THE JUVIK GIANT STIRS
1
“Lord knows,” said Per one day, when he and Jens were down by the water
tanning nets. “Lord knows. It’s hard to say how it was with that ghost
fire.”
“Ghost fire? What kind of a beast’s that?”
“The fire warning they saw here before Christmas. Juvik’s been emptied
since that was seen. Whatever it was or was not.”
Jens looked at him, quietly, thoughtfully almost. Then he turned away.
He didn’t say a word, but to Per this was as bad as an ugly cursing;
and then Jens strained hard at shifting the tan-vat by himself, while
Per stood by with open mouth. But all at once he laughed, a cheerfully
offensive laugh, and flayed Per with his eyes: “Yes, you look a bit
empty yourself. Like a pair of breeches that have lost their owner. I?
you were going to say. No, boy, we’re not talking about me. We needn’t
argue whether it’s empty here or not. But anyway we’re not afraid of
the dark!”
Childishness! thought Per. But aloud he said: “If only it wasn’t the
whole family that--”
“What if it was? Pleasant journey to them. A fine family!”
Spring came, and summer followed. But Juvik did not keep up. It was so
quiet, whatever they might be about; as when great and grievous things
are looked for; or as when nothing is looked for any more.
Per and Valborg were at work early and late. Jens went at it like a
bear when it suited him; as soon as he took a thing into his head he
dashed away and finished it, flew off like a hammer from its haft. But
it was never a job of everyday work.
One day Aasel came. The men were afloat just then, setting salmon
nets along the shore. It happened to be Jens she wanted to get hold
of. The thing was, he’d been going the right way to bring shame on
himself and the rest of them, with a girl west in the crofts; she was
in such-and-such a way! It was _true_, for Aasel had been there herself
and seen the girl. Poor silly thing, she believed he was going to marry
her! Now Valborg would have to talk to him; he was a little bit afraid
of her, wasn’t he? Aasel herself had skated too far on thin ice, and
she was only a frail woman that he wouldn’t pay any heed to. “Or else
you can talk to Per,” said Aasel; she had made up her mind, and this
time she was not going to have her journey for nothing.
“Talk to Per?” Valborg’s face was a blank.
“Yes, go straight for him and get him properly warmed up!”
“Per?--Do you think that’s as easy as putting on your shoes?”
“No, no, but--”
“Per, let me tell you--I don’t know that I’ll ever be up to having a
talk with him. For--he’s no little boy, you know that.”
Aasel laughed till the walls rang:
“Mercy on us, what a mighty fellow you’ve made of him!”
But she saw she was taking the wrong road and was quickly serious
again. She was so glad, she said, that Valborg believed in Per. For he
was the only one they could put their trust in now. They owed her great
thanks for being what she was.--“I can’t help saying that, as I’m the
one that sees it,” she said, and they both blushed and were bashful.
“But this is serious, this is, no getting away from it,” she added.
“He’ll have to do something, and do it quickly too.”
Valborg was not in very high feather when she took Per aside that
evening; but she got it out somehow: that there seemed to be something
wrong with Jens, ugly tales about him had reached the place, they were
saying this and that.
Per looked as if he didn’t quite catch it. “With Marja Oterbekk?” he
said. Then he laughed to himself. “Ah, Jens, Jens! All the same, he
never did it; they’re _lying!_”
“I dare say they are; they lie all they can. But you know
yourself--you’ll have to speak to him.”
“Speak to him? Not I!” And he glared at her so that she wished herself
out of the way. “You talk to him yourself! It’s proper woman’s work,
that,” he flung after her.
Next day Jens went and damaged his foot. He was trying to jump over a
gully in the rocks with a heavy sack of bark on his shoulders, slipped
and turned his ankle so that he had to limp home. He smeared it with
hot tar and made nothing of it, but he could scarcely put his foot to
the ground.
That day Per got ready a load of corn and drove to the mill. He smiled,
for he could see Jens had meant to go the same way, if only his foot
had been right. The mill was a long way west among the crofts, far
beyond Oterbekk, and it was night before Per started for home.
It was such a bright-blue, light-sleeping summer night. The bog
stretched endlessly away to the mountain, and the wooded slopes faded
into a grey-green dream. The meadow grass and rushes breathed a dewy
coolness. Their scent was so mournful; for this was summer, and it
would not last.--In such a night the young people were out, seeking one
another; in such a night all sorts of things might happen. Per too had
been out, in a night like this--it was long ago now.
Here from Högbrekka one could see all the way to Ommundstrand; the farm
lay fast asleep and had forgotten all about it. And there Ane-Marget
was asleep too. A little bird, with big eyes and little beak, he said
to himself. Thank God, Per, that it turned out as it did. That it was
Valborg you got instead. If we’re going to talk about it.
“Hullo, have you seen something, Brownie?” he said; the horse had
pricked his ears. Aha, it was just as he had thought. He tied his horse
to the gate-post, for there was somebody sitting behind the stone wall,
he had a glimpse of her skirt. He coughed and gave a greeting, and the
girl started up and stood before him with her hands in her apron, not
knowing what to do with herself.
“Good-evening, Marja. So you’re out walking--out sitting, I should say.
Ay, ay, it’s fine weather for that too.”
She turned miserably red all over her face. But she was a fine girl,
big and well grown; he had to go right up to her. “What a sad look
in those eyes!” he muttered to himself. “So you’re the one Jens has
chosen, eh?” He stood and looked straight at her, and she took her
eyes away; her thoughts were jumping all over the place, like mice in
an empty barrel.--“You’re not looking too happy,” he said. “Things
are pretty bad with you now?” He cleared his throat and looked at her
sternly:
“Jens has gone and hurt one of his hind legs. So he couldn’t come.”
Now she looked up. She couldn’t tell how much truth there was in this,
far less how much malice. She looked as if she’d been struck on the
right cheek and was going to turn the other, he thought. Per clenched
his teeth so that a hard lump came up at each side of his jaw. He
stretched out his hand and stroked her hair; it was black and curly
like that of a gipsy girl, but pretty, all the same. Then he turned and
left her.
As he was picking up the reins he said to her over his shoulder:
“You mustn’t grieve over Jens, Marja. For you couldn’t have got a worse
one.”
She had followed him, as though pulled by a string. But now he drove
off.
He was talking to himself the whole way home.--“You can’t bring a
thing like that into the house, Jens, can you now? Good Lord! what
a--what a crofter face. Don’t talk to me--she’s ugly! Black as hallowed
ground.--Eh! will you get on, you lazy brute!” he gave the mare a cut
with the slack of the reins so that she broke into a canter along the
stony road. The rumble of the cart startled the stillness of the night,
waking every rock.
Jens gave him a mocking grin next day, as he sat cobbling shoes.
Right in his face he rallied him: “I see you’re of the same mind as I
am?”--“Eh?”--“Yes. It isn’t too much to ask that a fellow shall pick
out the girl he wants for himself. The one’s who’s going to rub along
with her, I mean--isn’t that it?”
“Make her mistress of the farm? Have you gone daft? Just think of
it--oh, be damned if I’ll talk to you any more!”
“Right you are, boy.” Jens started singing.
2
In a week’s time Jens was well again. He had been grey and sour in
the face while he sat indoors making shoes. Sometimes he broke into a
sweat. There was something working in him. Per saw it very well, and it
made him feel cold and wet, it gave him a shake.
At last Jens started out one evening. He meant to go west and fish the
streams, he dug worms and got out his rod, and then he went off. Per
watched him go and he felt hot and tight about the throat. “Heh!--” he
said, and now he was cold again. It must take its chance.
Jens put one shoulder forward, as he always did when he was set on
getting anywhere, like a braced square-sail. He still limped a little,
but he walked so fast that his joints cracked. And his thoughts flew on
ahead with a whistle, it seemed to him. He’d had this in his mind all
day and every day, while he sat at home and couldn’t get about. “And
now I know what I want!” he said.
He looked at the weather with a cold sneer, when he came to the stream:
Heh! it _was_ just right for fishing! Well, then, so much the better.
The rain poured down with a hum, cheerful and unwearied as a child at
play; then it stopped for a moment and listened, far away, and then it
began again.
Jens never spat on his bait when he made a cast, and a fish-hook he
called a fish-hook and a fish a fish, and so on all the time; he
was a true Juviking, whether they believed it or not; and fish he
caught, for all that; he saw nothing wrong with it.--“And tonight they
shall see what I’m made of, the old fellows, whether they like it or
not,” he said; he spoke aloud in the roar of the torrent and bit his
lip.--“Tonight they shall _see!_”
He did not follow the Oterbekk down to the crofts, but made straight
across the bog to the Dölbekk, though the trout there ran so small
they were not worth frying. He didn’t stay long there either; he was
soon down at a croft called Aune. There somebody came out and stood in
the doorway, a young fellow, rather younger than Jens; he watched the
fisherman for a bit and couldn’t quite make up his mind. But then he
plucked up courage and went down. Jens didn’t let on he had seen him
till now.--“Is that you, Morten, striding along there?” he said when
the other came up; but he didn’t take his eye off the line.
Morten walked down with him, looking on and chatting. He was slow
of foot like a worn-out drudge, but his tongue went fast enough. He
followed right down to the mill-race. Jens looked pleased.
Jens lifted his rod and stuck it in the ground: “Do you know what we’re
going to do, Morten? You and I and both of us? We’re going into the
mill to take it neat.” He went in, and Morten after, with a long face
full of wonder. Jens had a great birch-bark creel on his back, and
Morten had had his eye on it all the time, but he had never dreamt of
there being a dram in it. It was creepy though, having to go into the
mill. The place was so still and shivery, and dark; the water lapped
against the wall and that didn’t make it any more cheerful.
Jens took out a big tell-tale bottle, one of those that say cluck when
you pour, and filled an old cup without a handle. They drank from it
in turn; it was real Juvik brandy, and Morten sneezed and grimaced and
liked it: you didn’t get stung like that every day.
They sat for a while without saying anything.--“Ah, I’ve seen and heard
all sorts in here,” said Jens at last. “Many an ugly thing, lad! But
look: it doesn’t bite on me. Because you know, I’m in league with Old
Erik himself.”
He looked at Morten with hollow eyes, and Morten felt as if his whole
body was covered with frog-spawn.
“No, that’s sure, nothing scares me any more, can’t do it. For I don’t
believe in anything, I don’t. Except in the Old One himself. And he and
I are great cronies. Heh?”
Morten shut his mouth again. He looked at the door, which stood ajar.
But Jens pulled it to.
“No, but one of these nights I had a queer dream, I can tell you. I
dreamt that the Lord came and took away my wife, and who should it be
but that Marja Oterbekk. I held on to her all I could, but you see,
he was too strong for me in the end; I had to let go. And she was no
beauty, was she? Ah, you needn’t blush at that. Marja’s good enough.
In her own way. I should liken her to a good boat: easily steered, but
staunch, eh, Morten?”
Morten gave a gulp, and Jens sat watching him.
“Do you know what I heard, one night I was grinding corn here? There
was a call to me from the mill-race, the coldest voice I ever heard:
‘Jens,’ it cried, ‘heave out a man to me.’ It was uncanny. I had to
promise. Heh?”
“Ay, ay, but--”
“You see, it would have to be an enemy, of course. For it’s
_redoubtable!_” Jens used one of his father’s words now and again; he
thought there was power in them.
“Do you know what I was just thinking, Morten? That you must take and
marry Marja. That it’s that they’re after. Both the Juvikings and
Blackie himself and all the rest--heh? Do you hear?”
Jens nodded sharply and his lips whitened. For it was the deuce and all
if he couldn’t get this looby to bristle up, to make some sound! He
just sat and stared: had somebody fired off a gun in his ears?
“Ay, for you’ve been there, it’s no use denying it; she told me
herself.”
“It was--a long time ago!”
“Well, do you think I worry about that? I? who don’t give a damn
for either White or Black! I who’ve promised to heave a man into the
mill-race, heh? And _that_ I’ve a terrible good mind to.”
Morten smiled palely, the way they often smile when they’ve got to die.
“Give me your hand on it, then!” Jens growled like a wild beast that
has tasted blood.
Morten gave his hand.
“And now we’ll go out!” Jens got up. He was smiling now, a sly and easy
smile, like a blind man in the dark: he knew his way.
The rain had stopped, pausing to consider, with the tip of its tongue
out; and the clouds had sniffed the sou’-wester and were making for the
fells. It was bright as day though, warm and good, and the water and
everything murmured about one so cheerfully.
Now they were going to bathe, said Jens. With their clothes on, what?
Bathing was a sore thing for Morten, and now, at a wild hour of the
night? And with all his clothes on? He sighed and cast his eyes towards
home. It was a long way off. And he’d heard many a mad tale of Jens
Juvika, and now he’d taken a crazy fit again; and yet he was just as
canny and wide awake as before.
“Look here then, you ninny!” and Jens took a header into the deepest
pool, with a flash of white spray, came up in the black water beyond,
turning his dripping face this way--then he was gone again. Morten’s
knees shook under him; he was near gone with fright.
When Jens came out he took hold of Morten: “Are we friends or are we
not? You’re to answer me! Friends--good! Then you’re going in the same
as me. There!”--he took and heaved him out, though the poor wretch
squealed and begged; he fished him up again and shook the water off
him.--“Now you’ve had your baptism, Morten. Now we’re friends for good.
And now I know you’ll do what I want. So that I won’t have to heave you
out to _him_. Now I know that. And we’ll have a drink on it--here’s a
bit of corpse-straw at the bottom of the bottle, that makes it as good
as a solemn oath, you understand. There, now you’ve pledged your soul.”
They ran a couple of times round the mill to get warm, and then they
took another half one.
Morten brightened up and spied land ahead. He would have been ready to
promise more than he was asked.--Then they sat down on the ground.
“Oh, I’m a queer fellow,” said Jens. “I’m not like other men. Do you
know what I want to do, often? Just one thing, my lad: to sit on the
top of Vatsli Fell blowing a horn. Blowing so that they’d all have to
get up and dance--the old Juvikings and everyone else. But sometimes I
sit and _think_. Isn’t that a queer thing? Per? you’re going to say. Oh
no, oh no, he’s asleep all the time. Oh, there’s a lot of different men
in me. There’s not many can make me out, I tell you. They were just the
same, those old kings and giants, Goliath and Blood-ax and Bear Anders
Juvika and all those; they were wild and savage, and crazy after women;
and then they would sit and think, lad, and nobody knew what they were
thinking about.--It’s a strange thing too, when you come to think of
it, that I should be sitting here having a friendly crack with you;
with a crofter body.”
Morten thought the same. He couldn’t tell how it had come about, but
here he was, the friend and fellow of Jens Juvika himself, there was no
getting away from it.
They walked up-stream, but they didn’t fish any more. Jens was still
seething inwardly. “This is _life_, lad!” he said. “Oh, I can feel it
right enough, I’m a dangerous man. One night I was in the old house
while father lay there a corpse, and then someone came and grabbed hold
of me. I gave him one behind the ear. Then he grinned and snorted and
let on I was a devil of a fellow! Heh? Do you stand there grinning at
me? You’re going to take her, I warn you!”
“Ay,” said Morten promptly. “You know I’ve been a bit sweet on her--”
“Hold your jaw, you dog! You know well enough _she_ can’t be mistress
at Juvik; are you mouldy? I’m a landowner, I am; that’s more than you
understand. Not but what she’s _a horizontal female_, I’ll say that for
her!”
They waded the stream somewhere, till it came up to their middles.
Morten laughed and hiccuped, and Jens looked back and winked at him:
“We two, we suit each other. Two jolly souls all three!--No, for it’s
not my game to take her. I mean to get _out_. You’ll give me a leg up
with this; you know the man I am. Or else I’ll be after you, I will.
And you shall have your croft rent-free as long as I’m above ground,
remember that. But it’s a good thing my brother Per can’t hear what I
say, for he’s one of the old sort. A stalled ox. But a capital fellow,
I tell you that. Ho ho, my boy, when he hears I’m friends with Morten
Aune! But we won’t say anything about that, just at present.”
Morten had no idea of doing so either. He could hardly get a word out,
when Jens said good-bye and thanked him for his company; but he’d have
been ready to jump into the sea for him.
The night was still and peaceful. The scent of birch-leaves was so
good, and Jens drew deep breaths of it, like a beast that had been
shut up, he thought.--“Oh Lord bless my soul, it does you good to stir
yourself. Ha ha ha ha! How flat I knocked him! How finely I filled him
up with lies! Free-handed lying, boy, that’s the way--ay, we’re still
game lads at Juvik!”
There he could still see Morten, hurrying away for all he was worth,
knock-kneed, but getting along; he must think he had a black one at his
heels. Jens called to him:
“Did you get a scare, Morten? Did you get _frightened?_”
That was a word that would stick, he thought. But he himself set off,
faster and faster, for this stillness was unnatural, it plucked at
his clothes as he walked, trees and mounds pricked up their ears and
listened; and this fog that was coming down, it was so strangely light
and still; he took to his heels at last; he laughed, but couldn’t help
it, limped and ran like mad.
When he reached the yard at home, he stopped to get his breath. Then
he saw it all, in a flash, wonderfully clear and strange: that was how
they had run themselves into a fright, all these old bears here, man
after man of them down through the ages--“Oh, it’s not so easy to play
the grown-up man sometimes, for all your unbelief. But Per’s a little
baby: goes and sleeps in the old house of nights, trying to harden
himself and be like father. He’s a long way to go, he’ll never get
there with his legs.”
He started up, after he’d had a proper sleep, and looked about in
astonishment:
Was it nothing but a dream? Wasn’t he a king, then, on board a pirate
ship? hn! hn!
Then he lay still. A thought came burrowing through him: Per. Now maybe
Per was dreaming that he was king of all Juvik, what? Well, well, let
him.
3
Per was not dreaming; he lay awake. But he had it within him, he
carried it about in the daytime as a precious truth that he had to live
on, that now _he_ was the only one. They would have it so.
But now he was given something else to think about. It was not long
before they heard there was going to be a wedding west among the
crofts. The news travelled this way and that, till at last it reached
Juvik.
Valborg put down her work, wiped her fingers long and well, and then
she went out.--“Ah, Per, you’re the one,” she said, and her whole
strong, broad face was thawed and tender.--“No, I knew it, I knew you’d
find a way. If you only tried.”
Per went down to the meadow to untether the horses. Valborg took up a
bucket and went to the stream to fetch them water. Then it dawned on
her, she couldn’t go at him bald-headed like this, he wasn’t a little
herd-boy, just--what was she thinking of? But now it was too late; she
had to come out with it.
“Oh?” said Per. That was all.
“Don’t you see now, Per, it _was_ some use?” She looked him frankly in
the face, too happy to drop it.
Ay, ay, that was so, he said. His eyes were so mild, as he looked this
way and that across the meadow--“It’ll soon be time to mow it, don’t
you think?”
“Yes!” She was so glad, she hardly knew which foot to stand on: that
was the real Per, when he only chose to show himself. “Yes, now’s the
time,” she said.
They walked together up the meadow and home.
Per said nothing about it to Jens for a day or two. They were in the
barn, getting ready the hay sledges.--So there it was, he said. It had
to be, and so on. And those two, Morten and Marja, they were a good
match. Jens had heard it, hadn’t he?
Jens stood still for a moment. Then he burst into a roar. Per stepped
back, when Jens turned on him with his horse-laugh. But it put heart
into him; he came forward again: Well, there was nothing else for it,
the way things were. But, but--wasn’t he just a little bit ashamed of
himself?
For an instant Jens stood there, small and absent.--“I am that,” he
said. No, he didn’t _say_ it, but Per saw quite plainly that he said
it to himself, and he turned it off with something else: Morten might
have his croft on easy terms now, so long as nobody got to hear of it.
“Now I’ll tell you one little thing, Per!” Jens took up his hammer and
knocked in a nail. “You’re not such a mighty big man as _she_ thinks
you are. She goes on her knees to you; but you’re no heathen god, any
more than I am.”
Per went to fetch something from the smithy.
“Oh no, you’re right there. A long way from it, but--”
Then they worked hard for a good while. After the harvest they took the
Juvik beck in hand, old as it was. It was a brute of a beck; it pulled
down its banks, flooded them as soon as there was a rush of water,
destroyed both meadow and cornfield. Their father had stood and looked
at it, they remembered; but he had never said anything. Perhaps he had
meant to leave it to them?
And now it should be taught manners, Jens said the same. Here were two
who didn’t shirk the job. Jens worked with a will, and stuck to it day
after day, till Per was lost in amazement. He liked it, and yet he
didn’t like it. There was such a breeze about Jens, he fairly took your
breath away; then it was quickly over again, as often as not, and that
was what Per hated worse than anything. Especially now that they were
alone. For then it stared them in the face so plainly that they hadn’t
tackled what they had to do, and never would either. The only way was
to make a match of it, work one against the other, as if they were
rivals, for then there was a hope that Jens would keep on.--He did keep
on. They dammed up the beck and deepened its bed a few feet, as far as
the Juvik land reached.
The weather was fine, resting after the rain. The sunshine hung on the
slopes from morning till night, with such colours, yellow and blue,
that one had to look up. But the hay had rotted away, a lot of it, and
the corn was as green as grass; thin too, and mostly weeds, for it had
been a bitterly cold, dry spring. And now the bad weather began again,
with rain and westerly gales. Things looked black.
“Dry year and rot year, and green year and frost year, but still no
bad year,” said Jens. Per sighed. A bad year it would be. Their only
comfort was that it was worse in other parts.
Strange that it should turn out so this year, he would say. And he saw
they had had the same thought, both Jens and Valborg, their faces grew
so long when they spoke of it. A cold breath seemed to strike back from
them: it _was_ a bad sign. Was there one who wished them ill? But then
he thought, putting one thing to another, summing up the whole world as
it were: so many calamities were abroad these times, war and famine
and all kinds of ugly things. The signs could never be meant for Juvik.
One day the smoke beat down and wouldn’t go up the chimney, the horse
stumbled and fell on level ground, ay, there were many signs like that;
but the Juvikings had seen worse things in their time, and they held
their heads just as high. If only he could put some life into Jens.
That was not so easy.--“Lord love me, how it smells!” he said. “Smells,
ay, the whole place, Juvik and all; can’t you see what I mean?” He
would still climb up the cliff on Sunday mornings and roll stones down
into the sea, making the church boats draw in their oars in alarm. Now
and again he got hold of something to drink, and then he went wild and
wanted to pull the house down. “I’m like the west wind, I’m like a wild
beast, I ought not to be going loose!” he sang. He would take it into
his head to thrash some man or other, put him a bit out of gear, as he
called it. One time when he was across the fiord to a dance, he went
right away east to Engdal, hung bells on horse and pig, and drove them
out into the black night. After such doings he generally kept quiet for
a while.
In the course of the winter he made himself a new pair of sea-boots and
a new leather outfit; he was going to the fisheries.
They were in the barn when Jens announced this, threshing out what corn
they had--poor stuff, but it would be a godsend to the crofters.--“I’m
bound to ask you--have you taken leave of your senses?” said Per.--“Oh
yes, I must have.” He flung away from his brother, but suddenly turned
about and looked at him savagely:
“I’m so sick of lying at home here with the maids--no more fishing in
the water-butt for me!”
Per stood looking at the ground, quite a while.--“Presently he’ll hit
on what he meant to say yesterday,” said Jens to himself.--“I’ve been
afraid of that too,” said Per. But that he should come out with it like
this? The maids?
Jens went to the fisheries. He joined a boat with Mikkal from the Wick,
who was skipper. It was lowering himself, this, for a Juvik man, he was
no better than any other hand aboard--not even as skipper would they
have gone to sea from here. But Per was glad he was away.
4
The storehouse at Juvik was robbed that spring, twice or perhaps
more, and the last time it made a big hole in the food. Valborg came
in looking pretty well staggered; she took Per out and showed him:
Bread! and butter! and meat! He had taken his time and had a good look
round--and there! he had made a beast of himself to show his contempt
of them. Per looked in the corn-bins. No, he hadn’t taken corn.
The lock was old and worn out. Per got himself a new one, and then they
were really left in peace for a time. The thief had been there and
tried, one night, had hacked at it with his tools so that the marks
showed. “I believe we’re too many for you,” said Per.
“It’s a pity Jens wasn’t at home,” he said to Valborg. “Then we’d have
sat up for the fellow.”
“Oh, Jens!” she answered. “Jens--it’s always Jens!” She went straight
from him.
Soon after that Jens came home. He bubbled with excitement. His
nostrils were distended and the veins stood out on his forehead, he
snorted, but he looked happy, as if he’d been galled till it gave him
an excuse to hit out.
“He’ll come back,” he said. “He’ll want seed-corn, you may take your
oath of that; Lord, yes, he’ll come back. And then we’ll give him a
swim, we’ll hunt him into the fiord, ha ha ha, my boy!”
Ah, should they really--? Per was sure he heard something whisper to
him.
Damn it, of course! Jens was beaming with joy, and Per caught it. For
nothing ever happened here. Jens talked of it all day long. “I sweat
like a tanner as soon as I think of it,” he said; “oh, we’ll have
sport, Per!” Per was soon as keen as he was, and even the little boy,
Anders, got wind of something. They couldn’t get him to bed that night.
They lay in wait three nights, Jens and Per, one in the stable door,
the other in the wood-shed. The third night he came.
Where he came from they couldn’t see, but the storehouse door opened,
it had to give way this time, and there stood a black shadow listening.
It was a still night, grey sky and grey earth; the breeze whispered
about the houses. A stamping was heard in the stables, a reassuring
sound; and the cat came creeping round the corner, long and low in the
back. And now the shadow slipped into the storehouse.
There was a whistle from Jens, and then they stole forward, one on each
side. The thief was out like a shot, jumped the steps, and darted in
under the supports of the storehouse.
“Wait a second, then we’ll do for you!” said Jens as he ran round the
house, Per on the other side. The thief ran down the slope, and they
after him, spreading out a little; then up again on the far side,
making for the woods. “Oh no, not a bit of it!” cried Jens, and you
could hear him fizzing with delight; he put on the pace, ran like a
grey streak along the fence, heading off the thief and forcing him down
towards the sea. He was light of foot, the rascal, they could hardly
catch him if they tried--now he was up the rocks to seaward and into
the birch thicket.
“Heh, heh, we’re leaping like young calves!” laughed Jens. “We’re
running so we’ll set the ground on fire--this is life, Per, this is!”
He took a run and dashed up the face of a rock, the height of a man.
The thief had to come out again, they saw him an instant against the
sky, a big, tall fellow and long in the leg--ho ho, now they were off
again! Per took a short cut and hid in the Black Rock cleft, for the
thief would have to come that way, Jens was at his heels, hunting him
from copse to copse along the shore: “Can’t you wait, you lubber--how
do you think I’m to get your life?”
Once the thief fell. Then Jens stopped and tied his shoe-string,
growling: “Up with you! You’re going into the sea, do you hear?” Now
the thief was coming up the cleft, Per could hear him coughing at every
breath, and now he’d catch him and give him a hiding and then take him
back to the farm and give him a feed! Jens would have to find a frisky
calf to run races with. He stood up.
“Ay, that’s right”--he called in a loud, clear voice--“come here, you,
I’m waiting for you.”
The thief sank on his knees, and his breathing was like a long shriek;
then he reeled off, straight for the Black Rock, Jens after him, and
Per round behind, to meet him on the other side.
Jens came, but not the thief. It was light now, and they stood looking
at each other. Per saw too clearly how it was, but he asked all the
same:
“Can you tell me--where he’s got to, the fellow?”
“He got _frightened_, boy! All I heard was a splash in the sea.”
Per made off along the shore, till the sheer cliff stopped him; Jens
followed with his hands in his pockets. “Nothing to see--not so much as
a bubble,” said Jens.
The sea lay just as usual at sunrise, grey and rippled and unconcerned.
He was as you chose to take him: lively, when he was on the move, had
nothing to say to any man; salt he was, but never ill-natured. You
could hear the morning breeze coming up the fiord, with a hum and a
murmur like a crowd of young people. The land awoke, came to life with
sunshine and shadow, and gave itself over to the day.
“Hm! Seems as if he must have sunk,” said Per.
“So he has. Sunk like any stone. He’ll come up again in the dog-days.”
“And I--I heard it whisper to me!” Per muttered the last words to
himself.
They went home.
“You look to me as if you’d lost your tail,” sneered Jens; “do you feel
bad after your run? Ah, but it’s a grand thing, lad, to feel you’re a
free man, a freemason, and do just as you please. The old fellows, they
ought to be here to see. Oh no, there’s danger in the Juvik giant, when
he takes it into his head to stir! Father--ay, you know, he wasn’t one
to knuckle down. But there was no _life_ in him. Ha ha! that thief, my
boy, he ran just--like--this!”
“Ah well. In God’s name, it’s done now and can’t be undone.” Per wiped
the sweat from his forehead and neck.
Valborg was up when they came in, and Anders too.--What happened, did
they get him?
Oh ay, they had him hunted. It was Per who answered her, and he was
quick to do it. Jens made a face, slung his cap on the floor, and asked
for a drink of whey.
“Did you kill him? Eh?” Anders turned to Jens: “Answer me, uncle, won’t
you?--did you kill him?”
“No, he--shut your mouth, you young snot!”
5
Valborg wondered greatly who it could be, and so did the other women.
But after a while it was all the same to them; he was not likely to
come again just yet--the men had taught him a lesson.
Valborg had so many other things to think about. First of all there was
the housekeeping, Juvik was a tidy load to have on one’s shoulders; and
then there was one of the maids, Daaret; the Lord knew what was wrong
with her. For something was wrong. Thinner and thinner in the face, and
bigger and bigger elsewhere, and so quiet and silent always, nothing
_to_ her any more. One had to think well before one spoke about a thing
like that. She durstn’t say a word of it to Per; she wouldn’t be the
one to deal him such a blow.
Then there was talk of that Morten Aune. He’d had a mischance; had
gone down in the bog one night. They didn’t find him--nothing was
ever found that was lost there. One after another came with a tale
that they’d had a warning of it. The neighbourhood was overrun with
superstitious gossip. The vixen had been coughing and barking night
after night on the hill above the quagmire; and just before, two cows
had cast their calves. An old bedridden body who lay awake of nights
had heard cries from across the bog last winter; and the raven, that
bird of ill omen, had sat on the mountain side and said rah! most every
blessed day. And the evening before, or the same evening it happened,
the sky had had such an uncanny look, worse than they’d ever seen it:
blue-green and yellow in a fleckered sheen, and at last it had changed
to a fiery furnace with white corpses leaping and dancing in it--he
could never have made away with himself, poor soul? For he might have
had some cause for that too, if once the evil powers had got him in
their clutches. But _they_ had taken it for a warning of warfare and
bloodshed. But worst of all was that about the Black Rock.
“The Black Rock?” said Jens, and Per glanced up hastily.
Bless us, yes, hadn’t they heard of it? One night when some folk were
rowing off the shore, there was a white one standing up on the rock;
they couldn’t believe their eyes, though they were two men in the boat;
but then he began to move, waving his arms at them and trying to tell
them something; they pulled away as fast as they could, and the last
they saw was that he threw himself head first into the sea--it was one
who didn’t lie in Christian ground.
Jens gave Per a nudge; this was fun. Valborg saw it, but thought he was
just making game of their superstitious nonsense.
“Well, well, never mind,” he said; “such things have happened before.”
“Oh ay, but it’s nothing to laugh at,” she said; she could hear herself
how her voice shook.
She had to have it out with Per, when they were alone that evening:
“Surely it couldn’t have been--”
“--Morten who was the thief? Ay, you can take your oath to that!”
“You must be out of your wits, aren’t you?” She lay deep in
thought.--“Ay, ay,” she said after a while; “we’ll have to make the
best of it; it can’t be undone. But did he really jump into the sea?
Well, then it was his own doing; so he’s the one that must answer for
it.”
“Ay,” said Per, turning over.
But Anders had lain awake listening.
“Then did you kill him after all?” he asked, sitting up in bed, wide
awake.
No, no, said his mother--it wasn’t that way, it was like this. She
did her best to talk him round, and he lay listening, silent and
incredulous. He asked no more....
But then there was still that about the girl. Valborg took her out one
day to help weed the meadow; it was a job one had to see to oneself,
if it was to be _done_. They were down the slope, and nobody was by.
Valborg leaned on her rake and looked at her.
“Is it Jens?” she asked, all of a sudden. For there was no other way to
go at it.
It was almost as if she had knocked the girl’s feet from under her.
Yes, she answered, it was he. And now she was glad it was out at last.
Oh yes, it was Jens, she repeated.
“Isn’t there a scrap of shame in you? That you come here and bring
disgrace on the whole of Juvik?”
“It wasn’t my choosing,” the girl whimpered. “But what could I do?”
Valborg had to cut her short. Did they think of getting married now?
she asked.
Yes, they had some thoughts of that. “Before the haymaking, we were
thinking.”
Was she as crazy as that for him? For _Jens?_
Crazy for him? No, it wasn’t so bad as all that. The girl was
fast recovering her spirits, and Valborg felt more and more
uncomfortable.--No, it was all she would do to take him, he was so
horrid to have messing you, for he hardly ever shaved. And he couldn’t
be much of a man either, to go with her, a maid on the farm--no, she
would just barely take him. But he had been kind to her, ever so
kind, and then he was one of those you couldn’t get away from. And
now--wasn’t it too late to turn back? The girl cast her eyes down.
Valborg turned red. She cleared her throat, and her eyes were hard. She
was ready to turn the wench away on the spot.
But Daaret looked her mistress frankly in the face; they were equals
now, they two:
“Besides, it’ll be better than being in service all your days. And
better than having to marry a crofter.”
Valborg was beaten again. She went back to her work. Her face was
burning and her hands trembled. This was the dirtiest mess she had ever
walked into.
Daaret took up her rake too. She was a bonny wench, no wonder the men
ran after her; she was pretty even now, Valborg could see that as she
worked; the little fool was dangerous enough, and Jens was Jens.
And the worst of it was, she was so stupid: she would believe anything
they told her! Nobody could knock any sense into her.
No, that wasn’t the worst thing either. Valborg felt it all day long,
like a pain in her chest: she was wily as a serpent with it all. She
could fool a man like Jens even.
She had to tell Per about it that evening. Did he know how it was with
Daaret?
No, he didn’t.
Well, it was this way, Valborg told him. “And now she thinks she’ll be
mistress here?”
It almost seemed as if Per hadn’t heard what she said. She said it once
more: “She thinks she’ll be mistress here?”
“Well, let her, in God’s name!” He looked down at his fists and yawned.
“Heh?”
No, he didn’t say anything.
“Ay, but it shan’t be, so long as the sun’s above us! You may as well
know it!”
She was white as a sheet, and her lips trembled.
“No, no,” he said, and then he got up and went out, had to see to the
horses.