LUCY LONG NIGHT[3]
1
They couldn’t make it out, the womenfolk: what had come over the old
man today? He dodged in and out of doors, and up on to the mound, time
and again; he forgot to bring in the wood for them, and forgot to scold
because they hadn’t dried it as they ought; it was what you might call
a peaceful house. They kept an eye on him wherever he went, in or
out--perhaps he knew something after all? It weighed on their spirits
after a while.
[3] The Eve of St. Lucy, December 12-13, was reckoned under Old
Style as the longest night of the year, and the folk-lore associated
with this date survived the change to New Style in 1700.
The thing was, they had fooled him properly the day before, they had
done just what they liked behind his back; he had been in the woods all
day, and they had been out and about. This was the way of it: one day
the wife from Ommundstrand had come down in a great hurry and told them
they had seen a glare over Juvik farm; they had been up at midnight to
see after a cow, and then there was a great blaze behind the hills,
straight up from Juvik; it frightened them so they could hardly stand,
but then they waked the man and all set off as fast as they could go,
each with a bucket of water. But when they got to the top of the hill
and looked out, there was Juvik farm in black darkness, as peaceful as
could be; the houses lay there in the moonlight and hadn’t heard a word
of any fire. Ay, and then they knew what it was: they’d seen a warning!
Just the same as was seen over Haaberg, the time there was a fire
there; but then it was only the smithy and one storehouse that burnt,
for those folk had taken care to send gifts in good time to the church
and alms for the poor. And over Skarsvoe, before the fire there, and
over Vanvik and many other places; and where they hadn’t paid any heed
to the warning, the fire broke out. They had seen it again and again:
in blackest autumn nights, in moonlit winter nights--all around was
dreary and dead, and right over the doomed farm a great living flame
shot up to the sky, as uncanny a sight as you could see.--So it was
that the Ommundstrand wife had to come over and get Ane by herself, for
she wouldn’t say a word of this to Per Anders; he was known for a rank
unbeliever and cared for nothing but what _had_ happened.--So yesterday
they had gone out west, the womenfolk, to the crofters, each with a
good basket-load; they had carried off a sight of good food, and luck
was with them, the old man _was_ in the woods, and the boys too. For
all that, they had run as if they’d stolen baskets and all, taking the
shortest cut and never stopping a moment. But Per Anders was a sly fox;
he didn’t believe in anything, but he knew everything; that was his way.
But it just served Ane right, thought the maids, it did indeed, for she
was so close-fisted it was a shame of her, she would never spare a bite
for a poor soul; they might be glad if they got enough to eat, those
who belonged to the place.
Ane Juvika was a thin little woman in the seventies; a sharp little
nose and a pair of watchful eyes under her kerchief, there was not much
more to be seen of her; she was a blue and chillsome soul, and the
maids didn’t know what to think when they saw her shivering, they asked
if she was cold. She had a way of thrusting out her lower lip: they
needn’t think she had let the housekeeping slip out of her own hands
yet. _She_ didn’t take any notice of the old man today. Not like her
daughter-in-law, Valborg; she seemed to be the one who knew Per Anders
best these times, and got on best with him. They said it was he who had
brought her into the family.
Valborg was still young, between twenty and thirty; she was big and
strong, with a broad, freckled face, reddish hair, and a white skin;
she was a bit slow in her movements and no great one to talk, but you
could see she knew very well that she belonged here.
“He knows,” she said to Beret, as they stood by the fire; he had just
been in for a moment.
Beret was the youngest of the family, she was still at home, unmarried.
She gave a terrified look at Valborg; thin she was, like her mother,
and pale and bloodless and low-spirited; there was not much _to_
her.--“Ah, if only he _doesn’t_,” she said.
But Per Anders knew all about it. He had heard it one day when he
was talking to a man east on the beach, and today he had been to the
storehouse; he was like the crow, he said to himself, he could count
up to three. But that wasn’t what troubled him today. It was the boys.
They were so set on rowing north to Skavstrand after wood; and they had
seen another boat going that way in front of them, likely a wood thief
from the far side of the fiord. So they had some game on hand.--The
boys, they were his two sons; they were past thirty both of them.
He stood out there bare-headed in the westerly gale; his hair was
long and white and fluttered up and down in the wind; one gust after
another bore down on him, but he stood as if rooted to the rock, big
and broad-shouldered, stooping a little with age. He was trying to
pick up a boat to the northward under the land, but his eyes were not
much good now, he could just about see where he was going. Eyes were
the first to fail in the Juvik race, they were too pale a blue; but
for that they were active men well into the eighties. He straightened
himself and went in. His face was still almost young, red-cheeked and
clean-shaven, the skin as white as a young girl’s; so it had been with
most of the men here; and the red turned to blue when they were laid
out. The nose was small but sharp, and sharp were the eyes too, they
tried to look right through whatever came in their way.
It was just before Christmas, but the weather was mild, just right for
brewing and baking, as they said; and now the womenfolk were to set
about it, no matter if it was a week too soon. Time to be quit of such
old-fashioned foolery, for they’d been writing 1800 a good while now.
He went into the kitchen. Juvik was the only farm in those parts that
had a kitchen; it was a grand thing to have, the parsonage itself could
do no better, and Per Anders was fond of going into it.
Now they were going to take a walk, he said noisily to the womenfolk.
They all looked up at him from their work. No getting out of it; west
to the crofts they were going, with a little something in a bag for the
folks out there. “Come with me into the storehouse, Ane,” he said;
“and you too, Valborg.” They looked at each other, but quietly put down
their work and went.--“Look here,” he said, “here’s more food than
we want, thirty joints of mutton hanging, and five or six big hams,
besides plenty of bread and every other gift of God.”
Ane gave a little cough inside her kerchief, and Valborg turned red as
fire. For there were no longer thirty. He told them what they were to
take: “That, and that--oh, a lot more yet! Here goes--and here--and
here! Stow it away, wife, fill your box and your basket.” And they had
to fill them, with all the good food, that had shrunk so grievously
already, the food that Ane never touched without a sigh. This was about
the saddest task she had ever had, and her husband stood over her
chuckling to himself, so that she didn’t even dare to look up.
Anders, the elder of Valborg’s little boys, came toddling into the
storehouse. He stood for a bit looking on, then he began: “What, now
again? And yesterday too! And every day! What’ll become of all your
food now, granny?” They took no notice of him; Per Anders least of all.
Off they had to go, Ane and Valborg and one of the maids; the old man
went with them a good part of the way. And they trudged along with
their loads, so dolefully, over hill and bog, enough to make you cry
if you didn’t have to laugh. Valborg, she laughed.
Per Anders laughed too, as he walked home. He drew himself up, as
straight as he could.
That was the way to treat them, the womenfolk. For they were
superstitious, and untrustworthy, too, and beating them was no use, any
more than beating a goat. Per Anders felt he’d been fighting against
this all his life. “No superstition!” he used to say; “don’t come to me
with any nonsense; we’re grown-up people, aren’t we?” It was as if he
had been swimming against the stream, or standing under a waterfall.
But he stood upright for all that. Nobody dared now to say there were
ghosts at Juvik.--Oh, it did them nothing but good to give their souls
a sound scrubbing, he said to himself. The boys--they were not up to
much, but anyhow they didn’t swallow every tale they heard; there was
some hope for them as far as that went.
Per Anders had to feel sure of that, just as he had to feel he was
clean about the body. For on that point too he was a little ahead of
other folk: he went and bathed in summer and used the bath-house in
winter. He scoffed at all the rest of them: womenfolk they were, afraid
of water!
But the boys--ay, he really must see what they were up to.
Ah, wasn’t it just as he guessed?--they were hunting the wood thief.
That kind of thing amused them. There were an old man and a boy in a
boat, and the boat was full of logs, he thought he could see that; and
his boys were after them, shouting, now he could hear them--the old
fellow was forced farther and farther from land, they pressed him out
into the wind and waves, and his boat might fill any minute. The boys
shouted threats and laughter.
Per Anders hailed them so that the hills rang. They heard him, but took
their time about obeying.--“Do you hear what I say!” he sang out. Then
at last they came in to the shore.
As they landed he stood on the beach to receive them. He watched them
as they hauled up the boat.--“Is that a way to go on?” he said. “No
better than dogs. There’s to be an end of this at Juvik.”
“Hey!” sneered Jens, the elder of them; “a wood thief!”
“I’ll give you wood thief, you devil!” and the old man caught him by
the hair and flung him against the stone wall, muttering to himself,
what if they did filch a few sticks just before Christmas? _He_ would
talk to the wood thief about that!
Jens was a great hulking fellow, taller than his father,
broad-shouldered, but rather thinner; he had a pale complexion and a
cold sneer; he was not very like the rest of the Juvik folk. He looked
as if he didn’t quite know how to take this--was he going to stand it
from anybody? He was thirty and more, and besides he was the sort of
man who, if he didn’t hit first, hit pretty soon after. But he just
slouched up from the beach.
The old man turned sharply to Per, his second son: “_You_ might use
your wits, you good-for-nothing. If you’ve got any.”
Per set to work unloading the wood they had brought. It was dried, most
of it, for Christmas, and there was the Yule-log itself, a great block
of resinous pine. Per never answered when his father stood over him. He
was the one who was most like his father; but he looked rather weaker,
in both face and body; he glanced up for a second, and his eyes were
gentle and calm.
Per Anders stood watching him awhile, then he went on again.--“Nothing
but larking and tomfoolery,” he muttered; “been that all along with
these boys. Go the wrong way about everything. No sense in it, nothing
but paltriness and petty devilry. Anders--if _he’d_ lived, there’d have
been a man of _him_.”
Per and Anders, ay, so it had been, father and son, generation after
generation. But then it came to Per Anders, and that finished it ...
the thought struck the old man clear and flat as he walked along. Well,
well, but maybe Per might shape better. He’d found him a good wife;
Valborg was one you could trust.
Per Anders went in and took his morning meal; he didn’t wait for the
others today, table manners must take care of themselves; he had to go
out. Where was he going? Heh! he had to make a trip across the fiord.
He put on his Sunday clothes, the blue duffel frock and the long black
breeches, wound a big, many-coloured scarf about his neck, and took a
new sheepskin cap with red lining; he had made it himself, and he went
over it and felt how good and soft it was.
Down on the beach Per asked where he meant to go. He shoved off the
boat before answering. “Out for a row,” he said. And then he added,
in a hard tone: “I’m going to see what became of the one you were
chasing.” He rowed off.
Per watched him with a smile, for when his father was in that mood,
it was no use talking. When he came up to the farm and heard that the
womenfolk had been sent out, he gave a low whistle, and Jens looked up
and laughed: “There you have it!”
It had come more and more to this, that Per Anders would have
everything done in his own way. “It’s getting too bad,” said Jens; “we
can’t stand it much longer.” Per only looked at him, almost as if he
hadn’t heard.--“But the womenfolk, God forgive me--ha ha ha!” Jens
smacked his thigh and laughed. Per smiled thoughtfully.
Jens took his gun and was off to the forest. He always did that when
his father was out of the way. Per turned to and fetched up the wood.
There was a big difference between the two brothers, in every way. Jens
was slack and had no heart for work, but if a thing had to be done he
dashed in at it. It had always been like that with the Juvikings, but
they had always worked their way _on_. Per took things calmly, but he
was industrious as an ant; far too industrious, thought his father; he
didn’t know why he should think so.
2
There was a heavy sea running when Per Anders was no more than midway
across, and under the opposite shore it was downright ugly. Per Anders
took the shortest way to the Haaberg crofts, and there he found the
wood thief. The sinner had no thought of denying it either, for Per
Anders came upon him just as he was busy carrying the load of wood. He
made a long face and his knees gave way, and his wife, who was helping
him, dropped her log and stood stock-still.
“God’s peace!” Per Anders greeted them.
Their answer was more like a gulp.--“Stormy weather,” said Per Anders.
The woman recovered herself first and gabbled away as if her life
depended on it: “Ay, it looks like a storm, it does, such weather we’re
getting nowadays, and what with war time and troubles, black year and
famine you might call it, both on sea and land, ay, and that’s the
truth.” She seemed to think she could talk him off with a cloud of
chatter.
Per Anders knocked the water out of his skin cap: No, he’d only come
to warn them that if they came across to the Juvik land again, they’d
have _him_ to deal with. Could they remember that? If so, he’d pass it
over this time. “But mine’s to be mine and not yours, and stealing’s
stealing, and a thief’s a thief, be he never so needy.”
Per Anders straightened himself and went, and they followed him meekly
as far as the gate. “Look as flat as that, do they?” he muttered to
himself. “Hey! Come across one day when the weather’s fine, and be
damned to you!”--he turned sharply on the man, making him jump. “Then
I’ll _give_ you wood.”
They began to bless him, and he made off as fast as he could. He took
the road to Haaberg itself. “Phew!” he exclaimed, rounding his back
and spitting. Ay, it was true: bad years and starvation everywhere,
troubled times. And folk were just folk; it didn’t take much to scare
them.
Now he came in sight of the Haaberg houses. The dwelling-house came up
below the hill, no use hiding itself any longer, dark and low as it
might be, for here he came. But how small it looked! And _that_ called
itself a big farm-house. Long and low like an old jade, with a great
ugly chimney on the roof, as if misfortune sat in the saddle there; it
gave the whole house a broken back--you could tell who was the rider!
Ay. But that time he married Ane, his eldest daughter, into the place,
he thought he had done a good stroke, and so did she. To be sure,
Haaberg was the biggest farm in the neighbourhood, no doubt about
that. But there stood the house, looking ashamed to be seen, like any
poor man’s cot; it couldn’t be denied that the whole place was going
downhill--had been for a long time; and now the man himself had been
dead two years.
He couldn’t help thinking of the Juvik farm, which looked so big and
free: the house was high and broad, and the windows looked out boldly
on the world, they were not afraid, they did not cringe for anybody;
window-frames and doors all painted white. Here you had one window, and
that a blind one, dirty brown and green--you could sit safely behind
that if you were afraid!
Per Anders stopped and braced himself up.
Ay, afraid, that was just it. Sat cringing behind their blind
window-panes listening for ghosts and hobgoblins as soon as it was
dark. And afraid of a new house, a new white door; sat watching for the
moon to fall on his head for daring to have such things. But so mad on
copying him all the same; nobody dared to be first, and nobody dared to
be last. Like sheep. Womenfolk were just the same. Ay.
Per Anders was faithful to old ways. Many a time he hung behind the
rest. But all of a sudden he’d be seized with a notion and then he’d go
at it and do the thing _his_ way; that gave them something more to be
sick about.
But it was Ane he wanted to see today; he’d been thinking a good deal
about her lately. She had been so full of sense while she was at home,
so grown-up all her days; she deserved to get on well. It was a long
time since he had seen her. He hurried on faster and faster: a terrible
time since he’d last had a talk with her.
There was not much light indoors at Haaberg, and to him, coming from
outside, it was like grey dusk; he saw little besides the hearth, where
the embers lay smouldering under the big pot. Inside the threshold
there was nothing but the earthen floor, pure mud, to his thinking; and
the floor-boards at the side were sprung and blackened like the stable
floor at home in Juvik. _There_ they had a smooth-planed floor from
wall to wall, and bright as daylight indoors, in the kitchen too, like
the finest parsonage; that was something different!
Ane woke up a little when she saw who it was, though nobody could say
she looked pleased. She asked him in, she set a chair for him, and he
sat there talking of one thing and another. But her eyes were all over
the place, it seemed to him, and she didn’t know what to do with her
fingers. All at once he burst out laughing and threw his head back in a
way he had:
“Have you been given a warning about me, I wonder? Did you find two
sticks crossed outside the door this morning, eh? There, you see! Or
was it the crow instead of the magpie that told you I was coming?”
Ane seemed to come out of her kerchief and he saw very well what a
bad way she was in. Hm. And, my word, how like her mother she was
getting.--“One oughtn’t to take any notice of such things,” she said.
“It’s all superstition.”
Hm. Pale and peaky, with a drop on her nose and all the rest; hiding in
her kerchief and fussing and pottering about. He knew it all so well:
up early and late to bed, and nothing ever done; the place smelt of
poverty and petty worries. That was how it was with Ane, now.
They chatted on. Time after time she talked of her neighbours. They
were mean folk; this one did this and the other that, there was no
getting on with them. Per Anders wriggled out of this, clearing his
throat louder and louder: the neighbours, they were doing well, for
themselves, hm! proper folk. But at home in Juvik they were brewing and
slaughtering and getting ready for Christmas, full swing. And so it
was all the year round: there were plenty of them, they went to work
with a will, stopped to get their breath and turned to again. There
was a fresh breeze about the place. They had been to Næröy fair with
birch-bark last summer, and with _butter!_ Sheep they were giving up,
bit by bit--she ought to do the same: set aside more of the meadow
land for cows and have the cows calving in spring: then there would be
butter to sell, and that meant ready money. And why did she only have a
boy to do the work?
Ane gave a little sigh and complained that the man she had had here was
so unreasonable; the last thing was that he wanted four specie-dollars
a year, besides boots and breeches and goodness knows what. No, if he
didn’t get another pair of boots a year he’d go; and go he did.
“Wrong, wrong,” muttered Per Anders. They ought to bestir themselves a
bit, they must wake up. “Get yourself some nets and send the lad out
fishing when it’s black winter; it’s nothing wonderful, but it brings
in _something_.” And finally he insisted, knocking it home with his
knife-handle--for he was already at table: “Saving and saving is all
very well, and the rest of it. But if you don’t fill your belly with
eating, you’ll never fill it with licking; remember that, Ane!”
The food was not so bad. Not like Juvik food, of course, but it would
pass. But he didn’t feel comfortable here. It was like being shut up in
a cellar. All the same, he ate with a twinkle in his eye: if she was so
stingy, she shouldn’t put good food in front of him; he had a mind to
eat her out of house and home.
She began again about the neighbours. Then he got up and left. He must
be getting home.
She came outside with him, and then he asked who was going to inherit
the farm here. As she was childless.
Childless! she said, after a while. Hm! she was not so childless.
A still-born child is no child, he was going to say, but thought he
would leave it unsaid.
“It was alive, though, when it came!” she said, and now her voice was
harder.
“No, was it?” He was struck with astonishment; for they had all said,
those who ought to know, that the child was still-born; it came just
after the father died.
“They can lie as much as they like: I could hear there was life in it!”
He stood and looked at her. Had he laid too heavy a burden on her, when
he sent her here? It came upon him, so sharply that it took his breath
away, what a little homeless wench it was that flitted over here from
Juvik that time. And now she kept inside her kerchief there and was an
utter stranger.
“Ay, that’s what I say,” she went on. “And I’m ready to take my dying
oath of it!--Oh no, they shan’t drive me off the farm like a dog
either!”
He didn’t find anything to say and began to walk on. She went down with
him, for now her tongue was set going and she couldn’t stop all at once.
She said again, as she had said before: that she would take her oath
the child was alive and had screamed; they’d have to give in to that!
The more she thought of it, the more certain she was.
Per Anders sighed two or three times and shook his head; he seemed to
mutter to himself, no, no! Then he turned and faced her.
“It’s one thing to take an oath. It’s another to have the oath on your
conscience!” He was almost white in the face.
Ane said nothing for a moment. Then it came, quiet and cold:
“Rather than they shall put me out of the farm--For you know, I’m not
afraid of the dark, father!”
“You be quiet now. You hear what I say!”
She obeyed. And he walked so fast that she could hardly keep up. The
wind lashed their faces, and sharp grains of snow stung them on the
cheek-bones. He did not stop till they came to the cross-roads, where
the way to the Ness turned off.--Good-bye to her. And she knew where
she had a home, if it came to that. She must see and bestir herself
more, as he’d been saying; then she wouldn’t be brooding over the
same things all the time. And then she should let folks be what they
were, those that were petty and mean, and not worry about them. And
he put his face close to hers: “No, for if you’re so unlucky as to
take a false oath--it’s a dangerous business that. It’s _redoubtable!_
Good-bye, Ane, and thanks.”
He did not hear what she answered, and they parted.
“It’s redoubtable,” he muttered, with his eyes fixed on the road in
front. Per Anders was fond of using a queer word now and then, one he
thought was old and powerful.--No, afraid of the dark she was not; Ane
was his child in that. But that things were going so badly with her, he
would never have thought that before he came over. He he!
He had walked himself into a sweat, but still he felt cold. He found
himself taking the big bend round by the Ness--one would have to look
in at the store while one _was_ out and about. He went in and bought
a big string of Bergen cringles and filled his handkerchief with
biscuits; for he had a rare handkerchief. He was asked into the office
and given a big dram by the man himself, as was right and proper when
the Juviking crossed the fiord; but Per Anders didn’t take much notice
of them today, no matter who they might be.
The crofters followed him down to the water, wanted to help him out
with the boat, but he ran her down by himself in front of their noses.
But as he stood in the boat, shoving off, he called to them:
“Come across now Sjurs-mass Day,[4] we’ll be killing a sheep maybe.”
Then he bent to his oars.
[4] Sigurd’s mass or “Little Christmas Eve”--December 23.
3
The nor’-wester had freshened. He is never so keen as when he has loose
snow to play with, and now he came in bitter little gusts and blasts.
The sea was choppy and threatening, Per Anders was not quite sure
about it. Perhaps he ought to keep his boat’s nose in the wind till
he came under the lee of the home shore, for the Juvik land runs far
out to the northward. But he didn’t do that, he let her drift to the
southward. He would have to look in south at the Wick and see Aasel,
now he was out.
Ever since he had left Haaberg he had had Aasel in his thoughts. The
same as when he left home, thinking of Ane: just like a gnawing hunger
it was, like a pain that had settled on his chest. He had to see her.
Ay, and here he had goodies for her youngsters. For _there_ they had
children--the Lord knew how many they were now.
Aasel had married off herself, to a crofter you might say; he had
lately bought a bit of land here. There was some hurry about it with
Aasel, she had to be married straightaway. This was a great scandal in
those days, and at Juvik it had never happened before. But Per Anders
had nothing much to say about it. “Get married, then, in the devil’s
name!” was all he said. “Ah, so it’s you,” he said to the bridegroom,
looking him over; “you’re the one Aasel’s taken. Well, she didn’t look
very far!” Aasel had always been a wild sort, all laughter and high
spirits, but a good child right through, and a great one to work. Her
mother refused to see her any more, and her father hadn’t worn out
their doorstep either.
The house at the Wick was a crofter’s cot, there was no getting over
it. There was hardly a window in it, it was a squirrel’s nest. But good
to live in, no doubt. And the man was the same, Mikkal himself; he was
like a squirrel. Not that he was blind like his house; he had eyes,
bright round squirrel’s eyes, and he looked at you like the squirrel
on its branch, inquisitive and sprightly, a clever little beast;
squirrel’s teeth he surely had too, if he chose to show them. No, she
hadn’t looked very far for a husband, Aasel hadn’t.--But a hard case
afloat, ay, he was that! They couldn’t come up to him, the Juvikings,
nor anyone else. He’d kept an eye on him sometimes when he came beating
home from the fishing-grounds--more like an otter than anything else,
he thought. What chance he was at home today?
He was not, he was out after herring. Aasel was sitting at home alone
with the children and her mother-in-law--and she was old and bedridden.
Aasel was sort of scared when she saw who had come. “Mercy on us, is it
mother that’s sick now?” she asked. He had hardly ever seen Aasel so
serious; it was not easy to think of her like that. “Eh, but are you
fey, father, that you come and see to us?” Now her smile broke, round
the eyes and all over her face. That was how she had been, all the time
she lived at home. Her eyelids were puckered with sheer fun, and her
face was round and good like a child’s, the girl was all good humour.
He did not once take his eyes off her, as he seated himself and said
the things that ought to be said.
“Ah, you’re a treasure, father dear, to come and give us a look! That
was a stroke of luck, as the man said when he found himself in heaven.”
And then he felt how immensely long it was since she had gone away, and
what a blank she had left behind; she had taken away her laughter and
liveliness and her whole self.
She brought her children and showed them to him; she had four already,
in four years--“we go by the almanac here,” she said. “Look at them
now--what do you say? No cottar’s bairns, are they?”
He saw, he saw. He saw what she meant. They were Juvikings, these,
white skin and red cheeks, eyes firm and blue; all but the smallest,
who seemed to be all squirrel.
She chattered on. No, it was easy enough here, granny looked after
the children, and the children looked after her, and they had no more
cattle than they could manage, two cows in milk besides the bull and
the empty stall. And, she said quietly, the neighbours were kind. If
they wanted it, there was always a helping hand ready at a word; she
told him their names.--He pricked up his ears at this and listened. At
last he smiled: that was how _she_ was.
They were comfortable here. Clean glass in the window, bright walls,
and a dazzling whitewashed chimney; floor boarded all over and an iron
stove by the side of the hearth; a loft over the whole cottage, and
a little closet for the old grandmother. It was good to sit here. He
untied the cringles and opened his handkerchief; good heavens, so it
was for them he had bought all this! They were astonished and didn’t
know where to begin.
Aasel brought out what she had--in such a hurry that she seemed afraid
he would run away again--and it was Juvik food, all of it! It had been
here waiting for one. Juvik food, _she_ had it; she had scraped it
together. He turned to the old woman in the closet: If they lived so
bravely for all their poverty, then they deserved to be better off.
“Ay, ’tis bad, the gout, don’t talk of it, child!” She was too old, she
couldn’t hear.
He sat watching Aasel again. And she watched him. Then he looked out of
the window:
Didn’t they have the good people up here in the mountain?
Faith, yes, they were at it all night, rolling down stones; hadn’t
he seen the scree just above the house? They both laughed, and this
laughter did him more good than the food.--“All the same,” she said,
“this is an uncanny hole, what with trolls and hobgoblins, that’s true,
father. But they’re kind,” she added.
“But how about your sister Ane, has she gone stark mad?”
“Eh?”
“She’s going to swear a false oath. That the child was alive when it
came.”
Aasel went pale, little by little.--“No, does she say that?”
He sat looking down between his knees. He’d had such a belief in Ane,
he said: _she_ was not one to get herself into a mess. “Astonishing
how fond one can be of a little girlie like that, one that never asks
for anything, that will get along all by herself. And now there she
is, poor little thing. Nothing left of her but money troubles and a
false oath.” He nodded his head. “Money troubles, they’re pretty bad
troubles, they can eat you up alive. And what is one to do about it, do
you think?” he looked up.
“What if mother--?”
“Ah, do you think so? Well, maybe. And--we might put a wee bit of trust
in the man above.” He looked down at the floor again, and his thoughts
were so far away.--Maybe it was so, he muttered, both at Juvik and
anywhere else; if there was one thing you didn’t believe in, then
you didn’t believe in anything at all. If you didn’t believe in lies
and nonsense--if you were no longer afraid of the dark, then you went
straight away and sold yourself to the Black One. No, Ane wasn’t afraid
of the dark; in that she was his daughter. “But”--he looked up into
Aasel’s eyes--“it won’t be she that’ll carry on the Juvik race.”
“Well, I’ll be more than glad to go over and talk to her; I’ll put some
sense into her, you’ll see!” Aasel smiled, young and unafraid: she knew
she’d be thrown out at Haaberg, but she’d go there all the same; she’d
fall on her feet right enough, she declared.
She went with him down to the beach, with her whole flock of youngsters
behind her, took hold of the boat, and helped him to shove off. The
little boys sang out Ohoy! and went at it till they were black in the
face. Per Anders took a long breath before he came out with it:
“You must give us a look at home for Christmas, Aasel.--Your mother, do
you say? Not a bit of it; she expects you, child.”
A pity she couldn’t have gone with him and helped to row, she said. And
tonight it was Lucy long night--
“Of course it is! Row? Don’t talk to me--I’m a devil to row, I can tell
you. And it’s a mighty queer thing, I never get tired!”
He said the same to himself, as he lay out in the nor’-wester and put
his back into it. The snow-storm wrapped itself about him like a thick
blanket, he had to fight his way from point to point, hugging the shore
so closely that he could have reached it with his oar.--Aasel still
stood and watched him, so he thought; she laughed when the spray dashed
over the bow of his boat, but she was afraid all the time, silly thing.
It’s no weather for rowing, she said.
The kelpie, she had talked about. They had _heard_ it out here on the
fiord. “Of course you have,” he answered. And she laughed too, as
bravely and cheerfully as might be--she was the one who ought to have
been at Juvik. But just then there was a cry. Hah! it came from the
wave just beside him, loud enough to echo in the rocks. And again,
uglier than before. “Once more, while you’re about it!” said Per
Anders, and he laughed with surprise. “Shall we have a race? For I’m a
real devil to row.”
It was black night now, and he was nowhere near Juvik. He put in
to land, took a good look at it, then backed out again, tried one
inlet after another in the blinding snow-storm. It was strange land
everywhere. And out on the fiord it cried time after time, he couldn’t
help laughing: whatever it was, it really _was_ there.
Per Anders would never have found his way home that night if the wind
had not torn a rift in the snow: and then he was off the northern point
of land and had the Juvik voe right before him. Now for the first time
he felt he was worn out and chilled through, he sat shaking on the
thwart and his eyes were no good any more. “First I’m going blind, and
next I’m losing my sight,” he said, to ease himself and be the man
he was. And then he turned to the fiord: “Good-night to you now, and
thanks for your company--I’m going home, I am.”
He crept into the boat-house and lay down. Outside all was in a whirl
again and the path was glassy with ice; he could go no farther. And the
boat-house was a good place to lie in, up against the pier, as they
called it. He spread nets under him and covered himself with blankets
and sails and furs so that he knew he was safe from the cold. That
would show them, the youngsters, that he was still a grown-up man and
not afraid of the dark, if it was Lucy long night ever so much!
It was Lucy long night. A night that has no end. A night when the
cow wails in the byre, and the sheep too; and folk sit with their
chicken-hearts up in their throats, shivering and shaking and
chattering with their teeth: the good people roll rocks up in the
mountain, the little men jump and dance around the walls, noises and
slamming everywhere; who would go up to the loft that night, or down
to the boat-house?--“Oh, don’t tell me! They can’t bear to hear a
sound.” Per Anders settled himself well, said In Jesu name, as he did
_every_ night, and then he went to sleep. No, not that either, not
quite, but he was dozing off.
Then there was a noise in the shed alongside. Something fell down,
rattled against the wall where he was lying. There was a door to the
shed, but it was locked, so he didn’t go and see what it was. After a
little while there was a sniffing along the wall, like a dog stealing
about with his nose to the ground. Per Anders felt if he had his
sheath-knife on him, then he turned his back on the damned thing and
went to sleep. In his sleep he heard that someone came up from the sea,
pulled open the door, and stood there, in the dark. The icy wind rushed
in and made him wide awake. “If you’re able to stand, I dare say I’m
able to lie,” said Per Anders, and he lay. Now it seemed the door was
shut again, all was still. Per Anders pulled the rugs well over him,
for he was chilled after his row. He slept a good while.
But then there came a racket up under the roof; he sat up and listened
to it, with his hand on his knife.
“Who’s there?” he called. Then there was dead silence. But then came
more padding about, tramping along the beams and net-hangers, a big
and heavy fellow. Per Anders jumped up, found an oar, and struck it
against the beam, so that it went to shivers: “Keep quiet here, I warn
you! You Devil, you!”
There was a laugh up in the darkness, as quiet as could be, but deep,
as though the whole night laughed. And now he knew it: this was Blackie
himself; the Old One in person. Per Anders was on his way to go out,
but he couldn’t bring himself to do that either--there was room here
for two, wasn’t there? This was one who really _was_, no kelpie or
other bugbear; it was no shame to give in to this man. He sat down. He
was no longer himself, he froze so unmercifully. He said the Lord’s
Prayer--couldn’t help it, though it was hardly fair to get behind that
now, like hitting below the belt.--For that matter, they were all
here, all the old Juvikings, round about him. So he was not afraid. He
covered himself well and pretended to sleep.
And the night went on. Or, rather, she did not go. She lay down beside
one, she was not going any farther.
He heard the cow in the byre, lowing and lamenting: “Long night! Long
night!” And the sheep and the goat, they bleated, with heads tucked
under their shoulders: “She’s longer than two!”
4
Up at the farm they waited for the old man hour after hour and he never
came.
They were a bit taken aback, the womenfolk, when at last they reached
home and heard he was not there. “Heh?” said Ane--“has your father
gone away?” Yes; Beret could say no more about it than that. Ane asked
the boys, and they knew no more either. The others put it out of their
minds at once--of course he’d come home again; but Ane couldn’t get
away from it.
“For that’s the way with Per Anders,” she kept saying to herself. “He
never gives a hint of anything. Not to me anyway. But when he sets off
like this, it means there’s something on his mind.”
After a while, as dusk came on, one after the other dropped a remark:
“He’s a long time, father is.” Valborg stopped in front of Per and
whispered, in a frightened voice: “What’s become of your father,
anyhow? He must be here soon?”--“Oh, _he’ll_ find his way home right
enough. You needn’t worry about him.”
They sat down indoors, all of them, lit the candles, and threw fresh
logs on the fire. The storm fell upon the house in heavy gusts, roared
in the chimney like a waterfall, and the snow whispered all the time
against the panes, in a restless flurry. They used no window-shutters
at Juvik; “No need for that,” said Per Anders. Sometimes Jens took a
turn outside, and sometimes Per; Jens came in again with a little sneer
on his face; Per thought of something else, there was this and that he
ought to have done. Petter, Per’s younger boy, went to sleep as usual,
but Anders, who was six, stayed up a long time, looking sleepier and
sleepier, but he wouldn’t give in: “I’ll have to wait up for grandpa
all the same,” he said; “I know my manners.” He went on saying it even
after he had fallen asleep. His mother picked him up and laid him in
the bed beside his brother. She and Per slept in the living-room, and
the old folks in the closet.
All at once, as they were sitting over their work, Jens gave a short
laugh and looked round at them:
Wasn’t it tonight they had Lucy long night?
They gave him no kindly look, any of them. They had just remembered
the same, and so what good did it do to come and tell them that?
Ane coughed a little and held her knitting up to the light; she
just glanced at Jens, and presently they heard a sigh from inside
her kerchief. After that there was silence in the room, they felt
the evening closing down upon the house. There was a clatter in the
outhouses. The smoke blew back down the chimney. By the corner of the
house a ladder stood against the big birch, creaking and grating up
and down. It had stood there a long time, sawing against the tree,
but nobody had noticed it before; it laughed and groaned with such
heart-felt malice.
Now Per got up and shook himself; Valborg stole a glance at him, and he
yawned and said he was going out to take away that ladder, or else it
would stand there scraping away for ever. It was so ugly to listen to,
he could feel it in his bones, he said. They were all queerly relieved
when he said that. Bless us all, the ladder wasn’t doing any harm! Jens
looked up with his cold sneer: “You’d better take it away, Per.”
Not long after, he lit a lantern; whistled a few notes, and went out.
They thought he had gone to see to the horses, but he stayed out a long
time.
As they sat wondering what had become of him, they heard footsteps
outside the house door. The sound came into the passage, but only
faintly because of the wind, and they paid no great attention to
it, for it must be Jens, whatever he was about--and now there
were footsteps up in the loft. First Valborg looked up, then one
after another, and Ane said: “Dear me, how like Per Anders that
sounds!”--“But it can’t be anybody but Jens,” they answered.--“I can’t
hear a sound,” said Per. But then he got up and went into the loft.
They waited with goose-flesh all over them; for he would find no one in
the loft, they were sure of that, each and all. He changed his mind
and came down again, had forgotten what he was looking for; then he
went out into the kitchen and took a draught of water. “Nonsense!” he
said, as he came in.
They all turned to their work again, for they had their hands full,
there was much to be done before Christmas.
Jens came in and put down his lantern. He was covered with snow and had
to go out and knock it off. “Father must be stopping the night on the
other side of the fiord,” he said calmly.
“Hm, ay,” said the others. It was such a comfort when anyone said
anything. Nobody went to bed.
About midnight Per went out. Now _he_ would take a turn down to the
shore. But he could scarcely see his hand before him, it was like
walking straight into a wall--the snow was falling so fast. Coming back
he broke into a run, for it was bitter cold and he was lightly clad. At
last he ran for all he was worth. When he came in, the womenfolk went
off to bed, one after another. Ane last.
“Take another look at the sea, boys, before you go to bed,” she asked
them.--“Oh well, never mind, it doesn’t--”
Jens and Per sat up a long while yet. Nobody ought to sit up on this
night, but they did so for that very reason. “We’re sitting here at our
own risk,” said Per. “Or on our own rumps,” grunted Jens. He took a
half-finished wooden spoon out of the chest he was sitting on and began
to carve it; he even gave Per a wink: oh yes, it was for a girl. He was
clever with his knife, like a true Juviking. When he chose. Per was
making a stumpy wooden horse for his little boys.
But they had to give up. For the night wouldn’t give up. They were just
dropping off to sleep, couldn’t keep away from it. The cows were lowing
in the byre, and the waves were dashing on the beach, there was no end
to it. They got up at the same time, put on their jackets, and went out.
They walked in silence.
The clouds had now parted in earnest, the sky showed its bare face,
wild and strange to them, a face of night; in one quarter a gleam of
light showed, uncannily, but there was neither moon nor stars.
Jens gave a little shudder and turned to Per: “You don’t believe
anything’s happened to the old man, do you? For he’s such an obstinate
fellow, he never looks at the weather.”
Per was silent for a moment.--“You’re always the same.”
Jens sneered: “Eh, and what about you? Damn it, you smell like a
Christian! You smell of decent folk!”
Oh, said Per, there was not much fear of that, with either of them.
But perhaps their father was right when he said they weren’t properly
grown up yet?
“Do you know, Per, you make me sick, sometimes. Faw! said the devil,
when he got a mouthful of bristles.”
“Now you shut your mouth!” Per said it so sharply that it gave Jens
a little start. And then he added: “We may as well say it now, that
whether father turns up again or not, there’s got to be an end of our
fooling after this. For you know it’s pretty near time.”
“Ugh! You’re done with, I can see that. Married and done with, like any
other poor devil”--Jens turned away from him.
This was the first time Per had spoken out with his brother, he had
never gone so far before, and in fact it was the first time he ever
said anything much. Nor had he thought of saying anything like this
now. It sounded almost as if he would burst into tears, he felt it so
badly. For there had never been an angry word between them, unlike as
they were.
The farther they went, the worse he felt, less and less fit to stand
up against the blow; and he knew it was coming, Jens kept such a queer
silence. Presently Jens cleared his throat and said, lightly and
carelessly as a child:
“Hm, hm, now I know what to do: I’m going to clear out. This time I
mean it. Then we’ll be quit of each other. Hm, hm, that’s it, now I
know!” and he snapped his fingers as he walked.
He smiled to himself maliciously. He knew too well that now he had
given Per something to think about for a long time. Before now, when
his father had gone for him and he had talked of clearing out, it had
been Per who held him back. He didn’t say much, but he hung sorrowing
about him like an empty sack wherever he went. And he couldn’t contain
himself, he had to come out with it: “You fancy yourself a stout
fellow, Per. But you’re a poor worm all the same; you shrivel up as
soon as one pricks a hole in you. Ay, ay. Now you’re going to be a good
boy in earnest. Something like a good boy, ay. And that’s the only
thing you’re fit for; and you’re heartily welcome to it.”
Jens had ventured too far. Per was still trembling a little about the
lips, but he had pulled himself together and was far above the other,
like a grown man:
“Maybe that’s not the worst thing you could do, if you did clear out.
As you don’t seem to take root here anyhow.”
“Oh no, I’ll see I don’t do that. Huff, boy!” He kicked at a lump of
ice and sent it flying.
The boat was drawn up by the boat-house door, and the key was on the
inside. They knocked on the wall and called “Father,” and after a
while he staggered up and opened.
Had he been sleeping here!
Here, ay! wasn’t it good enough? Anyway it was better than knocking
himself to pieces on the glassy road; he had slept right well!
He came out and went up with them; but he stumbled and slipped so that
Per had to take his arm. Per Anders laughed at this: a sad thing how
old it made you to be getting old--eh, no! how chilly it made you to be
chilled through--heh! His talk was all mixed up, and chilled he was, so
that his jaws danced and chattered, but he talked all the time, as they
floundered along towards home. And every now and then he pulled himself
up and gave a long-drawn wail: “Oh, it’s redoubtable!” When they
reached the house he stopped and looked westward over hill and bog, to
the crofters’ cabins:
“Tonight they’re scared, those folk. Tonight they creep under the
bed-clothes. And yet it’s a very different one that--that’s scared
them. And he--he’s all around us. They’d all had their fling at
him, the old fellows here at home. That’s my belief. Father, and
grandfather--there’s been many a cool hand here at Juvik, that’s sure.
They left a broad trail of unbelief behind them--don’t talk to me! But
the Old One, _he_ was too many for them, surely. He he, I’ll bet they
didn’t like it when they had to give in. Oh, but _they_ were folk who
left a trail behind them in the darkness. Not like now--”
At last they got him in, and he lay down just as he was. He shivered so
that the whole bed shook. Ane got up and heated a rug to wrap him in;
Per had pulled off his jacket and boots.
“Oh, thanks, thanks!” he said, and that was a rare word with
him.--“It’s been a long night, Ane.”
Ane did not go to bed again, she stayed up and kept the fire in.