all through the long evenings he sat alone, reading, reading, and

heard the horses stamping in the stable below. And when he crept

into bed, well after midnight, there was only one thing that troubled

him--his utter loneliness. Klaus Brock lived with his uncle, in a fine

house, and went to parties. And he lay here all by himself. If he were

to die that very night, there would be hardly a soul to care. So utterly

alone he was--in a strange and indifferent world.

Sometimes it helped him a little to think of the old mother at Troen,

or of the church at home, where the vaulted roof had soared so high over

the swelling organ-notes, and all the faces had looked so beautiful. But

the evening prayer was no longer what it had been for him. There was no

grey-haired bishop any more sitting at the top of the ladder he was to

climb. The Chief Engineer that was there now had nothing to do with Our

Lord, or with life in the world to come. He would never come so far now

that he could go down into the place of torment where his mother lay,

and bring her up with him, up to salvation. And whatever power and

might he gained, he could never stand in autumn evenings and lift up his

finger and make all the stars break into song.

Something was past and gone for Peer. It was as if he were rowing away

from a coast where red clouds hung in the sky and dream-visions filled

the air--rowing farther and farther away, towards something quite new. A

power stronger than himself had willed it so.

One Sunday, as he sat reading, the door opened, and Klaus Brock entered

whistling, with his cap on the back of his head.

“Hullo, old boy! So this is where you live?”

“Yes, it is--and that’s a chair over there.”

But Klaus remained standing, with his hands in his pockets and his cap

on, staring about the room. “Well, I’m blest!” he said at last. “If he

hasn’t stuck up a photograph of himself on his table!”

“Well, did you never see one before? Don’t you know everybody has them?”

“Not their own photos, you ass! If anybody sees that, you’ll never hear

the last of it.”

Peer took up the photograph and flung it under the bed. “Well, it was a

rubbishy thing,” he muttered. Evidently he had made a mistake. “But what

about this?”--pointing to a coloured picture he had nailed up on the

wall.

Klaus put on his most manly air and bit off a piece of tobacco plug.

“Ah! that!” he said, trying not to laugh too soon.

“Yes; it’s a fine painting, isn’t it? I got it for fourpence.”

“Painting! Ha-ha! that’s good! Why, you silly cow, can’t you see it’s

only an oleograph?”

“Oh, of course you know all about it. You always do.”

“I’ll take you along one day to the Art Gallery,” said Klaus. “Then

you can see what a real painting looks like. What’s that you’ve got

there--English reader?”

“Yes,” put in Peer eagerly; “hear me say a poem.” And before Klaus could

protest, he had begun to recite.

When he had finished, Klaus sat for a while in silence, chewing his

quid. “H’m!” he said at last, “if our last teacher, Froken Zebbelin,

could have heard that English of yours, we’d have had to send for a

nurse for her, hanged if we wouldn’t!”

This was too much. Peer flung the book against the wall and told the

other to clear out to the devil. When Klaus at last managed to get a

word in, he said:

“If you are to pass your entrance at the Technical you’ll have to have

lessons--surely you can see that. You must get hold of a teacher.”

“Easy for you to talk about teachers! Let me tell you my pay is twopence

an hour.”

“I’ll find you one who can take you twice a week or so in languages and

history and mathematics. I daresay some broken-down sot of a student

would take you on for sevenpence a lesson. You could run to that,

surely?”

Peer was quiet now and a little pensive. “Well, if I give up butter, and

drink water instead of coffee--”

Klaus laughed, but his eyes were moist. Hard luck that he couldn’t offer

to lend his comrade a few shillings--but it wouldn’t do.

So the summer passed. On Sundays Peer would watch the young folks

setting out in the morning for the country, to spend the whole day

wandering in the fields and woods, while he sat indoors over his books.

And in the evening he would stick his head out of his two-paned window

that looked on to the street, and would see the lads and girls coming

back, flushed and noisy, with flowers and green boughs in their hats,

crazy with sunshine and fresh air. And still he must sit and read on.

But in the autumn, when the long nights set in, he would go for a walk

through the streets before going to bed, as often as not up to the white

wooden house where the manager lived. This was Klaus’s home. Lights in

the windows, and often music; the happy people that lived here knew and

could do all sorts of things that could never be learned from books. No

mistake: he had a goodish way to go--a long, long way. But get there he

would.

One day Klaus happened to mention, quite casually, where Colonel Holm’s

widow lived, and late one evening Peer made his way out there, and

cautiously approached the house. It was in River Street, almost hidden

in a cluster of great trees, and Peer stood there, leaning against the

garden fence, trembling with some obscure emotion. The long rows of

windows on both floors were lighted up; he could hear youthful laughter

within, and then a young girl’s voice singing--doubtless they were

having a party. Peer turned up his collar against the wind, and tramped

back through the town to his lodging above the carter’s stable.

For the lonely working boy Saturday evening is a sort of festival. He

treats himself to an extra wash, gets out his clean underclothes from

his chest, and changes. And the smell of the newly-washed underclothing

calls up keenly the thought of a pock-marked old woman who sewed

and patched it all, and laid it away so neatly folded. He puts it on

carefully, feeling almost as if it were Sunday already.

Now and again, when a Sunday seemed too long, Peer would drift into the

nearest church. What the parson said was all very good, no doubt, but

Peer did not listen; for him there were only the hymns, the organ, the

lofty vaulted roof, the coloured windows. Here, too, the faces of the

people looked otherwise than in the street without; touched, as it were,

by some reflection from all that their thoughts aspired to reach. And

it was so homelike here. Peer even felt a sort of kinship with them all,

though every soul there was a total stranger.

But at last one day, to his surprise, in the middle of a hymn, a voice

within him whispered suddenly: “You should write to your sister. She’s

as much alone in the world as you are.”

And one evening Peer sat down and wrote. He took quite a lordly tone,

saying that if she wanted help in any way, she need only let him know.

And if she would care to move in to town, she could come and live with

him. After which he remained, her affectionate brother, Peer Holm,

engineer apprentice.

A few days later there came a letter addressed in a fine slanting hand.

Louise had just been confirmed. The farmer she was with wished to keep

her on as dairymaid through the winter, but she was afraid the work

would be too heavy for her. So she was coming in to town by the boat

arriving on Sunday evening. With kind regards, his sister, Louise Hagen.

Peer was rather startled. He seemed to have taken a good deal on his

shoulders.

On Sunday evening he put on his blue suit and stiff felt hat, and walked

down to the quay. For the first time in his life he had some one else to

look after--he was to be a father and benefactor from now on to some one

worse off than himself. This was something new. The thought came back to

him of the jolly gentleman who had come driving down one day to Troen to

look after his little son. Yes, that was the way to do things; that was

the sort of man he would be. And involuntarily he fell into something of

his father’s look and step, his smile, his lavish, careless air. “Well,

well--well, well--well, well,” he seemed saying to himself. He might

almost, in his fancy, have had a neat iron-grey beard on his chin.

The little green steamboat rounded the point and lay in to the quay,

the gangways were run out, porters jumped aboard, and all the passengers

came bundling ashore. Peer wondered how he was to know her, this sister

whom he had never seen.

The crowd on deck soon thinned, and people began moving off from the

quay into the town.

Then Peer was aware of a young peasant-girl, with a box in one hand and

a violin-case in the other. She wore a grey dress, with a black kerchief

over her fair hair; her face was pale, and finely cut. It was his

mother’s face; his mother as a girl of sixteen. Now she was looking

about her, and now her eyes rested on him, half afraid, half inquiring.

“Is it you, Louise?”

“Is that you, Peer?”

They stood for a moment, smiling and measuring each other with their

eyes, and then shook hands.

Together they carried the box up through the town, and Peer was so much

of a townsman already that he felt a little ashamed to find himself

walking through the streets, holding one end of a trunk, with a

peasant-girl at the other. And what a clatter her thick shoes made on

the pavement! But all the time he was ashamed to feel ashamed. Those

blue arch eyes of hers, constantly glancing up at him, what were they

saying? “Yes, I have come,” they said--“and I’ve no one but you in all

the world--and here I am,” they kept on saying.

“Can you play that?” he asked, with a glance at her violin-case.

“Oh well; my playing’s only nonsense,” she laughed. And she told how the

old sexton she had been living with last had not been able to afford a

new dress for her confirmation, and had given her the violin instead.

“Then didn’t you have a new dress to be confirmed in?”

“No.”

“But wasn’t it--didn’t you feel horrible, with the other girls standing

by you all dressed up fine?”

She shut her eyes for a moment. “Oh, yes--it WAS horrid,” she said.

A little farther on she asked: “Were you boarded out at a lot of

places?”

“Five, I think.”

“Pooh--why, that’s nothing. I was at nine, I was.” The girl was smiling

again.

When they came up to his room she stood for a moment looking round the

place. It was hardly what she had expected to find. And she had not been

in town lodgings before, and her nose wrinkled up a little as she smelt

the close air. It seemed so stuffy, and so dark.

“We’ll light the lamp,” he said.

Presently she laughed a little shyly, and asked where she was to sleep.

“Lord bless us, you may well ask!” Peer scratched his head. “There’s

only one bed, you see.” At that they both burst out laughing.

“The one of us’ll have to sleep on the floor,” suggested the girl.

“Right. The very thing,” said he, delighted. “I’ve two pillows; you can

have one. And two rugs--anyway, you won’t be cold.”

“And then I can put on my other dress over,” she said. “And maybe you’ll

have an old overcoat--”

“Splendid! So we needn’t bother any more about that.”

“But where do you get your food from?” She evidently meant to have

everything cleared up at once.

Peer felt rather ashamed that he hadn’t money enough to invite her to a

meal at an eating-house then and there. But he had to pay his teacher’s

fees the next day; and his store-box wanted refilling too.

“I boil the coffee on the stove there overnight,” he said, “so that it’s

all ready in the morning. And the dry food I keep in that box there.

We’ll see about some supper now.” He opened the box, fished out a loaf

and some butter, and put the kettle on the stove. She helped him to

clear the papers off the table, and spread the feast on it. There was

only one knife, but it was really much better fun that way than if he

had had two. And soon they were seated on their chairs--they had a chair

each--having their first meal in their own home, he and she together.

It was settled that Louise should sleep on the floor, and they both

laughed a great deal as he tucked her in carefully so that she shouldn’t

feel cold. It was not till afterwards, when the lamp was out, that

they noticed that the autumn gales had set in, and there was a loud

north-wester howling over the housetops. And there they lay, chatting to

each other in the dark, before falling asleep.

It seemed a strange and new thing to Peer, this really having a relation

of his own--and a girl, too--a young woman. There she lay on the floor

near by him, and from now on he was responsible for what was to become

of her in the world. How should he put that job through?

He could hear her turning over. The floor was hard, very likely.

“Louise?”

“Yes.”

“Did you ever see mother?”

“No.”

“Or your father?”

“My father?” She gave a little laugh.

“Yes, haven’t you ever seen him either?”

“Why, how should I, silly? Who says that mother knew herself who it

was?”

There was a pause. Then Peer brought out, rather awkwardly: “We’re all

alone, then--you and I.”

“Yes--we are that.”

“Louise! What are you thinking of taking to now?”

“What are you?”

So Peer told her all his plans. She said nothing for a little while--no

doubt she was lying thinking of the grand things he had before him.

At last she spoke. “Do you think--does it cost very much to learn to be

a midwife?”

“A midwife--is that what you want to be, girl?” Peer couldn’t help

laughing. So this was what she had been planning in these days--since he

had offered to help her on in the world.

“Do you think my hands are too big?” she ventured presently--he could

just hear the whisper.

Peer felt a pang of pity. He had noticed already how ill the red swollen

hands matched her pale clear-cut face, and he knew that in the country,

when any one has small, fine hands, people call them “midwife’s hands.”

“We’ll manage it somehow, I daresay,” said Peer, turning round to the

wall. He had heard that it cost several hundred crowns to go through the

course at the midwifery school. It would be years before he could get

together anything like that sum. Poor girl, it looked as if she would

have a long time to wait.

After that they fell silent. The north-wester roared over the housetops,

and presently brother and sister were asleep.

When Peer awoke the next morning, Louise was about already, making

coffee over the little stove. Then she opened her box, took out a yellow

petticoat and hung it on a nail, placed a pair of new shoes against the

wall, lifted out some under-linen and woollen stockings, looked at them,

and put them back again. The little box held all her worldly goods.

As Peer was getting up: “Gracious mercy!” she cried suddenly, “what is

that awful noise down in the yard?”

“Oh, that’s nothing to worry about,” said Peer. “It’s only the

job-master and his wife. They carry on like that every blessed morning;

you’ll soon get used to it.”

Soon they were seated once more at the little table, drinking coffee

and laughing and looking at each other. Louise had found time to do her

hair--the two fair plaits hung down over her shoulders.

It was time for Peer to be off, and, warning the girl not to go too far

from home and get lost, he ran down the stairs.

At the works he met Klaus Brock, and told him that his sister had come

to town.

“But what are you going to do with her?” asked Klaus.

“Oh, she’ll stay with me for the present.”

“Stay with you? But you’ve only got one room and one bed, man!”

“Well--she can sleep on the floor.”

“She? Your sister? She’s to sleep on the floor--and you in the bed!”

gasped Klaus.

Peer saw he had made a mistake again. “Of course I was only fooling,” he

hastened to say. “Of course it’s Louise that’s to have the bed.”

When he came home he found she had borrowed a frying-pan from the

carter’s wife, and had fried some bacon and boiled potatoes; so that

they sat down to a dinner fit for a prince.

But when the girl’s eyes fell on the coloured print on the wall, and

she asked if it was a painting, Peer became very grand at once. “That--a

painting? Why, that’s only an oleograph, silly! No, I’ll take you along

to the Art Gallery one day, and show you what real paintings are like.”

And he sat drumming with his fingers on the table, and saying: “Well,

well--well, well, well!”

They agreed that Louise had better look out at once for some work to

help things along. And at the first eating-house they tried, she was

taken on at once in the kitchen to wash the floor and peel potatoes.

When bedtime came he insisted on Louise taking the bed. “Of course all

that was only a joke last night,” he explained. “Here in town women

always have the best of everything--that’s what’s called manners.” As he

stretched himself on the hard floor, he had a strange new feeling. The

narrow little garret seemed to have widened out now that he had to find

room in it for a guest. There was something not unpleasant even in lying

on the hard floor, since he had chosen to do it for some one else’s

sake.

After the lamp was out he lay for a while, listening to her breathing.

Then at last:

“Louise.”

“Yes?”

“Is your father--was his name Hagen?”

“Yes. It says so on the certificate.”

“Then you’re Froken Hagen. Sounds quite fine, doesn’t it?”

“Uf! Now you’re making fun of me.”

“And when you’re a midwife, Froken Hagen might quite well marry a

doctor, you know.”

“Silly! There’s no chance--with hands like mine.”

“Do you think your hands are too big for you to marry a doctor?”

“Uf! you ARE a crazy thing. Ha-ha-ha!”

“Ha-ha-ha!”

They both snuggled down under the clothes, with the sense of ease and

peace that comes from sharing a room with a good friend in a happy

humour.

“Well, good-night, Louise.”

“Good-night, Peer.”

Chapter VI

So things went on till winter was far spent. Now that Louise, too, was

a wage-earner, and could help with the expenses, they could dine

luxuriously at an eating-house every day, if they pleased, on meat-cakes

at fourpence a portion. They managed to get a bed for Peer that could

be folded up during the day, and soon learned, too, that good manners

required they should hang up Louise’s big woollen shawl between them

as a modest screen while they were dressing and undressing. And Louise

began to drop her country speech and talk city-fashion like her brother.

One thought often came to Peer as he lay awake. “The girl is the very

image of mother, that’s certain--what if she were to go the same way?

Well, no, that she shall not. You’re surely man enough to see to that.

Nothing of that sort shall happen, my dear Froken Hagen.”

They saw but little of each other during the day, though, for they were

apart from early in the morning till he came home in the evening. And

when he lectured her, and warned her to be careful and take no notice

of men who tried to speak to her, Louise only laughed. When Klaus Brock

came up one day to visit them, and made great play with his eyes while

he talked to her, Peer felt much inclined to take him by the scruff of

the neck and throw him downstairs.

When Christmas-time was near they would wander in the long evenings

through the streets and look in at the dazzlingly lit shop-windows, with

their tempting, glittering show of gold and finery. Louise kept asking

continually how much he thought this thing or that cost--that lace,

or the cloak, or the stockings, or those gold brooches. “Wait till you

marry that doctor,” Peer would say, “then you can buy all those

things.” So far neither of them had an overcoat, but Peer turned up his

coat-collar when he felt cold, and Louise made the most of her thick

woollen dress and a pair of good country gloves that kept her quite

warm. And she had adventured on a hat now, in place of her kerchief, and

couldn’t help glancing round, thinking people must notice how fine she

was.

On Christmas Eve he carried up buckets of water from the yard, and she

had a great scrubbing-out of the whole room. And then they in their

turn had a good wash, helping each other in country fashion to scrub

shoulders and back.

Peer was enough of a townsman now to have laid in a few little presents

to give his sister; but the girl, who had not been used to such doings,

had nothing for him, and wept a good deal when she realised it. They ate

cakes from the confectioner’s with syrup over them, and drank chocolate,

and then Louise played a hymn-tune, in her best style, on her violin,

and Peer read the Christmas lessons from the prayer-book--it was all

just like what they used to do at Troen on Christmas Eve. And that

night, after the lamp was put out, they lay awake talking over plans for

the future. They promised each other that when they had got well on in

the world, he in his line and she in hers, they would manage to live

near each other, so that their children could play together and grow

up good friends. Didn’t she think that was a good idea? Yes, indeed she

did. And did he really mean it? Yes, of course he meant it, really.

But later on in the winter, when she sat at home in the evenings waiting

for him--he often worked overtime--she was sometimes almost afraid.

There was his step on the stairs! If it was hurried and eager she would

tremble a little. For the moment he was inside the door he would burst

out: “Hurrah, my girl! I’ve learnt something new to-day, I tell you!”

“Have you, Peer?” And then out would pour a torrent of talk about

motors and power and pressures and cylinders and cranes and screws, and

such-like. She would sit and listen and smile, but of course understood

not a word of it all, and as soon as Peer discovered this he would get

perfectly furious, and call her a little blockhead.

Then there were the long evenings when he sat at home reading, by

himself or with his teacher and she had to sit so desperately still that

she hardly dared take a stitch with her needle. But one day he took it

into his head that his sister ought to be studying too; so he set her

a piece of history to learn by the next evening. But time to learn

it--where was that to come from? And then he started her writing to his

dictation, to improve her spelling--and all the time she kept dropping

off to sleep. She had washed so many floors and peeled so many potatoes

in the daytime that now her body felt like lead.

“Look here, my fine girl!” he would storm at her, raging up and down

the room, “if you think you can get on in the world without education,

you’re most infernally mistaken.” He succeeded in reducing her to

tears--but it wasn’t long before her head had fallen forward on the

table again and she was fast asleep. So he realised there was nothing

for it but to help her to bed--as quietly as possible, so as not to wake

her up.

Some way on in the spring Peer fell sick. When the doctor came, he

looked round the room, sniffed, and frowned. “Do you call this a place

for human beings to live in?” he asked Louise, who had taken the day

off. “How can you expect to keep well?”

He examined Peer, who lay coughing, his face a burning red. “Yes,

yes--just as I expected. Inflammation of the lungs.” He glanced round

the room once more. “Better get him off to the hospital at once,” he

said.

Louise sat there in terror at the idea that Peer was to be taken away.

And then, as the doctor was going, he looked at her more closely, and

said: “You’d do well to be a bit careful yourself, my good girl. You

look as if you wanted a change to a decent room, with a little more

light and air, pretty badly. Good-morning.”

Soon after he was gone the hospital ambulance arrived. Peer was carried

down the stairs on a stretcher, and the green-painted box on wheels

opened its door and swallowed him up; and they would not even let her go

with him. All through the evening she sat in their room alone, sobbing.

The hospital was one of the good old-fashioned kind that people don’t

come near if they can help it, because the walls seem to reek of the

discomfort and wretchedness that reign inside. The general wards--where

the poor folks went--were always so overcrowded that patients with all

sorts of different diseases had to be packed into the same rooms, and

often infected each other. When an operation was to be performed, things

were managed in the most cheerfully casual way: the patient was laid

on a stretcher and carried across the open yard, often in the depth of

winter, and as he was always covered up with a rug, the others usually

thought he was being taken off to the dead-house.

When Peer opened his eyes, he was aware of a man in a white blouse

standing by the foot of his bed. “Why, I believe he’s coming-to,” said

the man, who seemed to be a doctor. Peer found out afterwards from a

nurse that he had been unconscious for more than twenty-four hours.

He lay there, day after day, conscious of nothing but the stabbing of

a red-hot iron boring through his chest and cutting off his breathing.

Some one would come every now and then and pour port wine and naphtha

into his mouth; and morning and evening he was washed carefully with

warm water by gentle hands. But little by little the room grew lighter,

and his gruel began to have some taste. And at last he began to

distinguish the people in the beds near by, and to chat with them.

On his right lay a black-haired, yellow-faced dock labourer with a

broken nose. His disease, whatever it might be, was clearly different

from Peer’s. He plagued the nurse with foul-mouthed complaints of

the food, swearing he would report about it. On the other side lay an

emaciated cobbler with a soft brown beard like the Christ pictures, and

cheeks glowing with fever. He was dying of cancer. At right angles with

him lay a man with the face and figure of a prophet--a Moses--all bushy

white hair and beard; he was in the last stage of consumption, and his

cough was like a riveting machine. “Huh!” he would groan, “if only I

could get across to Germany there’d be a chance for me yet.” Beside him

was a fellow with short beard and piercing eyes, who was a little off

his head, and imagined himself a corporal of the Guards. Often at night

the others would be wakened by his springing upright in bed and calling

out: “Attention!”

One man lay moaning and groaning all the time, turning from side to side

of a body covered with sores. But one day he managed to swallow some of

the alcohol they used as lotion, and after that lay singing and weeping

alternately. And there was a red-bearded man with glasses, a commercial

traveller; he had put a bullet into his head, but the doctors had

managed to get it out again, and now he lay and praised the Lord for his

miraculous deliverance.

It was strange to Peer to lie awake at night in this great room in the

dim light of the night-lamp; it seemed as if beings from the land of the

dead were stirring in those beds round about him. But in the daytime,

when friends and relations of the patients came a-visiting, Peer could

hardly keep from crying. The cobbler had a wife and a little girl who

came and sat beside him, gazing at him as if they could never let him

go. The prophet, too, had a wife, who wept inconsolably--and all the

rest seemed to have some one or other to care for them. But where was

Louise--why did Louise never come?

The man on the right had a sister, who came sweeping in, gorgeous in her

trailing soiled silk dress. Her shoes were down at heel, but her hat was

a wonder, with enormous plumes. “Hallo, Ugly! how goes it?” she said;

and sat down and crossed her legs. Then the pair would talk mysteriously

of people with strange names: “The Flea,” “Cockroach,” “The Galliot,”

“King Ring,” and the like, evidently friends of theirs. One day she

managed to bring in a small bottle of brandy, a present from “The

Hedgehog,” and smuggle it under the bedclothes. As soon as she had gone,

and the coast was clear, Peer’s neighbour drew out the bottle, managed

to work the cork out, and offered him a drink. “Here’s luck, sonny; do

you good.” No--Peer would rather not. Then followed a gurgling sound

from the docker’s bed, and soon he too was lying singing at the top of

his voice.

At last one day Louise came. She was wearing her neat hat, and had a

little bundle in her hand, and as she came in, looking round the room,

the close air of the sick-ward seemed to turn her a little faint. But

then she caught sight of Peer, and smiled, and came cautiously to him,

holding out her hand. She was astonished to find him so changed. But as

she sat down by his pillow she was still smiling, though her eyes were

full of tears.

“So you’ve come at last, then?” said Peer.

“They wouldn’t let me in before,” she said with a sob. And then Peer

learned that she had come there every single day, but only to be told

that he was too ill to see visitors.

The man with the broken nose craned his head forward to get a better

view of the modest young girl. And meanwhile she was pulling out of

the bundle the offering she had brought--a bottle of lemonade and some

oranges.

But it was a day or two later that something happened which Peer was

often to remember in the days to come.

He had been dozing through the afternoon, and when he woke the lamp was

lit, and a dull yellow half-light lay over the ward. The others seemed

to be sleeping; all was very quiet, only the man with the sores was

whimpering softly. Then the door opened, and Peer saw Louise glide in,

softly and cautiously, with her violin-case under her arm. She did not

come over to where her brother lay, but stood in the middle of the ward,

and, taking out her violin, began to play the Easter hymn: “The mighty

host in white array.” *

* “Den store hvide Flok vi se.”

The man with the sores ceased whimpering; the patients in the beds round

about opened their eyes. The docker with the broken nose sat up in bed,

and the cobbler, roused from his feverish dream, lifted himself on his

elbow and whispered: “It is the Redeemer. I knew Thou wouldst come.”

Then there was silence. Louise stood there with eyes fixed on her

violin, playing her simple best. The consumptive raised his head and

forgot to cough; the corporal slowly stiffened his body to attention;

the commercial traveller folded his hands and stared before him. The

simple tones of the hymn seemed to be giving new life to all these

unfortunates; the light of it was in their faces. But to Peer, watching

his sister as she stood there in the half-light, it seemed as if she

grew to be one with the hymn itself, and that wings to soar were given

her.

When she had finished, she came softly over to his bed, stroked his

forehead with her swollen hand, then glided out and disappeared as

silently as she had come.

For a long time all was silent in the dismal ward, until at last the

dying cobbler murmured: “I thank Thee. I knew--I knew Thou wert not far

away.”

When Peer left the hospital, the doctor said he had better not begin

work again at once; he should take a holiday in the country and pick up

his strength. “Easy enough for you to talk,” thought Peer, and a couple

of days later he was at the workshop again.

But his ways with his sister were more considerate than before, and he

searched about until he had found her a place as seamstress, and saved

her from her heavy floor-scrubbing.

And soon Louise began to notice with delight that her hands were much

less red and swollen than they had been; they were actually getting soft

and pretty by degrees.

Next winter she sat at home in the evenings while he read, and made

herself a dress and cloak and trimmed a new hat, so that Peer soon had

quite an elegant young lady to walk out with. But when men turned round

to look at her as she passed, he would scowl and clench his fists. At

last one day this was too much for Louise, and she rebelled. “Now, Peer,

I tell you plainly I won’t go out with you if you go on like that.”

“All right, my girl,” he growled. “I’ll look after you, though, never

fear. We’re not going to have mother’s story over again with you.”

“Well, but, after all, I’m a grown-up-girl, and you can’t prevent people

looking at me, idiot!”

Klaus Brock had been entered at the Technical College that autumn,

and went about now with the College badge in his cap, and sported a

walking-stick and a cigarette. He had grown into a big, broad-shouldered

fellow, and walked with a little swing in his step; a thick shock of

black hair fell over his forehead, and he had a way of looking about him

as if to say: “Anything the matter? All right, I’m ready!”

One evening he came in and asked Louise to go with him to the theatre.

The young girl blushed red with joy, and Peer could not refuse; but he

was waiting for them outside the yard gate when they came back. On a

Sunday soon after Klaus was there again, asking her to come out for a

drive. This time she did not even look to Peer for leave, but said “yes”

at once. “Just you wait,” said Peer to himself. And when she came back

that evening he read her a terrific lecture.

Soon he could not help seeing that the girl was going about with

half-shut eyes, dreaming dreams of which she would never speak to

him. And as the days went on her hands grew whiter, and she moved more

lightly, as if to the rhythm of unheard music. Always as she went about

the room on her household tasks she was crooning some song; it seemed

that there was some joy in her soul that must find an outlet.

One Saturday in the late spring she had just come home, and was getting

the supper, when Peer came tramping in, dressed in his best and carrying

a parcel.

“Hi, girl! Here you are! We’re going to have a rare old feast to-night.”

“Why--what is it all about?”

“I’ve passed my entrance exam for the Technical--hurrah! Next

autumn--next autumn--I’ll be a student!”

“Oh, splendid! I AM so glad!” And she dried her hand and grasped his.

“Here you are--sausages, anchovies--and here’s a bottle of brandy--the

first I ever bought in my life. Klaus is coming up later on to have a

glass of toddy. And here’s cheese. We’ll make things hum to-night.”

Klaus came, and the two youths drank toddy and smoked and made speeches,

and Louise played patriotic songs on her violin, and Klaus gazed at her

and asked for “more--more.”

When he left, Peer went with him, and as the two walked down the street,

Klaus took his friend’s arm, and pointed to the pale moon riding high

above the fjord, and vowed never to give him up, till he stood at the

very top of the tree--never, never! Besides, he was a Socialist now, he

said, and meant to raise a revolt against all class distinctions. And

Louise--Louise was the most glorious girl in all the world--and now--and

now--Peer might just as well know it sooner as later--they were as good

as engaged to be married, he and Louise.

Peer pushed him away, and stood staring at him. “Go home now, and go to

bed,” he said.

“Ha! You think I’m not man enough to defy my people--to defy the whole

world!”

“Good-night,” said Peer.

Next morning, as Louise lay in bed--she had asked to have her breakfast

there for once in a way--she suddenly began to laugh. “What ARE you

about now?” she asked teasingly.

“Shaving,” said Peer, beginning operations.

“Shaving! Are you so desperate to be grand to-day that you must scrape

all your skin off? You know there’s nothing else to shave.”

“You hold your tongue. Little do you know what I’ve got in front of me

to-day.”

“What can it be? You’re not going courting an old widow with twelve

children, are you?”

“If you want to know, I’m going to that schoolmaster fellow, and going

to wring my savings-bank book out of him.”

Louise sat up at this. “My great goodness!” she said.

Yes; he had been working himself up to this for a year or more, and now

he was going to do it. To-day he would show what he was made of--whether

he was a snivelling child, or a man that could stand up to any

dressing-gown in the world. He was shaving for the first time--quite

true. And the reason was that it was no ordinary day, but a great

occasion.

His toilet over, he put on his best hat with a flourish, and set out.

Louise stayed at home all the morning, waiting for his return. And at

last she heard him on the stairs.

“Puh!” he said, and stood still in the middle of the room.

“Well? Did you get it?”

He laughed, wiped his forehead, and drew a green-covered book from his

coat-pocket. “Here we are, my girl--there’s fifty crowns a month for

three years. It’s going to be a bit of a pinch, with fees and books, and

living and clothes into the bargain. But we’ll do it. Father was one of

the right sort, I don’t care what they say.”

“But how did you manage it? What did the schoolmaster say?”

“‘Do you suppose that you--you with your antecedents--could ever pass

into the Technical College?’ he said. And I told him I HAD passed. ‘Good

heavens! How could you possibly qualify?’ and he shifted his glasses

down his nose. And then: ‘Oh, no! it’s no good coming here with tales of

that sort, my lad.’ Well, then I showed him the certificate, and he got

much meeker. ‘Really!’ he said, and ‘Dear me!’ and all that. But I say,

Louise--there’s another Holm entered for the autumn term.”

“Peer, you don’t mean--your half-brother?”

“And old Dressing-gown said it would never do--never! But I said it

seemed to me there must be room in the world for me as well, and I’d

like that bank book now, I said. ‘You seem to fancy you have some legal

right to it,’ he said, and got perfectly furious. Then I hinted that

I’d rather ask a lawyer about it and make sure, and at that he regularly

boiled with rage and waved his arms all about. But he gave in pretty

soon all the same--said he washed his hands of the whole thing.

‘And besides,’ he said, ‘your name’s Troen, you know--Peer Troen.’

Ho-ho-ho--Peer Troen! Wouldn’t he like it! Tra-la-la-la!--I say, let’s

go out and get a little fresh air.”

Peer said nothing then or after about Klaus Brock, and Klaus himself was

going off home for the summer holidays. As the summer wore on the town

lay baking in the heat, reeking of drains, and the air from the stable

came up to the couple in the garret so heavy and foul that they were

sometimes nearly stifled.

“I’ll tell you what,” said Peer one day, “we really must spend a few

shillings more on house rent and get a decent place to live in.”

And Louise agreed. For till the time came for him to join the College

in the autumn, Peer was obliged to stick to the workshops; he could not

afford a holiday just now.

One morning he was just starting with a working gang down to Stenkjaer

to repair some damage in the engine-room of a big Russian grain boat,

when Louise came and asked him to look at her throat. “It hurts so

here,” she said.

Peer took a spoon and pressed down her tongue, but could not see

anything wrong. “Better go and see the doctor, and make sure,” he said.

But the girl made light of it. “Oh, nonsense!” she said; “it’s not worth

troubling about.”

Peer was away for over a week, sleeping on board with the rest. When

he came back, he hurried home, suddenly thinking of Louise and her sore

throat. He found the job-master greasing the wheels of a carriage, while

his wife leaned out of a window scolding at him. “Your sister,”

repeated the carter, turning round his face with its great red lump of

nose--“she’s gone to hospital--diphtheria hospital--she has. Doctor was

here over a week ago and took her off. They’ve been here since poking

round and asking who she was and where she belonged--well, we didn’t

know. And asking where you were, too--and we didn’t know either. She was

real bad, if you ask me--”

Peer hastened off. It was a hot day, and the air was close and heavy.

On he went--all down the whole length of Sea Street, through the

fishermen’s quarter, and a good way further out round the bay. And then

he saw a cart coming towards him, an ordinary work-cart, with a coffin

on it. The driver sat on the cart, and another man walked behind, hat in

hand. Peer ran on, and at last came in sight of the long yellow building

at the far end of the bay. He remembered all the horrible stories he had

heard about the treatment of diphtheria patients--how their throats had

to be cut open to give them air, or something burned out of them with

red-hot irons--oh! When at last he had reached the high fence and rung

the bell, he stood breathless and dripping with sweat, leaning against

the gate.

There was a sound of steps within, a key was turned, and a porter with a

red moustache and freckles about his hard blue eyes thrust out his head.

“What d’you want to go ringing like that for?”

“Froken Hagen--Louise Hagen--is she better? How--how is she?”

“Lou--Louise Hagen? A girl called Louise Hagen? Is it her you’ve come to

ask about?”

“Yes. She’s my sister. Tell me--or--let me in to see her.”

“Wait a bit. You don’t mean a girl that was brought in here about a week

ago?”

“Yes, yes--but let me in.”

“We’ve had no end of bother and trouble about that girl, trying to find

out where she came from, and if she had people here. But, of course,

this weather, we couldn’t possibly keep her any longer. Didn’t you meet

a coffin on a cart as you came along?”

“What--what--you don’t mean--?”

“Well, you should have come before, you know. She did ask a lot for some

one called Peer. And she got the matron to write somewhere--wasn’t it to

Levanger? Were you the fellow she was asking for? So you came at last!

Oh, well--she died four or five days ago. And they’re just gone now to

bury her, in St. Mary’s Churchyard.”

Peer turned round and looked out over the bay at the town, that lay

sunlit and smoke-wreathed beyond. Towards the town he began to walk, but

his step grew quicker and quicker, and at last he took off his cap

and ran, panting and sobbing as he went. Have I been drinking? was the

thought that whirled through his brain, or why can’t I wake? What is

it? What is it? And still he ran. There was no cart in sight as yet; the

little streets of the fisher-quarter were all twists and turns. At last

he reached Sea Street once more, and there--there far ahead was

the slow-moving cart. Almost at once it turned off to the right and

disappeared, and when Peer reached the turning, it was not to be seen.

Still he ran on at haphazard. There seemed to be other people in the

streets--children flying red balloons, women with baskets, men with

straw hats and walking-sticks. But Peer marked his line, and ran

forward, thrusting people aside, upsetting those in his way, and dashing

on again. In King Street he came in sight of the cart once more, nearer

this time. The man walking behind it with his hat in his hand had red

curling hair, and walked with a curtsying gait, giving at the knees and

turning out his toes. No doubt he made his living as mourner at funerals

to which no other mourners came. As the cart turned into the churchyard

Peer came up with it, and tried to follow at a walk, but stumbled and

could hardly keep his feet. The man behind the cart looked at him.

“What’s the matter with you?” he asked. The driver looked round, but

drove on again at once.

The cart stopped, and Peer stood by, leaning against a tree for support.

A third man came up--he seemed to be the gravedigger--and he heard the

three discussing how long they might have to wait for the parson. “The

time’s just about up, isn’t it?” said the driver, taking out his watch.

“Ay, the clerk said he’d be here by now,” agreed the gravedigger, and

blew his nose.

Soon the priest came in sight, wearing his black robe and white ruff;

there were doubtless to be other funerals that day. Peer sank down on a

bench and looked stupidly on while the coffin was lifted from the cart,

carried to the grave, and lowered down. A man with spectacles and a red

nose came up with a hymn-book, and sang something over the grave. The

priest lifted the spade--and at the sound of the first spadeful of earth

falling on Louise’s coffin, Peer started as if struck, and all but fell

from his seat.

When he looked up again, the place was deserted. The bell was ringing,

and a crowd was collecting in another part of the churchyard. Peer sat

where he was, quite still.

In the evening, when the gravedigger came to lock the gates, he had

to take the young man by the shoulder and shake him to his senses.

“Locking-up time,” he said. “You must go now.”

Peer rose and tried to walk, and by and by he was stumbling blindly out

through the gate and down the street. And after a time he found himself

climbing a flight of stairs above a stable-yard. Once in his room, he

flung himself down on the bed as he was, and lay there still.

The close heat of the day had broken in a downpour of rain, which

drummed upon the roof above his head, and poured in torrents through the

gutters. Instinctively Peer started up: Louise was out in the rain--she

would need her cloak. He was on his feet in a moment, as if to find

it--then he stopped short, and sank slowly back upon the bed.

He drew up his feet under him, and buried his head in his arms. His

brain was full of changing, hurrying visions, of storm and death, of

human beings helpless in a universe coldly and indifferently ruled by a

will that knows no pity.

Then for the first time it was as if he lifted up his head against

Heaven itself and cried: “There is no sense in all this. I will not bear

it.”

Later in the night, when he found himself mechanically folding his hands

for the evening prayer he had learnt to say as a child, he suddenly

burst out laughing, and clenched his fists, and cried aloud: “No, no,

no--never--never again.”

Once more it came to him that there was something in God like the

schoolmaster--He took the side of those who were well off already. “Yes,

they who have parents and home and brothers and sisters and worldly

goods--them I protect and care for. But here’s a boy alone in the world,

struggling and fighting his way on as best he can--from him I will

take the only thing he has. That boy is nothing to any one. Let him be

punished because he is poor, and cast down to the earth, for there is

none to care for him. That boy is nothing to any one--nothing.” Oh, oh,

oh!--he clenched his fists and beat them against the wall.

His whole little world was broken to pieces. Either God did not exist at

all, or He was cold and pitiless--one way of it was as bad as the other.

The heavenly country dissolved into cloud and melted away, and above

was nothing but empty space. No more folding of your hands, like a fool!

Walk on the earth, and lift up your head, and defy Heaven and fate,

as you defied the schoolmaster. Your mother has no need of you to save

her--she is not anywhere any more. She is dead--dead and turned to clay;

and more than that there is not, for her or for you or any other being

in this world.

Still he lay there. He would fain have slept, but seemed instead to sink

into a vague far-away twilight that rocked him--rocked him on its dark

and golden waves. And now he heard a sound--what was it? A violin. “The

mighty host in white array.” Louise--is it you--and playing? He could

see her now, out there in the twilight. How pale she was! But still she

played. And now he understood what that twilight was.

It was a world beyond the consciousness of daily life--and that

world belonged to him. “Peer, let me stay here.” And something in him

answered: “Yes, you shall stay, Louise. Even though there is no God and

no immortality, you shall stay here.” And then she smiled. And still she

played. And it was as though he were building a little vaulted chapel

for her in defiance of Heaven and of God--as though he were ringing

out with his own hands a great eternal chime for her sake. What was

happening to him? There was none to comfort him, yet it ended, as he

lay there, with his pouring out something of his innermost being, as an

offering to all that lives, to the earth and the stars, until all seemed

rocking, rocking with him on the stately waves of the psalm. He lay

there with fast-closed eyes, stretching out his hands as though afraid

to wake, and find it all nothing but a beautiful dream.

Chapter VII

The two-o’clock bell at the Technical College had just begun to ring,

and a stream of students appeared out of the long straggling buildings

and poured through the gate, breaking up then into little knots and

groups that went their several ways into the town.

It was a motley crowd of young men of all ages from seventeen to thirty

or more. Students of the everlasting type, sent here by their parents as

a last resource, for--“he can always be an engineer”; young sparks who

paid more attention to their toilet than their books, and hoped to

“get through somehow” without troubling to work; and stiff youths of

soldierly bearing, who had been ploughed for the Army, but who likewise

could “always be engineers.” There were peasant-lads who had crammed

themselves through their Intermediate at a spurt, and now wore the

College cap above their rough grey homespun, and dreamed of getting

through in no time, and turning into great men with starched cuffs and

pince-nez. There were pale young enthusiasts, too, who would probably

end as actors; and there were also quondam actors, killed by the

critics, but still sufficiently alive, it seemed, “to be engineers.” And

as the young fellows hurried on their gay and careless way through the

town, an older man here and there might look round after them with a

smile of some sadness. It was easy to say what fate awaited most of

them. College ended, they would be scattered like birds of passage

throughout the wide world, some to fall by sunstroke in Africa, or

be murdered by natives in China, others to become mining kings in the

mountains of Peru, or heads of great factories in Siberia, thousands of

miles from home and friends. The whole planet was their home. Only a few

of them--not always the shining lights--would stay at home, with a post

on the State railways, to sit in an office and watch their salaries

mount by increments of L12 every fifth year.

“That’s a devil of a fellow, that brother of yours that’s here,” said

Klaus Brock to Peer one day, as they were walking into town together

with their books under their arms.

“Now, look here, Klaus, once for all, be good enough to stop calling

him my brother. And another thing--you’re never to say a word to any one

about my father having been anything but a farmer. My name’s Holm, and

I’m called so after my father’s farm. Just remember that, will you?”

“Oh, all right. Don’t excite yourself.”

“Do you suppose I’d give that coxcomb the triumph of thinking I want to

make up to him?”

“No, no, of course not.” Klaus shrugged his shoulders and walked on,

whistling.

“Or that I want to make trouble for that fine family of his? No, I may

find a way to take it out of him some day, but it won’t be that way.”

“Well, but, damn it, man! you can surely stand hearing what people say

about him.” And Klaus went on to tell his story. Ferdinand Holm, it

seemed, was the despair of his family. He had thrown up his studies

at the Military Academy, because he thought soldiers and soldiering

ridiculous. Then he had made a short experiment with theology, but found

that worse still; and finally, having discovered that engineering was

at any rate an honest trade, he had come to anchor at the Technical

College. “What do you say to that?” asked Klaus.

“I don’t see anything so remarkable about it.”

“Wait a bit, the cream of the story’s to come. A few weeks ago he

thrashed a policeman in the street--said he’d insulted a child, or

something. There was a fearful scandal--arrest, the police-court, fine,

and so forth. And last winter what must he do but get engaged, formally

and publicly engaged, to one of his mother’s maids. And when his mother

sent the girl off behind his back, he raised the standard of revolt

and left home altogether. And now he does nothing but breathe fire and

slaughter against the upper classes and all their works. What do you say

to that?”

“My good man, what the deuce has all this got to do with me?”

“Well, I think it’s confoundedly plucky of him, anyhow,” said Klaus.

“And for my part I shall get to know him if I can. He’s read an awful

lot, they say, and has a damned clever head on his shoulders.”

On his very first day at the College, Peer had learned who Ferdinand

Holm was, and had studied him with interest. He was a tall,

straight-built fellow with reddish-blond hair and freckled face, and

wore a dark tortoiseshell pince-nez. He did not wear the usual College

cap, but a stiff grey felt hat, and he looked about four or five and

twenty.

“Wait!” thought Peer to himself--“wait, my fine fellow! Yes, you were

there, no doubt, when they turned me out of the churchyard that day. But

all that won’t help you here. You may have got the start of me at first,

and learned this, that, and the other, but--you just wait.”

But one morning, out in the quadrangle, he noticed that Ferdinand Holm

in his turn was looking at him, in fact was putting his glasses straight

to get a better view of him--and Peer turned round at once and walked

away.

Ferdinand, however, had been put into a higher class almost at once, on

the strength of his matriculation. Also he was going in for a different

branch of the work--roads and railway construction--so that it was only

in the quadrangle and the passages that the two ever met.

But one afternoon, soon after Christmas, Peer was standing at work in

the big designing-room, when he heard steps behind him, and, turning

round, saw Klaus Brock and--Ferdinand Holm.

“I wanted to make your acquaintance,” said Holm, and when Klaus had

introduced them, he held out a large white hand with a red seal-ring on

the first finger. “We’re namesakes, I understand, and Brock here tells

me you take your name from a country place called Holm.”

“Yes. My father was a plain country farmer,” said Peer, and at once felt

annoyed with himself for the ring of humility the words seemed to have.

“Well, the best is good enough,” said the other with a smile. “I say,

though, has the first-term class gone as far as this in projection

drawing? Excuse my asking. You see, we had a good deal of this sort of

thing at the Military Academy, so that I know a little about it.”

Thought Peer: “Oh, you’d like to give me a little good advice,

would you, if you dared?” Aloud he said: “No, the drawing was on the

blackboard--the senior class left it there--and I thought I’d like to

see what I could make out of it.”

The other sent him a sidelong glance. Then he nodded, said,

“Good-bye--hope we shall meet again,” and walked off, his boots creaking

slightly as he went. His easy manners, his gait, the tone of his voice,

all seemed to irritate and humiliate Peer. Never mind--just let him

wait!

Days passed, and weeks. Peer soon found another object to work for

than getting the better of Ferdinand Holm. Louise’s dresses hung still

untouched in his room, her shoes stood under the bed; it still seemed

to him that some day she must open the door and walk in. And when he

lay there alone at night, the riddle was always with him: Where is she

now?--why should she have died?--would he never meet her again? He saw

her always as she had stood that day playing to the sick folks in the

hospital ward. But now she was dressed in white. And it seemed quite

natural now that she had wings. He heard her music too--it cradled and

rocked him. And all this came to be a little world apart, where he could

take refuge for Sunday peace and devotion. It had nothing to do with

faith or religion, but it was there. And sometimes in the midst of

his work in the daytime he would divine, as in a quite separate

consciousness, the tones of a fiddle-bow drawn across the strings, like

reddish waves coming to him from far off, filling him with harmony, till

he smiled without knowing it.

Often, though, a sort of hunger would come upon him to let his being

unfold in a great wide wave of organ music in the church. But to church

he never went any more. He would stride by a church door with a kind of

defiance. It might indeed be an Almighty Will that had taken Louise from

him, but if so he did not mean to give thanks to such a Will or bow

down before it. It was as though he had in view a coming reckoning--his

reckoning with something far out in eternity--and he must see to it that

when that time came he could feel free--free.

On Sunday mornings, when the church bells began to ring, he would

turn hastily to his books, as if to find peace in them.

Knowledge--knowledge--could it stay his hunger for the music of the

hymn? When he had first started work at the shops, he had often and

often stood wide-eyed before some miracle--now he was gathering the

power to work miracles himself. And so he read and read, and drank in

all that he could draw from teacher or book, and thought and thought

things out for himself. Fixed lessons and set tasks were all well

enough, but Peer was for ever looking farther; for him there were

questions and more questions, riddles and new riddles--always new,

always farther and farther on, towards the unknown. He had made as yet

but one step forward in physics, mathematics, chemistry; he divined that

there were worlds still before him, and he must hasten on, on, on. Would

the day ever come when he should reach the end? What is knowledge? What

use do men make of all that they have learned? Look at the teachers, who

knew so much--were they greater, richer, brighter beings than the rest?

Could much study bring a man so far that some night he could lift up a

finger and make the stars themselves break into song? Best drive ahead,

at any rate. But, again, could knowledge lead on to that ecstasy of the

Sunday psalm, that makes all riddles clear, that bears a man upwards

in nameless happiness, in which his soul expands till it can enfold the

infinite spaces? Well, at any rate the best thing was to drive ahead,

drive ahead both early and late.

One day that spring, when the trees in the city avenues were beginning

to bud, Klaus Brock and Ferdinand Holm were sitting in a cafe in North

Street. “There goes your friend,” said Ferdinand; and looking from the

window they saw Peer Holm passing the post-office on the other side of

the road. His clothes were shabby, his shoes had not been cleaned, he

walked slowly, his fair head with its College cap bent forward, but

seemed nevertheless to notice all that was going on in the street.

“Wonder what he’s going pondering over now,” said Klaus.

“Look there--I suppose that’s a type of carriage he’s never seen before.

Why, he has got the driver to stop--”

“I wouldn’t mind betting he’ll crawl in between the wheels to find out

whatever he’s after,” laughed Klaus, drawing back from the window so as

not to be seen.

“He looks pale and fagged out,” said Ferdinand, shifting his glasses. “I

suppose his people aren’t very well off?”

Klaus opened his eyes and looked at the other. “He’s not overburdened

with cash, I fancy.”

They drank off their beer, and sat smoking and talking of other things,

until Ferdinand remarked casually: “By the way--about your friend--are

his parents still alive?”

Klaus was by no means anxious to go into Peer’s family affairs, and

answered briefly--No, he thought not.

“I’m afraid I’m boring you with questions, but the fact is the

fellow interests me rather. There is something in his face,

something--arresting. Even the way he walks--where is it I’ve seen some

one walk like that before? And he works like a steam-engine, I hear?”

“Works!” repeated Klaus. “He’ll ruin his health before long, the way he

goes on grinding. I believe he’s got an idea that by much learning he

can learn at last to--Ha-ha-ha!”

“To do what?”

“Why--to understand God!”

Ferdinand was staring out of the window. “Funny enough,” he said.

“I ran across him last Sunday, up among the hills. He was out studying

geology, if you please. And if there’s a lecture anywhere about

anything--whether it’s astronomy or a French poet--you can safely swear

he’ll be sitting there, taking notes. You can’t compete with a fellow

like that! He’ll run across a new name somewhere--Aristotle, for

instance. It’s something new, and off he must go to the library to look

it up. And then he’ll lie awake for nights after, stuffing his head with

translations from the Greek. How the deuce can any one keep up with

a man who goes at things that way? There’s one thing, though, that he

knows nothing about.”

“And that is?”

“Well, wine and women, we’ll say--and fun in general. One thing he

isn’t, by Jove!--and that’s YOUNG.”

“Perhaps he’s not been able to afford that sort of thing,” said

Ferdinand, with something like a sigh.

The two sat on for some time, and every now and then, when Klaus was off

his guard, Ferdinand would slip in another little question about Peer.

And by the time they had finished their second glass, Klaus had admitted

that people said Peer’s mother had been a--well--no better than she

should be.

“And what about his father?” Ferdinand let fall casually.

Klaus flushed uncomfortably at this. “Nobody--no--nobody knows much

about him,” he stammered. “I’d tell you if I knew, hanged if I wouldn’t.

No one has an idea who it was. He--he’s very likely in America.”

“You’re always mighty mysterious when you get on the subject of his

family, I’ve noticed,” said Ferdinand with a laugh. But Klaus thought

his companion looked a little pale.

A few days later Peer was sitting alone in his room above the stables,

when he heard a step on the stairs, the door opened, and Ferdinand Holm

walked in.

Peer rose involuntarily and grasped at the back of his chair as if to

steady himself. If this young coxcomb had come--from the schoolmaster,

for instance--or to take away his name--why, he’d just throw him

downstairs, that was all.

“I thought I’d like to look you up, and see where you lived,” began

the visitor, laying down his hat and taking a seat. “I’ve taken you

unawares, I see. Sorry to disturb you. But the fact is there’s something

I wanted to speak to you about.”

“Oh, is there?” and Peer sat down as far as conveniently possible from

the other.

“I’ve noticed, even in the few times we’ve happened to meet, that you

don’t like me. Well, you know, that’s a thing I’m not going to put up

with.”

“What do you mean?” asked Peer, hardly knowing whether to laugh or not.

“I want to be friends with you, that’s all. You probably know a good

deal more about me than I do about you, but that need not matter.

Hullo--do you always drum with your fingers on the table like that?

Ha-ha-ha! Why, that was a habit of my father’s, too.”

Peer stared at the other in silence. But his fingers stopped drumming.

“I rather envy you, you know, living as you do. When you come to be a

millionaire, you’ll have an effective background for your millions. And

then, you must know a great deal more about life than we do; and the

knowledge that comes out of books must have quite another spiritual

value for you than for the rest of us, who’ve been stuffed mechanically

with ‘lessons’ and ‘education’ and so forth since we were kids. And now

you’re going in for engineering?”

“Yes,” said Peer. His face added pretty clearly, “And what concern is it

of yours?”

“Well, it does seem to me that the modern technician is a priest in

his way--or no, perhaps I should rather call him a descendant of old

Prometheus. Quite a respectable ancestry, too, don’t you think? But has

it ever struck you that with every victory over nature won by the human

spirit, a fragment of their omnipotence is wrested from the hands of

the gods? I always feel as if we were using fire and steel, mechanical

energy and human thought, as weapons of revolt against the Heavenly

tyranny. The day will come when we shall no longer need to pray.

The hour will strike when the Heavenly potentates will be forced to

capitulate, and in their turn bend the knee to us. What do you think

yourself? Jehovah doesn’t like engineers--that’s MY opinion.”

“Sounds very well,” said Peer briefly. But he had to admit to himself

that the other had put into words something that had been struggling for

expression in his own mind.

“Of course for the present we two must be content with smaller things,”

Ferdinand went on. “And I don’t mind admitting that laying out a bit of

road, or a bit of railway, or bridging a ditch or so, isn’t work that

appeals to me tremendously. But if a man can get out into the wide

world, there are things enough to be done that give him plenty of chance

to develop what’s in him--if there happens to be anything. I used

to envy the great soldiers, who went about to the ends of the earth,

conquering wild tribes and founding empires, organising and civilising

where they went. But in our day an engineer can find big jobs too, once

he gets out in the world--draining thousands of square miles of swamp,

or regulating the Nile, or linking two oceans together. That’s the sort

of thing I’m going to take a hand in some day. As soon as I’ve finished

here, I’m off. And we’ll leave it to the engineers to come, say in a

couple of hundred years or so, to start in arranging tourist routes

between the stars. Do you mind my smoking?”

“No, please do,” said Peer. “But I’m sorry I haven’t--”

“I have--thanks all the same.” Ferdinand took out his cigar-case, and

when Peer had declined the offered cigar, lit one himself.

“Look here,” he said, “won’t you come out and have dinner with me

somewhere?”

Peer started at his visitor. What did all this mean?

“I’m a regular Spartan, as a rule, but they’ve just finished dividing up

my father’s estate, so I’m in funds for the moment, and why shouldn’t

we have a little dinner to celebrate? If you want to change, I can wait

outside--but come just as you are, of course, if you prefer.”

Peer was more and more perplexed. Was there something behind all this?

Or was the fellow simply an astonishingly good sort? Giving it up at

last, he changed his collar and put on his best suit and went.

For the first time in his life he found himself in a first-class

restaurant, with small tables covered with snow-white tablecloths,

flowers in vases, napkins folded sugar-loaf shape, cut-glass bowls, and

coloured wine-glasses. Ferdinand seemed thoroughly at home, and treated

his companion with a friendly politeness. And during the meal he managed

to make the talk turn most of the time on Peer’s childhood and early

days.

When they had come to the coffee and cigars, Ferdinand leaned across the

table towards him, and said: “Look here, don’t you think we two ought to

say thee and thou* to each other?”

* “Tutoyer,” the mode of address of intimate friendship or

relationship.

“Oh, yes!” said Peer, really touched now.

“We’re both Holms, you know.”

“Yes. So we are.”

“And, after all, who knows that there mayn’t be some sort of connection?

Come, now, don’t look like that! I only want you to look on me as your

good friend, and to come to me if ever there’s anything I can do. We

needn’t live in each other’s pockets, of course, when other people are

by--but we must take in Klaus Brock along with us, don’t you think?”

Peer felt a strong impulse to run away. Did the other know everything?

If so, why didn’t he speak straight out?

As the two walked home in the clear light of the spring evening,

Ferdinand took his companion’s arm, and said: “I don’t know if you’ve

heard that I’m not on good terms with my people at home. But the very

first time I saw you, I had a sort of feeling that we two belonged

together. Somehow you seemed to remind me so of--well, to tell the

truth, of my father. And he, let me tell you, was a gallant gentleman--”

Peer did not answer, and the matter went no farther then.

But the next few days were an exciting time for Peer. He could not

quite make out how much Ferdinand knew, and nothing on earth would

have induced him to say anything more himself. And the other asked no

questions, but was just a first-rate comrade, behaving as if they had

been friends for years. He did not even ask Peer any more about his

childhood, and never again referred to his own family. Peer was always

reminding himself to be on his guard, but could not help feeling glad

all the same whenever they were to meet.

He was invited one evening, with Klaus, to a wine-party at Ferdinand’s

lodging, and found himself in a handsomely furnished room, with pictures

on the walls, and photographs of his host’s parents. There was one of

his father as a young man, in uniform; another of his grandfather, who

had been a Judge of the Supreme Court. “It’s very good of you to be

so interested in my people,” said Ferdinand with a smile. Klaus Brock

looked from one to the other, wondering to himself how things really

stood between the two.

The summer vacation came round, and the students prepared to break up

and go their various ways. Klaus was to go home. And one day Ferdinand

came to Peer and said: “Look here, old man. I want you to do me a great

favour. I’d arranged to go to the seaside this summer, but I’ve a

chance of going up to the hills, too. Well, I can’t be in two places

at once--couldn’t you take on one of them for me? Of course I’d pay

all expenses.” “No, thank you!” said Peer, with a laugh. But when Klaus

Brock came just before leaving and said: “See here, Peer. Don’t you

think you and I might club together and put a marble slab over--Louise’s

grave?”, Peer was touched, and clapped him on the shoulder. “What a good

old fellow you are, Klaus,” he said.

Later in the summer Peer set out alone on a tramp through the country,

and whenever he saw a chance, he would go up to one of the farms and

say: “Would you like to have a good map of the farm? It’ll cost ten

crowns and my lodging while I’m at it.” It made a very pleasant holiday

for him, and he came home with a little money in his pocket to boot.

His second year at the school was much like the first. He plodded along

at his work. And now and then his two friends would come and drag him

off for an evening’s jollification. But after he had been racketing

about with the others, singing and shouting through the sleeping

town--and at last was alone and in his bed in the darkness, another and

a very different life began for him, face to face with his innermost

self. Where are you heading for, Peer? What are you aiming at in

all your labours? And he would try to answer devoutly, as at evening

prayers: Where? Why, of course, I am going to be a great engineer. And

then? I will be one of the Sons of Prometheus, that head the revolt

against the tyranny of Heaven. And then? I will help to raise the great

ladder on which men can climb aloft--higher and higher, up towards the

light, and the spirit, and mastery over nature. And then? Live happily,

marry and have children, and a rich and beautiful home. And then? Oh,

well, one fine day, of course, one must grow old and die. And then? And

then? Aye, what then?

At these times he found a shadowy comfort in taking refuge in the world

where Louise stood--playing, as he always saw her--and cradling himself

on the smooth red billows of her music. But why was it that here most of

all he felt that hunger for--for something more?

Ferdinand finished his College course, and went out, as he had said,

into the great world, and Klaus went with him. And so throughout his

third year Peer was mostly to be seen alone, always with books under his

arm, and head bent forward.

Just as he was getting ready to go up for his final examination, a

letter from Ferdinand arrived, written from Egypt. “Come over here,

young fellow,” he wrote. “We have got good billets at last with a big

British firm--Brown Bros., of London--a firm that’s building railways

in Canada, bridges in India, harbour works in Argentina, and canals and

barrages here in Egypt. We can get you a nice little post as draughtsman

to begin with, and I enclose funds for the passage out. So come along.”

But Peer did not go at once. He stayed on another year at the College,

as assistant to the lecturer on mechanics, while himself going through

the road and railway construction course, as his half-brother had done.

Some secret instinct urged him not to be left behind even in this.

As the year went on the letters from his two comrades became more and

more pressing and tempting. “Out here,” wrote Klaus, “the engineer is

a missionary, proclaimer, not Jehovah, but the power and culture of

Europe. You’re bound to take a hand in that, my boy. There’s work worthy

of a great general waiting for you here.”

At last, one autumn day, when the woods stood yellow all around the

town, Peer drove away from his home with a big new travelling-trunk

strapped to the driver’s seat. He had been up to the churchyard before

starting, with a little bunch of flowers for Louise’s grave. Who could

say if he would ever see it again?

At the station he stood for a moment looking back over the old city with

its cathedral, and the ancient fortress, where the sentry was pacing

back and forth against the skyline. Was this the end of his youth?

Louise--the room above the stables--the hospital, the lazarette, the

College. . . . And there lay the fjord, and far out somewhere on the

coast there stood no doubt a little grey fisher-hut, where a pock-marked

goodwife and her bow-legged goodman had perhaps even now received the

parcel of coffee and tobacco sent them as a parting gift.

And so Peer journeyed to the capital, and from there out into the wide

world.

BOOK II

Chapter I

Some years had passed--a good many years--and once more summer had come,

and June. A passenger steamer, bound from Antwerp to Christiania, was

ploughing her way one evening over a sea so motionlessly calm that it

seemed a single vast mirror filled with a sky of grey and pink-tinged

clouds. There were plenty of passengers on board, and no one felt

inclined for bed; it was so warm, so beautiful on deck. Some artists, on

their way home from Paris or Munich, cast about for amusements to pass

the time; some ordered wine, others had unearthed a concertina, and very

soon, no one knew how, a dance was in full swing. “No, my dear,” said

one or two cautious mothers to their girls, “certainly not.” But before

long the mothers were dancing themselves. Then there was a doctor in

spectacles, who stood up on a barrel and made a speech; and presently

two of the artists caught hold of the grey-bearded captain and chaired

him round the deck. The night was so clear, the skies so ruddily

beautiful, the air so soft, and out here on the open sea all hearts were

light and happy.

“Who’s that wooden-faced beggar over there that’s too high and mighty

for a little fun?” asked Storaker the painter, of his friend the

sculptor Praas.

“That fellow? Oh, he’s the one that was so infernally instructive at

dinner, when we were talking about Egyptian vases.”

“So it is, by Jove! Schoolmaster abroad, I should think. When we got

on to Athens and Greek sculpture he condescended to set us right about

that, too.”

“I heard him this morning holding forth to the doctor on Assyriology. No

wonder he doesn’t dance!”

The passenger they were speaking of was a man of middle height, between

thirty and forty apparently, who lay stretched in a deck-chair a little

way off. He was dressed in grey throughout, from his travelling-cap

to the spats above his brown shoes. His face was sallow, and the short

brown beard was flecked with grey. But his eyes had gay little gleams in

them as they followed the dancers. It was Peer Holm.

As he sat there watching, it annoyed him to feel that he could not let

himself go like the others. But it was so long since he had mixed with

his own countrymen, that he felt insecure of his footing and almost like

a foreigner among them. Besides, in a few hours now they should sight

the skerries on the Norwegian coast; and the thought awoke in him a

strange excitement--it was a moment he had dreamed of many and many a

time out there in the wide world.

After a while stillness fell on the decks around him, and he too went

below, but lay down in his cabin without undressing. He thought of

the time when he had passed that way on the outward voyage, poor and

unknown, and had watched the last island of his native land sink below

the sea-rim. Much had happened since then--and now that he had at last

come home, what life awaited him there?

A little after two in the morning he came on deck again, but stood

still in astonishment at finding that the vessel was now boring her way

through a thick woolly fog. The devil! thought he, beginning to tramp up

and down the deck impatiently. It seemed that his great moment was to be

lost--spoiled for him! But suddenly he stopped by the railing, and stood

gazing out into the east.

What was that? Far out in the depths of the woolly fog a glowing spot

appeared; the grey mass around grew alive, began to move, to redden, to

thin out as if it were streaming up in flames. Ah! now he knew! It was

the globe of the sun, rising out of the sea. On board, every point where

the night’s moisture had lodged began to shine in gold. Each moment it

grew clearer and lighter, and the eye reached farther. And before he

could take in what was happening, the grey darkness had rolled itself

up into mounds, into mountains, that grew buoyant and floated aloft and

melted away. And there, all revealed, lay the fresh bright morning, with

a clear sun-filled sky over the blue sea.

It was time now to get out his field-glasses. For a long time he stood

motionless, gazing intently through them.

There! Was it his fancy? No, there far ahead he can see clearly now a

darker strip between sky and sea. It’s the first skerry. It is Norway,

at last!

Peer felt a sudden catch in his breath; he could hardly stand still, but

he stopped again and again in his walk to look once more at the far-off

strip of grey. And now there were seabirds too, with long necks and

swiftly-beating wings. Welcome home!

And now the steamer is ploughing in among the skerries, and a world

of rocks and islets unfolds on every side. There is the first red

fisher-hut. And then the entrance to Christiansand, between wooded hills

and islands, where white cottages shine out, each with its patch of

green grassland and its flagstaff before it.

Peer watched it all, drinking it in like nourishment. How good it all

tasted--he felt it would be long before he had drunk his fill.

Then came the voyage up along the coast, all through a day of brilliant

sunshine and a luminous night. He saw the blue sounds with swarms of

white gulls hovering above them, the little coast-towns with their long

white-painted wooden houses, and flowers in the windows. He had never

passed this way before, and yet something in him seemed to nod and say:

“I know myself again here.” All the way up the Christiania Fjord there

was the scent of leaves and meadows; big farms stood by the shore

shining in the sun. This was what a great farm looked like. He

nodded again. So warm and fruitful it all seemed, and dear to him as

home--though he knew that, after all, he would be little better than a

tourist in his own country. There was no one waiting for him, no one to

take him in. Still, some day things might be very different.

As the ship drew alongside the quay at Christiania, the other passengers

lined the rail, friends and relations came aboard, there were tears and

laughter and kisses and embraces. Peer lifted his hat as he passed down

the gangway, but no one had time to notice him just now. And when he

had found a hotel porter to look after his luggage, he walked up alone

through the town, as if he were a stranger.

The light nights made it difficult to sleep--he had actually forgotten

that it was light all night long. And this was a capital city--yet so

touchingly small, it seemed but a few steps wherever he went. These were

his countrymen, but he knew no one among them; there was no one to greet

him. Still, he thought again, some day all this might be very different.

At last, one day as he stood looking at the window of a bookseller’s

shop, he heard a voice behind him: “Why, bless me! surely it’s Peer

Holm!” It was one of his fellow-students at the Technical College,

Reidar Langberg, pale and thin now as ever. He had been a shining light

at the College, but now--now he looked shabby, worn and aged.

“I hardly knew you again,” said Peer, grasping the other’s hand.

“And you’re a millionaire, so they say--and famous, out in the big

world?”

“Not quite so bad as that, old fellow. But what about you?”

“I? Oh, don’t talk about me.” And as they walked down the street

together, Langberg poured out his tale, of how times were desperately

bad, and conditions at home here simply strangled a man. He had started

ten or twelve years ago as a draughtsman in the offices of the State

Railways, and was still there, with a growing family--and “such

pay--such pay, my dear fellow!” He threw up his eyes and clasped his

hands despairingly.

“Look here,” said Peer, interrupting him. “Where is the best place in

Christiania to go and have a good time in the evening?”

“Well, St. Hans Hill, for instance. There’s music there.”

“Right--will you come and dine with me there, to-night--shall we say

eight o’clock?”

“Thanks. I should think I would!”

Peer arrived in good time, and engaged a table on a verandah. Langberg

made his appearance shortly after, dressed in his well-saved Sunday

best--faded frock-coat, light trousers bagged at the knees, and a straw

hat yellow with age.

“It’s a pleasure to have someone to talk to again,” said Peer. “For the

last year or so I’ve been knocking about pretty much by myself.”

“Is it as long as that since you left Egypt?”

“Yes; longer. I’ve been in Abyssinia since then.”

“Oh, of course, I remember now. It was in the papers. Building a railway

for King Menelik, weren’t you?”

“Oh, yes. But the last eighteen months or so I’ve been idling--running

about to theatres and museums and so forth. I began at Athens and

finished up with London. I remember one day sitting on the steps of the

Parthenon declaiming the Antigone--and a moment with some meaning in it

seemed to have come at last.”

“But, dash it, man, you’re surely not comparing such trifles with a

thing like the great Nile Barrage? You were on that for some years,

weren’t you? Do let’s hear something about that. Up by the first

cataract, wasn’t it? And hadn’t you enormous quarries there on the spot?

You see, even sitting at home here, I haven’t quite lost touch. But

you--good Lord! what things you must have seen! Fancy living at--what

was the name of the town again?”

“Assuan,” answered Peer indifferently, looking out over the gardens,

where more and more visitors kept arriving.

“They say the barrage is as great a miracle as the Pyramids. How many

sluice-gates are there again--a hundred and . . . ?”

“Two hundred and sixteen,” said Peer. “Look!” he broke off. “Do you know

those girls over there?” He nodded towards a party of girls in light

dresses who were sitting down at a table close by.

Langberg shook his head. He was greedy for news from the great world

without, which he had never had the luck to see.

“I’ve often wondered,” he went on, “how you managed to come to the front

so in that sort of work--railways and barrages, and so forth--when, your

original line was mechanical engineering. Of course you did do an extra

year on the roads and railway side; but . . .”

Oh, this shining light of the schools!

“What do you say to a glass of champagne?” said Peer. “How do you like

it? Sweet or dry?”

“Why, is there any difference? I really didn’t know. But when one’s a

millionaire, of course . . .”

“I’m not a millionaire,” said Peer with a smile, and beckoned to a

waiter.

“Oh! I heard you were. Didn’t you invent a new motor-pump that drove all

the other types out of the field? And besides--that Abyssinian railway.

Oh well, well!” he sighed, “it’s a good thing somebody’s lucky. The rest

of us shouldn’t complain. But how about the other two--Klaus Brock and

Ferdinand Holm? What are they doing now?”

“Klaus is looking after the Khedive’s estates at Edfina. Agriculture by

steam power; his own railway lines to bring in the produce, and so

on. Yes, Klaus has ended up in a nice little place of his own. His

district’s bigger than the kingdom of Denmark.”

“Good heavens!” Langberg nearly fell off his chair. “And Ferdinand Holm;

what about him?”

“Oh, he’s got bigger things on hand. Went nosing about the Libyan

desert, and found that considerable tracts of it have water-veins only a

few yards beneath the surface. If so, of course, it’s only a question of

proper plant to turn an enormous area into a paradise for corn-growing.”

“Good gracious! What a discovery!” gasped the other, almost breathless

now.

Peer looked out over the fjord, and went on: “Last year he managed at

last to get the Khedive interested, and they’ve started a joint-stock

company now, with a capital of some millions. Ferdinand is chief

engineer.”

“And what’s his salary? As much as fifty thousand crowns?”

“His pay is two hundred thousand francs a year,” said Peer, not without

some fear that his companion might faint. “Yes, he’s an able fellow, is

Ferdinand.”

It took Langberg some time to get his breath again. At last he asked,

with a sidelong glance:

“And you and Klaus Brock--I suppose you’ve put your millions in his

company?”

Peer smiled as he sat looking out over the garden. Lifting his glass,

“Your good health,” he said, for all answer.

“Have you been in America, too?” went on the other. “No, I suppose not!”

“America? Yes, a few years back, when I was with Brown Bros., they sent

me over one time to buy plant. Nothing so surprising in that, is there?”

“No, no, of course not. I was only thinking--you went about there,

I daresay, and saw all the wonderful things--the miracles of science

they’re always producing.”

“My dear fellow, if you only knew how deadly sick I am of miracles

of science! What I’m longing for is a country watermill that takes

twenty-four hours to grind a sack of corn.”

“What? What do you say?” Langberg bounced in his chair. “Ha-ha-ha!

You’re the same old man, I can see.”

“I’m perfectly serious,” said Peer, lifting his glass towards the other.

“Come. Here’s to our old days together!”

“Aye--thanks, a thousand thanks--to our old days together!--Ah,

delicious! Well, then, I suppose you’ve fallen in love away down there

in the land of the barbarians? Haven’t you? Ha-ha-ha!”

“Do you call Egypt a land of barbarians?”

“Well, don’t the fellahs still yoke their wives to their ploughs?”

“A fellah will sit all night long outside his hut and gaze up at the

stars and give himself time to dream. And a merchant prince in Vienna

will dictate business letters in his automobile as he’s driving to the

theatre, and write telegrams as he sits in the stalls. One fine day

he’ll be sitting in his private box with a telephone at one ear and

listening to the opera with the other. That’s what the miracles of

science are doing for us. Awe-inspiring, isn’t it?”

“And you talk like that--a man that’s helped to harness the Nile, and

has built railways through the desert?”

Peer shrugged his shoulders, and offered the other a cigar from his

case. A waiter appeared with coffee.

“To help mankind to make quicker progress--is that nothing?”

“Lord! What I’d like to know is, where mankind are making for, that

they’re in such a hurry.”

“That the Nile Barrage has doubled the production of corn in

Egypt--created the possibilities of life for millions of human

beings--is that nothing?”

“My good fellow, do you really think there aren’t enough fools on this

earth already? Have we too little wailing and misery and discontent and

class-hatred as it is? Why must we go about to double it?”

“But hang it all, man--what about European culture? Surely you felt

yourself a sort of missionary of civilisation, where you have been.”

“The spread of European civilisation in the East simply means that half

a dozen big financiers in London or Paris take a fancy to a certain

strip of Africa or Asia. They press a button, and out come all the

ministers and generals and missionaries and engineers with a bow: At

your service, gentlemen!

“Culture! One wheel begets ten new ones. Brr-rrr! And the ten again

another hundred. Brr-rr-rrr--more speed, more competition--and all for

what? For culture? No, my friend, for money. Missionary! I tell you, as

long as Western Europe with all its wonders of modern science and its

Christianity and its political reforms hasn’t turned out a better type

of humanity than the mean ruck of men we have now--we’d do best to

stay at home and hold our counfounded jaw. Here’s ourselves!” and Peer

emptied his glass.

This was a sad hearing for poor Langberg. For he had been used to

comfort himself in his daily round with the thought that even he, in his

modest sphere, was doing his share in the great work of civilising the

world.

At last he leaned back, watching the smoke from his cigar, and smiling a

little.

“I remember a young fellow at the College,” he said, “who used to talk

a good deal about Prometheus, and the grand work of liberating humanity,

by stealing new and ever new fire from Olympus.”

“That was me--yes,” said Peer with a laugh. “As a matter of fact, I was

only quoting Ferdinand Holm.”

“You don’t believe in all that now?”

“It strikes me that fire and steel are rapidly turning men into beasts.

Machinery is killing more and more of what we call the godlike in us.”

“But, good heavens, man! Surely a man can be a Christian even if . . .”

“Christian as much as you like. But don’t you think it might soon be

time we found something better to worship than an ascetic on a cross?

Are we to keep on for ever singing Hallelujah because we’ve saved our

own skins and yet can haggle ourselves into heaven? Is that religion?”

“No, no, perhaps not. But I don’t know . . .”

“Neither do I. But it’s all the same; for anyhow no such thing as

religious feeling exists any longer. Machinery is killing our longings

for eternity, too. Ask the good people in the great cities. They spend

Christmas Eve playing tunes from The Dollar Princess on the gramophone.”

Langberg sat for a while watching the other attentively. Peer sat

smoking slowly; his face was flushed with the wine, but from time to

time his eyes half-closed, and his thoughts seemed to be wandering in

other fields than these.

“And what do you think of doing now you are home again?” asked his

companion at last.

Peer opened his eyes. “Doing? Oh, I don’t know. Look about me first of

all. Then perhaps I may find a cottar’s croft somewhere and settle down

and marry a dairymaid. Here’s luck!”

The gardens were full now of people in light summer dress, and in the

luminous evening a constant ripple of laughter and gay voices came up

to them. Peer looked curiously at the crowd, all strangers to him, and

asked his companion the names of some of the people. Langberg pointed

out one or two celebrities--a Cabinet Minister sitting near by, a famous

explorer a little farther off. “But I don’t know them personally,” he

added. “Can’t afford society on that scale, of course.”

“How beautiful it is here!” said Peer, looking out once more at the

yellow shimmer of light above the fjord. “And how good it is to be home

again!”