GROWTH
OF THE
SOIL
Translated from the Norwegian of
KNUT HAMSUN
by W.W. WORSTER
[ORIGINAL TITLE "MARKENS GRØDE"]
1917
Chapter I
The long, long road over the moors and up into the forest--who trod it
into being first of all? Man, a human being, the first that came here.
There was no path before he came. Afterward, some beast or other,
following the faint tracks over marsh and moorland, wearing them
deeper; after these again some Lapp gained scent of the path, and took
that way from field to field, looking to his reindeer. Thus was made
the road through the great Almenning--the common tracts without an
owner; no-man's-land.
The man comes, walking toward the north. He bears a sack, the first
sack, carrying food and some few implements. A strong, coarse fellow,
with a red iron beard, and little scars on face and hands; sites of
old wounds--were they gained in toil or fight? Maybe the man has been
in prison, and is looking for a place to hide; or a philosopher,
maybe, in search of peace. This or that, he comes; the figure of a man
in this great solitude. He trudges on; bird and beast are silent all
about him; now and again he utters a word or two; speaking to himself.
"Eyah--well, well...."--so he speaks to himself. Here and there, where
the moors give place to a kindlier spot, an open space in the midst of
the forest, he lays down the sack and goes exploring; after a while
he returns, heaves the sack to his shoulder again, and trudges on. So
through the day, noting time by the sun; night falls, and he throws
himself down on the heather, resting on one arm.
A few hours' rest, and he is on the move again: "Eyah,
well...."--moving northward again, noting time by the sun; a meal of
barley cakes and goats' milk cheese, a drink of water from the stream,
and on again. This day too he journeys, for there are many kindly
spots in the woods to be explored. What is he seeking? A place, a
patch of ground? An emigrant, maybe, from the homestead tracts; he
keeps his eyes alert, looking out; now and again he climbs to the top
of a hill, looking out. The sun goes down once more.
He moves along the western side of a valley; wooded ground, with leafy
trees among the spruce and pine, and grass beneath. Hours of this, and
twilight is falling, but his ear catches the faint purl of running
water, and it heartens him like the voice of a living thing. He climbs
the slope, and sees the valley half in darkness below; beyond, the sky
to the south. He lies down to rest.
The morning shows him a range of pasture and woodland. He moves down,
and there is a green hillside; far below, a glimpse of the stream,
and a hare bounding across. The man nods his head, as it were
approvingly--the stream is not so broad but that a hare may cross it
at a bound. A white grouse sitting close upon its nest starts up at
his feet with an angry hiss, and he nods again: feathered game and
fur--a good spot this. Heather, bilberry, and cloudberry cover the
ground; there are tiny ferns, and the seven-pointed star flowers of
the winter-green. Here and there he stops to dig with an iron tool,
and finds good mould, or peaty soil, manured with the rotted wood and
fallen leaves of a thousand years. He nods, to say that he has found
himself a place to stay and live: ay, he will stay here and live. Two
days he goes exploring the country round, returning each evening to
the hillside. He sleeps at night on a bed of stacked pine; already he
feels at home here, with a bed of pine beneath an overhanging rock.
The worst of his task had been to find the place; this no-man's place,
but his. Now, there was work to fill his days. He started at once,
stripping birch bark in the woods farther off, while the sap was still
in the trees. The bark he pressed and dried, and when he had gathered
a heavy load, carried it all the miles back to the village, to be sold
for building. Then back to the hillside, with new sacks of food and
implements; flour and pork, a cooking-pot, a spade--out and back along
the way he had come, carrying loads all the time. A born carrier of
loads, a lumbering barge of a man in the forest--oh, as if he loved
his calling, tramping long roads and carrying heavy burdens; as if
life without a load upon one's shoulders were a miserable thing, no
life for him.
One day he came up with more than the load he bore; came leading three
goats in a leash. He was proud of his goats as if they had been horned
cattle, and tended them kindly. Then came the first stranger passing,
a nomad Lapp; at sight of the goats, he knew that this was a man who
had come to stay, and spoke to him.
"You going to live here for good?"
"Ay," said the man.
"What's your name?"
"Isak. You don't know of a woman body anywhere'd come and help?"
"No. But I'll say a word of it to all I meet."
"Ay, do that. Say I've creatures here, and none to look to them."
The Lapp went on his way. Isak--ay, he would say a word of that. The
man on the hillside was no runaway; he had told his name. A runaway?
He would have been found. Only a worker, and a hardy one. He set about
cutting winter fodder for his goats, clearing the ground, digging a
field, shifting stones, making a wall of stones. By the autumn he had
built a house for himself, a hut of turf, sound and strong and warm;
storms could not shake it, and nothing could burn it down. Here was
a home; he could go inside and shut the door, and stay there; could
stand outside on the door-slab, the owner of that house, if any should
pass by. There were two rooms in the hut; for himself at the one end,
and for his beasts at the other. Farthest in, against the wall of
rock, was the hayloft. Everything was there.
Two more Lapps come by, father and son. They stand resting with both
hands on their long staves, taking stock of the hut and the clearing,
noting the sound of the goat-bells up on the hillside.
"_Goddag_" say the Lapps. "And here's fine folk come to live." Lapps
talk that way, with flattering words.
"You don't know of any woman hereabouts to help?" says Isak, thinking
always of but one thing.
"Woman to help? No. But we'll say a word of it."
"Ay, if you'd be so good. That I've a house and a bit of ground here,
and goats, but no woman to help. Say that."
Oh, he had sought about for a woman to help each time he had been down
to the village with his loads of bark, but there was none to be found.
They would look at him, a widow or an old unmarried one or so, but all
afraid to offer, whatever might be in their minds. Isak couldn't tell
why. Couldn't tell why? Who would go as help to live with a man in the
wilds, ever so many miles away--a whole day's journey to the nearest
neighbour? And the man himself was no way charming or pleasant by his
looks, far from it; and when he spoke it was no tenor with eyes to
heaven, but a coarse voice, something like a beast's.
Well, he would have to manage alone.
In winter, he made great wooden troughs, and sold them in the village,
carrying sacks of food and tools back through the snow; hard days when
he was tied to a load. There were the goats, and none to look to them;
he could not be away for long. And what did he do? Need made him wise;
his brain was strong and little used; he trained it up to ever more
and more. His first way was to let the goats loose before starting off
himself, so that they could get a full feed among the undergrowth
in the woods. But he found another plan. He took a bucket, a great
vessel, and hung it up by the river so that a single drop fell in at a
time, taking fourteen hours to fill it. When it was full to the brim,
the weight was right; the bucket sank, and in doing so, pulled a line
connected with the hayloft; a trap-door opened, and three bundles of
fodder came through--the goats were fed.
That was his way.
A bright idea; an inspiration, maybe, sent from God. The man had none
to help him but himself. It served his need until late in the autumn;
then came the first snow, then rain, then snow again, snowing all the
time. And his machine went wrong; the bucket was filled from above,
opening the trap too soon. He fixed a cover over, and all went well
again for a time; then came winter, the drop of water froze to an
icicle, and stopped the machine for good.
The goats must do as their master--learn to do without.
Hard times--the man had need of help, and there was none, yet still he
found a way. He worked and worked at his home; he made a window in the
hut with two panes of real glass, and that was a bright and wonderful
day in his life. No need of lighting fires to see; he could sit
indoors and work at his wooden troughs by daylight. Better days,
brighter days ... eyah!
He read no books, but his thoughts were often with God; it was
natural, coming of simplicity and awe. The stars in the sky, the wind
in the trees, the solitude and the wide-spreading snow, the might
of earth and over earth filled him many times a day with a deep
earnestness. He was a sinner and feared God; on Sundays he washed
himself out of reverence for the holy day, but worked none the less as
through the week.
Spring came; he worked on his patch of ground, and planted potatoes.
His livestock multiplied; the two she-goats had each had twins, making
seven in all about the place. He made a bigger shed for them, ready
for further increase, and put a couple of glass panes in there too.
Ay, 'twas lighter and brighter now in every way.
And then at last came help; the woman he needed. She tacked about for
a long time, this way and that across the hillside, before venturing
near; it was evening before she could bring herself to come down. And
then she came--a big, brown-eyed girl, full-built and coarse, with
good, heavy hands, and rough hide brogues on her feet as if she
had been a Lapp, and a calfskin bag slung from her shoulders. Not
altogether young; speaking politely; somewhere nearing thirty.
There was nothing to fear; but she gave him greeting and said hastily:
"I was going cross the hills, and took this way, that was all."
"Ho," said the man. He could barely take her meaning, for she spoke in
a slovenly way, also, she kept her face turned aside.
"Ay," said she, "'tis a long way to come."
"Ay, it's that," says the man. "Cross the hills, you said?"
"Yes."
"And what for?"
"I've my people there."
"Eh, so you've your people there? And what's your name?"
"Inger. And what's yours?"
"Isak."
"Isak? H'm. D'you live here yourself, maybe?"
"Ay, here, such as it is."
"Why, 'tis none so bad," said she to please him.
Now he had grown something clever to think out the way of things, and
it struck him then she'd come for that very business and no other; had
started out two days back just to come here. Maybe she had heard of
his wanting a woman to help.
"Go inside a bit and rest your feet," said he.
They went into the hut and took a bit of the food she had brought, and
some of his goats' milk to drink; then they made coffee, that she had
brought with her in a bladder. Settled down comfortably over their
coffee until bedtime. And in the night, he lay wanting her, and she
was willing.
She did not go away next morning; all that day she did not go, but
helped about the place; milked the goats, and scoured pots and things
with fine sand, and got them clean. She did not go away at all. Inger
was her name. And Isak was his name.
And now it was another life for the solitary man. True, this wife of
his had a curious slovenly way of speech, and always turning her face
aside, by reason of a hare-lip that she had, but that was no matter.
Save that her mouth was disfigured, she would hardly have come to
him at all; he might well be grateful for that she was marked with a
hare-lip. And as to that, he himself was no beauty. Isak with the iron
beard and rugged body, a grim and surly figure of a man; ay, as a man
seen through a flaw in the window-pane. His look was not a gentle one;
as if Barabbas might break loose at any minute. It was a wonder Inger
herself did not run away.
She did not run away. When he had been out, and came home again, there
was Inger at the hut; the two were one, the woman and the hut.
It was another mouth for him to feed, but no loss in that; he had
more freedom now, and could go and stay as he needed. And there were
matters to be looked to away from home. There was the river; pleasant
to look at, and deep and swift besides; a river not to be despised;
it must come from some big water up in the hills. He got himself some
fishing gear and went exploring; in the evening he came back with
a basket of trout and char. This was a great thing to Inger, and a
marvel; she was overwhelmed, being no way used to fine dishes. She
clapped her hands and cried out: "Why! Wherever...." And she was not
slow to see how he was pleased at her surprise, and proud of it, for
she said more in the same strain--oh, she had never seen the like, and
how had he ever managed to find such things!
Inger was a blessing, too, in other ways. No clever head nor great in
wit, maybe--but she had two lambing ewes with some of her kinsfolk,
and brought them down. It was the best they could have wished for at
the hut; sheep with wool and lambs four new head to their stock about
the place; it was growing, getting bigger; a wonder and a marvel how
their stock was grown. And Inger brought more; clothes, and little
trifles of her own, a looking-glass and a string of pretty glass
beads, a spinning-wheel, and carding-combs. Why, if she went on that
gait the hut would soon be filled from floor to roof and no room for
more! Isak was astonished in his turn at all this wealth of goods, but
being a silent man and slow to speak, he said nothing, only shambled
out to the door-slab and looked at the weather, and shambled in again.
Ay, he had been lucky indeed; he felt himself more and more in love,
or drawn towards her, or whatever it might be.
"You've no call to fetch along all such stuff," said he. "Tis more
than's needed."
"I've more if I like to fetch it. And there's uncle Sivert
besides--you've heard of him?" "No."
"Why, he's a rich man, and district treasurer besides."
Love makes a fool of the wise. Isak felt he must do something grand
himself, and overdid it. "What I was going to say; you've no need to
bother with hoeing potatoes. I'll do it myself the evening, when I
come home."
And he took his ax and went off to the woods.
She heard him felling in the woods, not so far off; she could hear
from the crash that he was felling big timber. She listened for a
while, and then went out to the potato field and set to work hoeing.
Love makes fools wise.
Isak came home in the evening, hauling a huge trunk by a rope. Oh,
that simple and innocent Isak, he made all the noise he could with his
tree-trunk, and coughed and hemmed, all for her to come out and wonder
at him. And sure enough:
"Why, you're out of your senses," said Inger when she came out. "Is
that work for a man single-handed?" He made no answer; wouldn't have
said a word for anything. To do a little more than was work for a man
single-handed was nothing to speak of--nothing at all. A stick of
timber--huh! "And what are you going to do with it?" she asked.
"Oh, we'll see," he answered carelessly, as if scarcely heeding she
was there.
But when he saw that she had hoed the potatoes after all he was not
pleased. It was as if she had done almost as much as he; and that was
not to his liking. He slipped the rope from the tree-trunk and went
off with it once more.
"What, haven't you done yet?"
"No," said he gruffly.
And he came back with another stick like the last, only with no noise
nor sign of being out of breath; hauled it up to the hut like an ox,
and left it there.
That summer he felled a mass of timber, and brought it to the hut.
Chapter II
Inger packed up some food one day in her calfskin bag. "I'd thought of
going across to see my people, just how they're faring."
"Ay," said Isak.
"I must have a bit of talk with them about things."
Isak did not go out at once to see her off, but waited quite a while.
And when at last he shambled out, looking never the least bit anxious,
never the least bit miserable and full of fear, Inger was all but
vanished already through the fringe of the forest.
"Hem!" He cleared his throat, and called, "Will you be coming back
maybe?" He had not meant to ask her that, but....
"Coming back? Why, what's in your mind? Of course I'll be coming
back."
"H'm."
So he was left alone again--eyah, well ...! With his strength, and the
love of work that was in him, he could not idle in and out about the
hut doing nothing; he set to, clearing timber, felling straight, good
sticks, and cutting them flat on two sides. He worked at this all
through the day, then he milked the goats and went to bed.
Sadly bare and empty now in the hut; a heavy silence clung about
the peat walls and the earthen floor; a deep and solemn loneliness.
Spinning-wheel and carding-combs were in their place; the beads, too,
were safe as they had been, stowed away in a bag under the roof. Inger
had taken nothing of her belongings. But Isak, unthinkably simple as
he was, grew afraid of the dark in the light summer nights, and saw
Shapes and Things stealing past the window. He got up before dawn,
about two o'clock by the light, and ate his breakfast, a mighty dish
of porridge to last the day, and save the waste of time in cooking
more. In the evening he turned up new ground, to make a bigger field
for the potatoes.
Three days he worked with spade and ax by turns; Inger should be
coming on the next. 'Twould be but reasonable to have a platter of
fish for her when she came--but the straight road to the water lay by
the way she would come, and it might seem.... So he went a longer way;
a new way, over the hills where he had never been before. Grey rock
and brown, and strewed about with bits of heavy stone, heavy as copper
or lead. There might be many things in those heavy stones; gold or
silver, like as not--he had no knowledge of such things, and did not
care. He came to the water; the fly was up, and the fish were biting
well that night. He brought home a basket of fish that Inger would
open her eyes to see! Going back in the morning by the way he had
come, he picked up a couple of the heavy little stones among the
hills; they were brown, with specks of dark blue here and there, and
wondrous heavy in the hand.
Inger had not come, and did not come. This was the fourth day. He
milked the goats as he had used to do when he lived alone with them
and had no other to help; then he went up to a quarry near by and
carried down stones; great piles of carefully chosen blocks and
flakes, to build a wall. He was busy with no end of things.
On the fifth evening, he turned in to rest with a little fear at his
heart--but there were the carding-combs and spinning-wheel, and the
string of beads. Sadly empty and bare in the hut, and never a sound;
the hours were long, and when at last he did hear something like a
sound of footsteps outside, he told himself that it was fancy, nothing
more. "Eyah, _Herregud_!" [Footnote: Literally, "Lord God." The word
is frequently used, as here, in a sense of resignation, as it were a
sigh.] he murmured, desolate in spirit. And Isak was not one to use
words lightly. There was the tramping of feet again outside, and a
moment after something gliding past the window; something with horns,
something alive. He sprang up, over to the door, and lo, a vision!
"God or the devil," muttered Isak, who did not use words lightly. He
saw a cow; Inger and a cow, vanishing into the shed.
If he had not stood there himself and heard it--Inger talking softly
to the cow in the shed--he would not have believed. But there he
stood. And all at once a black misgiving came into his mind: a clever
wife, ay, a manager of wonders--but, after all.... No, it was too
much, and that was the only word for it. A spinning-wheel and
carding-combs at a pinch; even the beads perhaps, though they were
over fine to be come by in any way proper and natural. But a cow,
picked up straying on the road, maybe, or in a field--it would be
missed in no time, and have to be found.
Inger stepped out of the shed, and said with a proud little laugh:
"It's only me. I've brought my cow along."
"H'm," said Isak.
"It was that made me so long--I couldn't go but softly with her over
the hills."
"And so you've brought a cow?" said he.
"Yes," said she, all ready to burst with greatness and riches on
earth. "Don't you believe me, perhaps?"
Isak feared the worst, but made no sign, and only said:
"Come inside and get something to eat."
"Did you see her? Isn't she a pretty cow?"
"Ay, a fine cow," said Isak. And speaking as carelessly as he could,
he asked, "Where d'you get her?"
"Her name's Goldenhorns. What's that wall to be for you've been
building up here? You'll work yourself to death, you will. Oh, come
and look at the cow, now, won't you?"
They went out to look, and Isak was in his underclothes, but that was
no matter. They looked and looked the cow all over carefully, in every
part, and noted all the markings, head and shoulders, buttocks and
thighs, where it was red and white, and how it stood.
"How old d'you think she might be?" asked Isak cautiously.
"Think? Why, she's just exactly a tiny way on in her fourth year. I
brought her up myself, and they all said it was the sweetest calf
they'd ever seen. But will there be feed enough here d'you think?"
Isak began to believe, as he was only too willing to do, that all was
well. "As for the feed, why, there'll be feed enough, never fear."
Then they went indoors to eat and drink and make an evening together.
They lay awake talking of Cow; of the great event. "And isn't she a
dear cow, too? Her second's on the way. And her name's Goldenhorns.
Are you asleep, Isak?"
"No."
"And what do you think, she knew me again; knew me at once, and
followed me like a lamb. We lay up in the hills a bit last night."
"Ho?"
"But she'll have to be tied up through the summer, all the same, or
she'll be running off. A cow's a cow."
"Where's she been before?" asked Isak at last.
"Why, with my people, where she belonged. And they were quite sorry to
lose her, I can tell you; and the little ones cried when I took her
away."
Could she be making it all up, and coming out with it so pat? No, it
wasn't thinkable. It must be true, the cow was hers. Ho, they were
getting well-to-do, with this hut of theirs, this farm of theirs; why,
'twas good enough for any one. Ay, they'd as good as all they could
wish for already. Oh, that Inger; he loved her and she loved him
again; they were frugal folk; they lived in primitive wise, and lacked
for nothing. "Let's go to sleep!" And they went to sleep. And wakened
in the morning to another day, with things to look at, matters to see
to, once again; ay, toil and pleasure, ups and downs, the way of life.
As, for instance, with those timber baulks--should he try to fit them
up together? Isak had kept his eyes about him down in the village,
with that very thing in mind, and seen how it was done; he could build
with timber himself, why not? Moreover, it was a call upon him;
it must be done. Hadn't they a farm with sheep, a farm with a cow
already, goats that were many already and would be more?--their live
stock alone was crowding them out of the turf hut; something must be
done. And best get on with it at once, while the potatoes were still
in flower, and before the haytime began. Inger would have to lend a
hand here and there.
Isak wakes in the night and gets up, Inger sleeping fine and sound
after her long tramp, and out he goes to the cowshed. Now it must not
be thought that he talked to Cow in any obsequious and disgustful
flattery; no, he patted her decently, and looked her over once more in
every part, to see if there should, by chance, be any sign, any mark
of her belonging to strange owners. No mark, no sign, and Isak steals
away relieved.
There lies the timber. He falls to, rolling the baulks, then lifting
them, setting them up against the wall in a framework; one big frame
for a parlour, and a smaller one--there must be a room to sleep in. It
was heavy work, hard-breathing work, and his mind being set on it, he
forgot the time. There comes a smoke from the roof-hole of the hut,
and Inger steps out and calls to breakfast.
"And what are you busy with now?" asked Inger.
"You're early about," says Isak, and that was all.
Ho, that Isak with his secrets and his lordly ways! But it pleased
him, maybe, to have her asking and wondering, and curious about his
doings. He ate a bit, and sat for a while in the hut before going out
again. What could he be waiting for?
"H'm," says he at last, getting up. "This won't do. Can't sit here
idling today. Work to be done."
"Seems like you're building," says Inger. "What?"
And he answered condescendingly, this great man who went about
building with timber all by himself, he answered: "Why, you can see as
much, I take it."
"Yes.... Yes, of course."
"Building--why, there's no help for it as I can see.. Here's you come
bringing a whole cow to the farm--that means a cowshed, I suppose?"
Poor Inger, not so eternally wise as he, as Isak, that lord of
creation. And this was before she learned to know him, and reckon with
his way of putting things. Says Inger:
"Why, it's never a cowshed you're building, surely?"
"Ho," says he.
"But you don't mean it? I--I thought you'd be building a house first."
"Think so?" says Isak, putting up a face as if he'd never in life have
thought of that himself.
"Why yes. And put the beasts in the hut."
Isak thought for a bit. "Ay, maybe 'twould be best so."
"There," says Inger, all glad and triumphant. "You see I'm some good
after all."
"Ay, that's true. And what'd you say to a house with two rooms in?"
"_Two_ rooms? Oh ...! Why, 'twould be just like other folks. Do you
think we could?"
They did. Isak he went about building, notching his baulks and fitting
up his framework; also he managed a hearth and fireplace of picked
stones, though this last was troublesome, and Isak himself was not
always pleased with his work. Haytime came, and he was forced to
climb down from his building and go about the hillsides far and near,
cutting grass and bearing home the hay in mighty loads. Then one rainy
day he must go down to the village.
"What you want in the village?"
"Well, I can't say exactly as yet...."
He set off, and stayed away two days, and came Back with a
cooking-stove--a barge of a man surging up through the forest with
a whole iron stove on his back. "'Tis more than a man can do," said
Inger. "You'll kill yourself that gait." But Isak pulled down the
stone hearth, that didn't look so well in the new house, and set
up the cooking-stove in its place. "'Tisn't every one has a
cooking-stove," said Inger. "Of all the wonders, how we're getting
on!..."
Haymaking still; Isak bringing in loads and masses of hay, for
woodland grass is not the same as meadow grass, more's the pity, but
poorer by far. It was only on rainy days now that he could spare time
for his building; 'twas a lengthy business, and even by August, when
all the hay was in, safely stored under the shelter of the rock, the
new house was still but half-way done. Then by September: "This won't
do," said Isak. "You'd better run down to the village and get a man to
help." Inger had been something poorly of late, and didn't run much
now, but all the same she got herself ready to go.
But Isak had changed his mind again; had put on his lordly manner
again, and said he would manage by himself. "No call to bother with
other folk," says he; "I can manage it alone."
"'Tis more than one man's work," says Inger. "You'll wear yourself
out."
"Just help me to hoist these up," says Isak, and that was all.
October came, and Inger had to give up. This was a hard blow, for the
roof-beams must be got up at any cost, and the place covered in before
the autumn rains; there was not a day to be lost. What could be wrong
with Inger? Not going to be ill? She would make cheese now and then
from the goats' milk, but beyond that she did little save shifting
Goldenhorns a dozen times a day where she grazed.
"Bring up a good-sized basket, or a box," she had said, "next time
you're down to the village."
"What d'you want that for?" asked Isak.
"I'll just be wanting it," said Inger.
Isak hauled up the roof-beams on a rope, Inger guiding them with one
hand; it seemed a help just to have her about. Bit by bit the work
went on; there was no great height to the roof, but the timber was
huge and heavy for a little house.
The weather kept fine, more or less. Inger got the potatoes in by
herself, and Isak had the roofing done before the rain came on in
earnest. The goats were brought in of a night into the hut and all
slept there together; they managed somehow, they managed everyway, and
did not grumble.
Isak was getting ready for another journey down to the village. Said
Inger very humbly:
"Do you think perhaps you could bring up a good-sized basket, or a
box?"
"I've ordered some glass windows," said Isak. "and a couple of painted
doors. I'll have to fetch them up," said he in his lordly way.
"Ay well, then. It's no great matter about the basket."
"What did you want with a basket? What's it for?"
"What's it for?... Oh, haven't you eyes in your head!"
Isak went off deep in thought. Two days later he came back, with a
window and a door for the parlour, and a door for the bedroom; also he
had hung round his neck in front a good-sized packing-case, and full
of provisions to boot.
"You'll carry yourself to death one day," said Inger.
"Ho, indeed!" Isak was very far indeed from being dead; he took out
a bottle of medicine from his pocket--naphtha it was--and gave it to
Inger with orders to take it regularly and get well again. And there
were the windows and the painted doors that he could fairly boast of;
he set to work at once fitting them in. Oh, such little doors, and
secondhand at that, but painted up all neat and fine again in red and
white; 'twas almost as good as having pictures on the walls.
And now they moved into the new building, and the animals had the turf
hut to themselves, only a lambing ewe was left with Cow, lest she
should feel lonely.
They had done well, these builders in the waste: ay, 'twas a wonder
and a marvel to themselves.
Chapter II
Isak worked on the land until the frost act in; there were stones and
roots to be dug up and cleared away, and the meadow to be levelled
ready for next year. When the ground hardened, he left his field work
and became a woodman, felling and cutting up great quantities of logs.
"What do you want with all these logs?" Inger would say.
"Oh, they'll be useful some way," said Isak off-handedly, as though he
had no plan. But Isak had a plan, never fear. Here was virgin forest,
a dense growth, right close up to the house, a barrier hedging in
his fields where he wanted room. Moreover, there must be some way of
getting the logs down to the village that winter; there were folk
enough would be glad of wood for firing. It was sound enough, and Isak
was in no doubt; he stuck to his work in the forest, felling trees and
cutting them up into logs.
Inger came out often, to watch him at work. He took no notice, but
made as if her coming were no matter, and not at all a thing he wished
for her to do; but she understood all the same that it pleased him to
have her there. They had a strange way, too, of speaking to each other
at times.
"Couldn't you find things to do but come out here and get stark
frozen?" says Isak.
"I'm well enough for me," says Inger. "But I can't see there's any
living sense in you working yourself to death like you do."
"Ho! You just pick up that coat of mine there and put it on you."
"Put on your coat? Likely, indeed. I've no time to sit here now, with
Goldenhorns ready to calve and all."
"H'm, Calving, you say?"
"As if you didn't know! But what do you think now about that same
calf. Let it stay and be weaned, maybe?"
"Do as you think; 'tis none of my business with calves and things."
"Well, 'twould be a pity to eat up calf, seems to me. And leave us
with but one cow on the place."
"Don't seem to me like you'd do that anyway," says Isak.
That was their way. Lonely folk, ugly to look at and overfull of
growth, but a blessing for each other, for the beasts, and for the
earth.
And Goldenhorns calved. A great day in the wilderness, a joy and a
delight. They gave her flour-wash, and Isak himself saw to it there
was no stint of flour, though he had carried it all the way himself,
on his back. And there lay a pretty calf, a beauty, red-flanked like
her mother, and comically bewildered at the miracle of coming into the
world. In a couple of years she would be having calves of her own.
"'Twill be a grand fine cow when she grows up," said Inger. "And what
are we to call her, now? I can't think."
Inger was childish in her ways, and no clever wit for anything.
"Call her?" said Isak. "Why, Silverhorns, of course; what else?"
The first snow came. As soon as there was a passable road, Isak set
out for the village, full of concealment and mystery as ever, when
Inger asked his errand. And sure enough, he came back this time with a
new and unthinkable surprise. A horse and sledge, nothing less.
"Here's foolishness," says Inger. "And you've not stolen it, I
suppose?"
"Stolen it?"
"Well, found it, then?"
Now if only he could have said: "'Tis my horse--our horse...." But
to tell the truth, he had only hired it, after all. Hired horse and
sledge to cart his logs.
Isak drove down with his loads of firewood, and brought back food,
herrings and flour. And one day he came up with a young bull on the
sledge; bought it for next to nothing, by reason they were getting
short of fodder down in the village. Shaggy and thin, no ways a
beauty, but decently built for all that, and wanted no more than
proper feed to set it right. And with a cow they had already....
"What'll you be bringing up next?" said Inger.
Isak brought up a host of things. Brought up planks and a saw he had
got in exchange for timber; a grindstone, a wafer iron, tools--all
in exchange for his logs. Inger was bursting with riches, and said
each time: "What, more things! When we've cattle and all a body could
think of!"
They had enough to meet their needs for no little time to come, and
were well-to-do folk. What was Isak to start on again next spring? He
had thought it all out, tramping down beside his loads of wood that
winter; he would clear more ground over the hillside and level it off,
cut up more logs to dry through the summer, and take down double loads
when the snow came fit for sledging. It worked out beautifully.
But there was another matter Isak had thought of times out of number:
that Goldenhorns, where had she come from, whose had she been? There
was never a wife on earth like Inger. Ho! a wild thing she was, that
let him do as he pleased with her, and was glad of it. But--suppose
one day they were to come for the cow, and take it away--and worse,
maybe, to come after? What was it Inger herself had said about the
horse: "You haven't stolen it, I suppose, or found it?" That was her
first thought, yes. That was what she had said; who could say if she
were to be trusted--what should he do? He had thought of it all many
a time. And here he had brought up a mate himself for the cow--for a
stolen cow, maybe!
And there was the horse he would have to return again. A pity--for
'twas a little friendly beast, and grown fond of them already.
"Never mind," said Inger comfortingly. "Why, you've done wonders
already."
"Ay, but just now with the spring coming on--and I've need of a
horse...."
Next morning he drove off quietly with the last load, and was away two
days. Coming back on foot the third day, he stopped as he neared the
house, and stood listening. There was a curious noise inside.... A
child crying--Eyah, _Herregud_!... Well, there it was; but a terrible
strange thing. And Inger had never said a word.
He stepped inside, and there first thing of all was the
packing-case--the famous packing-case that he had carried home slung
round his neck in front; there it was, hung up by a string at each end
from the ceiling, a cradle and a bedplace for the child. Inger was up,
pottering about half-dressed--she had milked the cow and the goats, as
it might have been just an ordinary day.
The child stopped crying. "You're through with it already?" said Isak.
"Ay, I'm through with it now."
"H'm."
"It came the first evening you were gone."
"H'm."
"I'd only to get my things off and hang up the cradle there, but it
was too much for me, like, and I had to lie down."
"Why didn't you tell me before?"
"Why, I couldn't say to a minute when it'd be. 'Tis a boy."
"Ho, a boy."
"And I can't for the life of me think what we're to call him," said
Inger.
Isak peeped at the little red face; well shaped it was, and no
hare-lip, and a growth of hair all thick on the head. A fine little
fellow for his rank and station in a packing-case; Isak felt himself
curiously weak. The rugged man stood there with a miracle before him;
a thing created first of all in a sacred mist, showing forth now in
life with a little face like an allegory. Days and years, and the
miracle would be a human being.
"Come and have your food," said Inger....
* * * * *
Isak is a woodman, felling trees and sawing logs. He is better off now
than before, having a saw. He works away, and mighty piles of wood
grow up; he makes a street of them, a town, built up of stacks and
piles of wood. Inger is more about the house now, and does not come
out as before to watch him at his work; Isak must find a pretext now
and then to slip off home for a moment instead. Queer to have a little
fellow like that about the place! Isak, of course, would never dream
of taking any notice--'twas but a bit of a thing in a packing-case.
And as for being fond of it ... But when it cried, well, it was only
human nature to feel just a little something for a cry like that; a
little tiny cry like that.
"Don't touch him!" says Inger. "With your hands all messed up with
resin and all!"
"Resin, indeed!" says Isak. "Why, I haven't had resin on my hands
since I built this house. Give me the boy, let me take him--there,
he's as right as can be!"
* * * * *
Early in May came a visitor. A woman came over the hills to that
lonely place where none ever came; she was of Inger's kinsfolk, though
not near, and they made her welcome.
"I thought I'd just look in," she says, "and see how Goldenhorns gets
on since she left us."
Inger looks at the child, and talks to it in a little pitying voice:
"Ah, there's none asks how he's getting on, that's but a little tiny
thing."
"Why, as for that, any one can see how he's getting on. A fine little
lad and all. And who'd have thought it a year gone, Inger, to find you
here with house and husband and child and all manner of things."
"'Tis no doing of mine to praise. But there's one sitting there that
took me as I was and no more."
"And wedded?--Not wedded yet, no, I see."
"We'll see about it, the time this little man's to be christened,"
says Inger. "We'd have been wedded before, but couldn't come by it,
getting down to a church and all. What do you say, Isak?"
"Wedded?" says Isak. "Why, yes, of course."
"But if as you'd help us, Oline," says Inger. "Just to come up for a
few days in the off time once, and look to the creatures here while
we're away?"
Ay, Oline would do that.
"We'll see it's no loss to you after."
Why, as to that, she'd leave it to them.... "And you're building
again, I see. Now what'll that be for? Isn't there built enough?"
Inger sees her chance and puts in here: "Why, you must ask him about
that. I'm not to know."
"Building?" says Isak. "Oh, 'tis nothing to speak of. A bit of a
shed, maybe, if we should need it. What's that you were saying about
Goldenhorns? You'd like to see her?"
They go across to the cowshed, and there's cow and calf to show, and
an ox to boot. The visitor nods her head, looking at the beasts, and
at the shed; all fine as could be, and clean as couldn't be cleaner.
"Trust Inger for looking after creatures every way," says Oline.
Isak puts a question: "Goldenhorns was at your place before?"
"Ay, from a calf. Not my place, though; at my son's. But 'tis all the
same. And we've her mother still."
Isak had not heard better news a long while; it was a burden lighter.
Goldenhorns was his and Inger's by honest right. To tell the truth, he
had half thought of getting rid of his trouble in a sorry way; to kill
off the cow that autumn, scrape the hide, bury the horns, and thus
make away with all trace of Cow Goldenhorns in this life. No need for
that now. And he grew mightily proud of Inger all at once.
"Ay, Inger," says he. "She's one to manage things, that's true.
There's not her like nor equal to be found. 'Twas a poor place here
till I got a woman of my own, as you might say."
"Why, 'tis but natural so," says Oline.
And so this woman from across the hills, a soft-spoken creature with
her wits about her, and by name Oline, she stayed with them a couple
of days, and had the little room to sleep in. And, when she set out
for home, she had a bundle of wool that Inger had given her, from the
sheep. There was no call to hide that bundle of wool, but Oline took
care that Isak should not see it.
Then the child and Isak and his wife again; the same world again, and
the work of the day, with many little joys and big. Goldenhorns was
yielding well, the goats had dropped their kids and were yielding
well; Inger had a row of red and white cheeses already, stored away to
get ripe. It was her plan to save up cheeses till there were enough to
buy a loom. Oh, that Inger; she knew how to weave.
And Isak built a shed--he too had a plan of his own, no doubt. He set
up a new wing built out from the side of the turf hut, with double
panelling boards, made a doorway in it, and a neat little window with
four panes; laid on a roof of outer boards, and made do with that
till the ground thawed and he could get turf. All that was useful and
necessary; no flooring, no smooth-planed walls, but Isak had fixed up
a box partition, as for a horse, and a manger.
It was nearing the end of May. The sun had thawed the high ground;
Isak roofed in his shed with turf and it was finished. Then one
morning he ate a meal to last for the day, took some more food with
him, shouldered pick and spade, and went down to the village.
"Bring up three yards of cotton print, if you can," Inger called after
him.
"What do you want with that?" said Isak.
Isak was long away; it almost seemed as if he had gone for good. Inger
looked at the weather every day, noting the way of the wind, as if she
were expecting a sailing-ship; she went out at nighttime to listen;
even thought of taking the child on her arm and going after him. Then
at last he came back, with a horse and cart. "_Piro_!" shouted Isak as
he drew up; shouted so as to be heard. And the horse was well behaved,
and stood as quiet as could be, nodding at the turf hut as if it knew
the place again. Nevertheless, Isak must call out, "Hi, come and hold
the horse a bit, can't you?"
Out goes Inger. "Where is it now? Oh, Isak, have you hired him again?
Where have you been all this time? 'Tis six days gone."
"Where d'you think I'd be? Had to go all sorts of ways round to find a
road for this cart of mine. Hold the horse a bit, can't you?"
"Cart of yours! You don't mean to say you've bought that cart?"
Isak dumb; Isak swelling with things unspoken. He lifts out a plough
and a harrow he has brought; nails, provisions, a grindstone, a sack
of corn. "And how's the child?" he asks.
"Child's all right. Have you bought that cart, that's what I want to
know? For here have I been longing and longing for a loom," says she
jestingly, in her gladness at having him back again.
Isak dumb once more, for a long space, busied with his own affairs,
pondering, looking round for a place to put all his goods and
implements; it was hard to find room for them all. But when Inger gave
up asking, and began talking to the horse instead, he came out of his
lofty silence at last.
"Ever see a farm _without_ a horse and cart, and plough and harrows,
and all the rest of it? And since you want to know, why, I've bought
that horse and cart, and all that's in it," says he.
And Inger could only shake her head and murmur: "Well, I never did see
such a man!"
Isak was no longer littleness and humility; he had paid, as it were,
like a gentleman, for Goldenhorns. "Here you are," he could say. "I've
brought along a horse; we can call it quits."
He stood there, upright and agile, against his wont; shifted the
plough once more, picked it up and carried it with one hand and stood
it up against the wall. Oh, he could manage an estate! He took up the
other things: the harrow, the grindstone, a new fork he had bought,
all the costly agricultural implements, treasures of the new home, a
grand array. All requisite appliances--nothing was lacking.
"H'm. As for that loom, why, we'll manage that too, I dare say, as
long as I've my health. And there's your cotton print; they'd none but
blue, so I took that."
There was no end to the things he brought. A bottomless well, rich in
all manner of things, like a city store.
Says Inger: "I wish Oline could have seen all this when she was here."
Just like a woman! Sheer senseless vanity--as if that mattered! Isak
sniffed contemptuously. Though perhaps he himself would not have been
displeased if Oline had been there to see.
The child was crying.
"Go in and look after the boy," said Isak. "I'll look to the horse."
He takes out the horse and leads it into the stable: ay, here is Isak
putting his horse into the stable. Feeds it and strokes it and
treats it tenderly. And how much was owing now, on that horse and
cart?--Everything, the whole sum, a mighty debt; but it should all be
paid that summer, never fear. He had stacks of cordwood to pay with,
and some building bark from last year's cut, not to speak of heavy
timber. There was time enough. But later on, when the pride and glory
had cooled off a little, there were bitter hours of fear and anxiety;
all depended on the summer and the crops; how the year turned out.
The days now were occupied in field work and more field work; he
cleared new bits of ground, getting out roots and stones; ploughing,
manuring, harrowing, working with pick and spade, breaking lumps of
soil and crumbling them with hand and heel; a tiller of the ground
always, laying out fields like velvet carpets. He waited a couple of
days longer--there was a look of rain about--and then he sowed his
corn.
For generations back, into forgotten time, his fathers before him had
sowed corn; solemnly, on a still, calm evening, best with a gentle
fall of warm and misty rain, soon after the grey goose flight.
Potatoes were a new thing, nothing mystic, nothing religious; women
and children could plant them--earth-apples that came from foreign
parts, like coffee; fine rich food, but much like swedes and mangolds.
Corn was nothing less than bread; corn or no corn meant life or death.
Isak walked bareheaded, in Jesu name, a sower. Like a tree-stump with
hands to look at, but in his heart like a child. Every cast was made
with care, in a spirit of kindly resignation. Look! the tiny grains
that are to take life and grow, shoot up into ears, and give more
corn again; so it is throughout all the earth where corn is sown.
Palestine, America, the valleys of Norway itself--a great wide world,
and here is Isak, a tiny speck in the midst of it all, a sower. Little
showers of corn flung out fanwise from his hand; a kindly clouded sky,
with a promise of the faintest little misty rain.