The big bull is to be sent away. It has grown to an enormous beast,
and costs too much to feed; Isak is taking it down to the village, to
bring up a suitable yearling in exchange.
It was Inger's idea. And Inger had no doubt her own reasons for
getting Isak out of the place on that particular day.
"If you are going at all, you'd better go today," she said. "The
bull's in fine condition; 'twill fetch a good price at this time of
year. You take him down to the village, and they'll send him to be
sold in town--townsfolk pay anything for their meat."
"Ay," says Isak.
"If only the beast doesn't make trouble on the way down."
Isak made no answer.
"But he's been out and about now this last week, and getting used to
things."
Isak was silent. He took a big knife, hung it in a sheath at his
waist, and led out the bull.
A mighty beast it was, glossy-coated and terrible to look at, swaying
at the buttocks as it walked. A trifle short in the leg; when it ran,
it crushed down the undergrowth with its chest; it was like a railway
engine. Its neck was huge almost to deformity; there was the strength
of an elephant in that neck.
"If only he doesn't get mad with you," said Inger.
Isak thought for a moment. "Why, if as he takes it that way, I'll just
have to slaughter him half-way and carry down the meat."
Inger sat down on the door-slab. She was in pain; her face was aflame.
She had kept her feet till Isak was gone; now he and the bull were
out of sight, and she could give way to a groan without fear. Little
Eleseus can talk a little already; he asks: "Mama hurt? "--"Yes,
hurt." He mimics her, pressing his hands to his sides and groaning.
Little Sivert is asleep.
Inger takes Eleseus inside the house, gives him some things to play
with on the floor, and gets into bed herself. Her time was come. She
is perfectly conscious all the while, keeps an eye on Eleseus, glances
at the clock on the wall to see the time. Never a cry, hardly a
movement; the struggle is in her vitals--a burden is loosened and
glides from her. Almost at the same moment she hears a strange cry in
the bed, a blessed little voice; poor thing, poor little thing ... and
now she cannot rest, but lifts herself up and looks down. What is
it? Her face is grey and blank in a moment, without expression or
intelligence; a groan is heard; unnatural, impossible--a choking gasp.
She slips back on the bed. A minute passes; she cannot rest, the
little cry down there in the bed grows louder, she raises herself once
more, and sees--O God, the direst of all! No mercy, no hope--and this
a girl!
Isak could not have gone more than a couple of miles or so. It was
hardly an hour since he had left. In less than ten minutes Inger had
borne her child and killed it....
Isak came back on the third day, leading a half-starved yearling bull.
The beast could hardly walk; it had been a long business getting up to
the place at all.
"How did you get on?" asked Inger. She herself was ill and miserable
enough.
Isak had managed very well. True, the big bull had been mad the last
two miles or so, and he had to tie it up and fetch help from the
village. Then, when he got back, it had broken loose and took a deal
of time to find. But he had managed somehow, and had sold for a good
price to a trader in the village, buying up for butchers in the town.
"And here's the new one," said Isak. "Let the children come and look."
Any addition to the live stock was a great event. Inger looked at
the bull and felt it over, asked what it had cost; little Sivert was
allowed to sit on its back. "I shall miss the big one, though," said
Inger. "So glossy and fine he was. I do hope they'll kill him nicely."
It was the busy season now, and there was work enough. The animals
were let loose; in the empty shed were cases and bins of potatoes left
to grow. Isak sowed more corn this year than last, and did all he
could to get it nicely down. He made beds for carrots and turnips, and
Inger sowed the seeds. All went on as before.
Inger went about for some time with a bag of hay under her dress, to
hide any change in her figure, taking out a little from time to time,
and finally discarding the bag altogether. At last, one day, Isak
noticed something, and asked in surprise:
"Why, how's this? Hasn't anything happened? I thought...."
"No. Not this time."
"Ho. Why, what was wrong?
"'Twas meant to be so, I suppose. Isak, how long d'you think it'll
take you to work over all this land of ours?"
"Yes, but ... you mean you had your trouble--didn't go as it should?"
"Ay, that was it--yes."
"But yourself--you're not hurt anyway after it?"
"No. Isak, I've been thinking, we ought to have a pig."
Isak was not quick to change the subject that way. He was silent a
little, then at last he said: "Ay, a pig. I've thought of that myself
each spring. But we'll need to have more potatoes first, and more of
the small, and a bit of corn beside; we've not enough to feed a pig.
We'll see how this year turns out."
"But it would be nice to have a pig."
"Ay."
Days pass, rain comes, fields and meadows are looking well--oh, the
year will turn out well, never fear! Little happenings and big, all in
their turn: food, sleep, and work; Sundays, with washing of faces and
combing of hair, and Isak sitting about in a new red shirt of Inger's
weaving and sewing. Then an event, a happening of note in the ordinary
round: a sheep, roaming with her lamb, gets caught in a cleft among
the rocks. The others come home in the evening. Inger at once sees
there are two missing, and out goes Isak in search. Isak's first
thought is to be thankful it is Sunday, so he is not called away from
his work and losing time. He tramps off--there is an endless range
of ground to be searched; and, meanwhile, the house is all anxiety.
Mother hushes the children with brief words; there are two sheep
missing, and they must be good. All share the feeling; what has
happened is a matter for the whole little community. Even the cows
know that something unusual is going on, and give tongue in their own
fashion, for Inger goes out every now and then, calling aloud towards
the woods, though it is near night. It is an event in the wilderness,
a general misfortune. Now and again she gives a long-drawn hail to
Isak, but there is no answer; he must be out of hearing.
Where are the sheep--what can have come to them? Is there a bear
abroad? Or have the wolves come down over the hills from Sweden and
Finland? Neither, as it turns out. Isak finds the ewe stuck fast in
a cleft of rock, with a broken leg and lacerated udder. It must have
been there some time, for, despite its wounds, the poor thing has
nibbled the grass down to the roots as far as it could reach. Isak
lifts the sheep and sets it free; it falls to grazing at once. The
lamb makes for its mother and sucks away--a blessed relief for the
wounded udder to be emptied now.
Isak gathers stones and fills up the dangerous cleft; a wicked place;
it shall break no more sheep's thighs! Isak wears leather braces; he
takes them off now and fastens them round the sheep's middle, as a
support for the udder. Then, lifting the animal on his shoulders, he
sets off home, the lamb at his heels.
After that--splints and tar bandages. In a few days' time the patient
begins twitching the foot of the wounded leg; it is the fracture
aching as it grows together. Ay, all things getting well again--until
next time something happens.
The daily round; little matters that are all important to the
settler-folk themselves. Oh, they are not trifles after all, but
things of fate, making for their happiness and comfort and well-being,
or against them.
In the slack time between the seasons, Isak smooths down some new
tree-trunks he has thrown; to be used for something or other, no
doubt. Also he digs out a number of useful stones and gets them down
to the house; as soon as there are stones enough, he builds a wall of
them. A year or so back, Inger would have been curious, wondering what
her man was after with all this--now, she seemed for the most part
busied with her own work, and asked no questions. Inger is busy as
ever, but she has taken to singing, which is something new, and she is
teaching Eleseus an evening prayer; this also is something new. Isak
misses her questioning; it was her curiosity and her praise of all he
did that made him the contented man, the incomparable man he was. But
now, she goes by, saying nothing, or at most with a word or so that he
is working himself to death. "She's troubled after that last time, for
all she says," thinks Isak to himself.
Oline comes over to visit them once more. If all had been as before
she would have been welcome, but now it is different. Inger greets
her from the first with some ill-will; be it what it may, there is
something that makes Inger look on her as an enemy.
"I'd half a thought I'd be coming just at the right time again," says
Oline, with delicate meaning.
"How d'you mean?"
"Why, for the third one to be christened. How is it with you now?"
"Nay," says Inger. "For that matter you might have saved yourself the
trouble."
"Ho."
Oline falls to praising the children, so fine and big they've grown;
and Isak taking over more ground, and going to build again, by the
look of things--there's no end to things with them; a wonderful place,
and hard to find its like. "And what is he going to build this time?"
"Ask him yourself," says Inger. "I don't know."
"Nay," says Oline. "'Tis no business of mine. I just looked along to
see how things were with you here; it's a pleasure and delight for
me to see. As for Goldenhorns, I'll not ask nor speak of her--she's
fallen into proper ways, as any one can see."
They talk for a while companionably; Inger is no longer harsh. The
clock on the wall strikes with its sweet little note. Oline looks up
with tears in her eyes; never in all her humble life did she hear such
a thing--'tis like church and organ music, says Oline. Inger feels
herself rich and generous-minded towards her poor relation, and says:
"Come into the next room and see my loom."
Oline stays all day. She talks to Isak, and praises all his doings.
"And I hear you've bought up the land for miles on every side.
Couldn't you have got it for nothing, then? There's none as I can see
would take it from you."
Isak had been feeling the need of praise, and is the better for it
now. Feels a man again. "I'm buying from the Government," says Isak.
"Ay, Government. But they've no call to be grasping in a deal, surely?
What are you building now?"
"Why, I don't know. Nothing much, anyway."
"Ay, you're getting on; building and getting on you are. Painted doors
to the house, and a clock on the wall--'tis a new grand house you're
building, I suspect."
"You, with your foolish talk ..." says Isak. But he is pleased all the
same, and says to Inger: "Couldn't you make a bit of a dish of nice
cream custard for one that comes a-visiting?"
"That I can't," says Inger, "for I've churned all there was."
"'Tis no foolish talk," puts in Oline hurriedly; "I'm but a simple
woman asking to know. And if it's not a new grand house, why, 'twill
be a new big barn, I dare say; and why not? With all these fields and
meadow lands, fine and full of growth; ay, and full of milk and honey,
as the Bible says."
Isak asks: "How's things looking your way--crops and the like?"
"Why, 'tis there as it is till now. If only the Lord don't set fire
to it all again this year, and burn up the lot--Heaven forgive me I
should say the word. 'Tis all in His hand and almighty power. But
we've nothing our parts that's any way like this place of yours to
compare, and that's the solemn truth."
Inger asks after other relatives, her Uncle Sivert in particular. He
is the great man of the family, and owns rich fisheries; 'tis almost
a wonder how he can find a way to spend all he has. The women talk of
Uncle Sivert, and Isak and his doings somehow drop out of sight; no
one asks any more about his building now, so at last he says:
"Well, if you want to know, 'tis a bit of a barn with a
threshing-floor I'm trying to get set up."
"Just as I thought," says Oline. "Folk with real sound sense in their
heads, they do that way. Fore-thought and back-thought and all as it
should be. There's not a pot nor pitcher in the place you haven't
thought of. A threshing-floor, you said?"
Isak is a child. Oline's flattering words go to his head, and he
answers something foolishly with fine words: "As to that new house of
mine, there must be a threshing-floor in the same, necessarily. 'Tis
my intention so."
"A threshing-floor?" says Oline, wagging her head.
"And where's the sense of growing corn on the place if we've nowhere
to thresh it?"
"Ay, 'tis as I say, not a thing as could be but you have it all there
in your head."
Inger is suddenly out of humour again. The talk between the other two
somehow displeases her, and she breaks in:
"Cream custard indeed! And where's the cream to come from? Fish it up
in the river, maybe?"
Oline hastens to make peace. "Inger, Lord bless you, child, don't
speak of such a thing. Not a word of cream nor custard either--an old
creature like me that does but idle about from house to neighbour...!"
Isak sits for a while, then up, and saying suddenly: "Here am I doing
nothing middle of the day, and stones to fetch and carry for that wall
of mine!"
"Ay, a wall like that'll need a mighty lot of stone, to be sure."
"Stone?" says Isak. "Tis like as if there'd never be enough."
When Isak is gone, the two womenfolk get on nicely together for a
while; they sit for hours talking of this and that. In the evening,
Oline must go out and see how their live stock has grown: cows, a
bull, two calves, and a swarm of sheep and goats. "I don't know where
it'll ever end," says Oline, with her eyes turned heavenwards.
And Oline stays the night.
Next morning she goes off again. Once more she has a bundle of
something with her. Isak is working in the quarry, and she goes
another way round, so that he shall not see.
Two hours later, Oline comes back again, steps into the house, and
asks at once: "Where is Isak?"
Inger is washing up. Oline should have passed by the quarry where
Isak was at work, and the children with him; Inger at once guesses
something wrong.
"Isak? What d'you want with him?"
"Want with him?--why, nothing. Only I didn't see him to say good-bye."
Silence. Oline sits down on a bench without being asked, drops down as
if her legs refuse to carry her. Her manner is intended to show that
something serious is the matter; she is overcome.
Inger can control herself no longer. Her face is all terror and fury
as she says:
"I saw what you sent me by Os-Anders. Ay, 'twas a nice thing to send!"
"Why ... what...?"
"That hare."
"What do you mean?" asks Oline in a strangely gentle voice.
"Ah, don't deny it!" cries Inger, her eyes wild. "I'll break your face
in with this ladle here--see that!"
Struck her? Ay, she did so. Oline took the first blow without falling,
and only cried out: "Mind what you're doing, woman! I know what I know
about you and your doings!" Inger strikes again, gets Oline down to
the floor, falls on her there, and thrusts her knees into her.
"D'you mean to murder me?" asks Oline. The terrible woman with the
hare-lip was kneeling on her, a great strong creature armed with a
huge wooden ladle, heavy as a club. Oline was bruised already, and
bleeding, but still sullenly refusing to cry out. "So you're trying to
murder me _too_!"
"Ay, kill you," says Inger, striking again. "There! I'll see you dead
before I've done with you." She was certain of it now. Oline knew her
secret; nothing mattered now. "I'll spoil your beastly face."
"Beastly face?" gasps Oline. "Huh! Look to your own. With the Lord His
mark on it!"
Oline is hard, and will not give in; Inger is forced to give over
the blows that are exhausting her own strength. But she threatens
still--glares into the other's eyes and swears she has not finished
with her yet. "There's more to come, ay, more, more. Wait till I get a
knife. I'll show you!"
She gets on her feet again, and moves as if to look for a knife, a
table knife. But now her fury is past its worst, and she falls back on
curses and abuse. Oline heaves herself up to the bench again, her face
all blue and yellow, swollen and bleeding; she wipes the hair from
her forehead, straightens her kerchief, and spits; her mouth too is
bruised and swollen.
"You devil!" she says.
"You've been nosing about in the woods!" cries Inger. "That's what
you've been doing. You've found that little bit of a grave there.
Better if you'd dug one for yourself the same time."
"Ay, you wait," says Oline, her eyes glowing revengefully. "I'll say
no more--but you wait--there'll be no fine two-roomed house for you,
with musical clocks and all."
"You can't take it from me, anyway!"
"Ay, you wait. You'll see what Oline can do."
And so they keep on. Oline does not curse, and hardly raises her
voice; there is something almost gentle in her cold cruelty, but she
is bitterly dangerous. "Where's that bundle? I left it in the woods.
But you shall have it back--I'll not own your wool."
"Ho, you think I've stolen it, maybe."
"Ah, you know best what you've done."
So back and forth again about the wool. Inger offers to show the very
sheep it was cut from. Oline asks quietly, smoothly: "Ay, but who
knows where you got the first sheep to start with?"
Inger names the place and people where her first sheep were out to
keep with their lambs. "And you mind and care and look to what you're
saying," says she threateningly. "Guard your mouth, or you'll be
sorry."
"Ha ha ha!" laughs Oline softly. Oline is never at a loss, never to be
silenced. "My mouth, eh? And what of your own, my dear?" She points to
Inger's hare-lip, calling her a ghastly sight for God and man.
Inger answers furiously, and Oline being fat, she calls her a lump of
blubber--"a lump of dog's blubber like you. You sent me a hare--I'll
pay you for that."
"Hare again?" says Oline. "If I'd no more guilt in anything than I
have about that hare. What was it like?"
"What was it like? Why, what's a hare always like?"
"Like you. The very image."
"Out with you--get out!" shrieks Inger.
"'Twas you sent Os-Anders with that hare. I'll have you punished; I'll
have you put in prison for that."
"Prison--was it prison you said?"
"Oh, you're jealous and envious of all you see; you hate me for all
the good things I've got," says Inger again. "You've lain awake with
envy since I got Isak and all that's here. Heavens, woman, what have
I ever done to you? Is it my fault that your children never got on in
the world, and turned out badly, every one of them? You can't bear the
sight of mine, because they're fine and strong, and better named than
yours. Is it my fault they're prettier flesh and blood than yours ever
were?"
If there was one thing could drive Oline to fury it was this. She had
been a mother many times, and all she had was her children, such as
they were; she made much of them, and boasted of them, told of great
things they had never really done, and hid their faults.
"What's that you're saying?" answered Oline. "Oh that you don't sink
in your grave for shame! My children! They were a bright host of
angels compared with yours. You dare to speak of my children? Seven
blessed gifts of God they were from they were little, and all grown up
now every one. You dare to speak...."
"What about Lise, that was sent to prison?" asks Inger.
"For never a thing. She was as innocent as a flower," answers Oline.
"And she's in Bergen now; lives in a town and wears a hat--but what
about you?"
"What about Nils--what did they say of him?"
"Oh, I'll not lower myself.... But there's one of yours now lying
buried out there in the woods--what did you do to it, eh?"
"Now ...! One-two-three--out you go!" shrieks Inger again, and makes a
rush at Oline.
But Oline does not move, does not even rise to her feet. Her stolid
indifference paralyses Inger, who draws back, muttering: "Wait till I
get that knife."
"Don't trouble," says Oline. "I'm going. But as for you, turning your
own kin out of doors one-two-three.... Nay, I'll say no more."
"Get out of this, that's all you need to do!"
But Oline is not gone yet. The two of them fall to again with words
and abuse, a long bout of it again, and when the clock strikes half of
the hour, Oline laughs scornfully, making Inger wilder than ever. At
last both calm down a little, and Oline makes ready to go. "I've a
long road before me," says she, "and it's late enough to be starting.
It wouldn't ha' been amiss to have had a bite with me on the way...."
Inger makes no answer. She has come to her senses again now, and pours
out water in a basin for Oline to wash. "There--if you want to tidy
yourself," she says. Oline too thinks it as well to make herself as
decent as may be, but cannot see where the blood is, and washes the
wrong places. Inger looks on for a while, and then points with her
finger.
"There--wash there too, over your eye. No, not that, the other one;
can't you see where I'm pointing?"
"How can I see which one you're pointing at," answers Oline.
"And there's more there, by your mouth. Are you afraid of water?--it
won't bite you!"
In the end, Inger washes the patient herself, and throws her a towel.
"What I was going to say," says Oline, wiping herself, and quite
peaceable now. "About Isak and the children--how will they get over
this?"
"Does he know?" asks Inger.
"Know? He came and saw it."
"What did he say?"
"What could he say? He was speechless, same as me."
Silence.
"It's all your fault," wails Inger, beginning to cry.
"My fault? I wish I may never have more to answer for!"
"I'll ask Os-Anders, anyhow, be sure of that."
"Ay, do."
They talk it all over quietly, and Oline seems less revengeful now. An
able politician, is Oline, and quick to find expedients; she speaks
now as if in sympathy--what a terrible thing it will be for Isak and
the children when it is found out!
"Yes," says Inger, crying again. "I've thought and thought of that
night and day." Oline thinks she might be able to help, and be a
saviour to them in distress. She could come and stay on the place to
look after things, while Inger is in prison.
Inger stops crying; stops suddenly as if to listen and take thought.
"No, you don't care for the children."
"Don't care for them, don't I? How could you say such a thing?"
"Ah, I know...."
"Why, if there's one thing in the world I do feel and care for, 'tis
children."
"Ay, for your own," says Inger. "But how would you be with mine? And
when I think how you sent that hare for nothing else but to ruin me
altogether--oh, you're no better than a heap of wickedness!"
"Am I?" says Oline. "Is it me you mean?"
"Yes, 'tis you I mean," says Inger, crying; "you've been a wicked
wretch, you have, and I'll not trust you. And you'd steal all the
wool, too, if you did come. And all the cheeses that'd go to your
people instead of mine...."
"Oh, you wicked creature to think of such a thing!" answers Oline.
Inger cries, and wipes her eyes, saying a word or so between. Oline
does not try to force her. If Inger does not care about the idea, 'tis
all the same to her. She can go and stay with her son Nils, as she has
always done. But now that Inger is to be sent away to prison, it will
be a hard time for Isak and the innocent children; Oline could stay
on the place and give an eye to things. "You can think it over," says
Oline.
Inger has lost the day. She cries and shakes her head and looks down.
She goes out as if walking in her sleep, and makes up a parcel of food
for Oline to take with her. "'Tis more than's worth your while," says
Oline.
"You can't go all that way without a bite to eat," says Inger.
When Oline has gone, Inger steals out, looks round, and listens. No,
no sound from the quarry. She goes nearer, and hears the children
playing with little stones. Isak is sitting down, holding the crowbar
between his knees, and resting on it like a staff. There he sits.
Inger steals away into the edge of the wood. There was a spot where
she had set a little cross in the ground; the cross is thrown down
now, and where it stood the turf has been lifted, and the ground
turned over. She stoops down and pats the earth together again with
her hands. And there she sits.
She had come out of curiosity, to see how far the little grave had
been disturbed by Oline; she stays there now because the cattle have
not yet come in for the night. Sits there crying, shaking her head,
and looking down.