Chapter IX
Thecaptain had had a genuine drive in the service ever since summer, when he and the lieutenant inspected the storehouse for the tents, together with the arsenal and the guns in the levying districts. Then the military exercises, and finally now the meeting of the commissioners of conscription. There had been tolerably lively goings-on at the inn in the principal parish the last two or three evenings with the army doctor, the solicitor Sebelow, tall Buchholtz, Dorff the sheriff's officer, and the lieutenants.
But the result was splendid in so far that, instead of the bay horse, he was now driving home with a fine three or four-year-old before the cariole, with a white star on the forehead and white stockings that almost promised to be a match for Svarten if—if—it were not a bolter.
It had just now, when the old beggar woman rose up from the ditch by the wayside, shown something in the eyes and ears which it certainly had concealed during all the three days of the session. He had at last even shot over its head to test it, without so much as the horse giving a start.
It would be too mean, after the doctor and First Lieutenant Dunsack had been unanimous in the same opinion as he about the beast, and he, besides,had given the horse-dealer twenty-five dollars to boot.
But now it trotted off with the cariole very steadily and finely. The little inclination to break into a canter was only unmannerliness and a little of coltish bad habits which stuck to it still, and would disappear by driving.
Great-Ola had not had a steadier horse in the stall by the side of Svarten, nevertheless—"You shall grow old in my barn; do you understand, you young Svarten? shall go to the city in pairs with your uncle—before the carriage for Inger—There now, you beast—of a—dog"—swip—swish—swip—swish—"I shall teach you to drop your bad habits, I shall. Whoa!" he thundered. "There! there!"
There was a whole train of gay fellows who were standing, talking, shouting, and drinking in the road outside the gate to the Bergset farm.
At the sight of the captain's well-known form they made way for him, greeting him politely. They knew that he had been far away, and the men who had gone to the mustering had just returned to the farms round about, yesterday and to-day.
"Fine, isn't he, Halvor Hejen? a lively colt—still, rather young."
"Maybe, captain. Fine, if he isn't skittish," replied the one spoken to.
"What is going on here—auction after Ole Bergset?"
"Yes; Bardon, the bailiff, is busy with the hammer in the room in there."
"So, so, Solfest Staale!" he said, winking to a young man, "do you believe there is anything in the story that Lars Överstadsbraekken is courting the widow here? Their lands lie very fine."
There came an ill-concealed amusement on the countenances of those standing about. They guessed what the captain was at. It was the rival he was speaking to.
"There is not any cow for sale that is going to calve in the fall, I suppose?"
There might be, they thought.
"Hold my horse a little while, Halvor, while I go and talk a little with the bailiff about it."
There was a crowd of people in the house and the captain was greeted by one knot after another of noisy talking folk, men and women, girls and boys, among whom the brandy bottle was diligently circulating, until he got into the room where the sale was going on.
There sat Bardon in the crowded, steaming room, calling over and over again, with his well-known, strong, husky voice, threatening with the hammer, giving utterance to a joke, finally threatening for the last, last time, until with the law's blows he nailed the bid firmly forever down on the topof the table. They made way for the captain as he came.
"Are you also so crazy as to allow your wife to go to the auction, Martin Kvale?" he said, joking, to an important fellow with silver buttons on his coat, as he passed by.
Out in the hall stood the handsome Guro Granlien with a crowd of other young girls.
"Oh, Guro!" he said, chucking her under the chin, "now Bersvend Vaage has come home from the drill. He was in a brown study and wholly lost his wits, the fellow, and so I came near putting him in arrest: you are too hard on him, Guro." He nodded to the snickering girls.
Guro looked with great, staring eyes at the captain. How could he know that?
The captain knew the district in and out, forwards and backwards, as he expressed it. He had an inconceivably keen scent for contemplated farm trades, weddings, betrothals, and anything of the kind that concerned the young conscripts. Guro Granlien was not the first girl who opened her eyes wide on that account. He got a great deal out of his five subalterns, but by no means the least was to be found in his own always alert interest in these things.
And when, to-day, he made the little turn up to the place of auction, the reason was far less the "autumn cow," than his lively curiosity for the newthings that might have happened during his long absence.
Therefore it was not at all unwelcome to him when the widow came out and invited him into the "other room," where he must at least have a drop of ale before he left the farm.
He was curious to get her on the confessional as to the possibility of a new marriage, and also had the satisfaction, after a half hour's confidential chat, of having won from her confidence the whole of the real and true condition of her thoughts about herself and the farm.
No one cheated him any longer about that affair,—the widow of Bergset was to retain undivided possession of the estate of the deceased and—not marry. But she was anxious not to let it come out; she wanted to be courted, of course—as a good match in the district, naturally.
The captain understood it very well: it was sly.
Something must also be said about something else at last, and so Randi, in the spirit of what had been said, added: "And the sheriff, who is going to marry again."
"So?"
"They say he is a constant visitor at the house of Scharfenberg, the solicitor. Very likely it is the youngest daughter, eh?"
"Don't know. Good-by, Randi."
He went quickly, so that his spurs rattled, andhis sabre flapped under his coat, down to his horse without looking to the right or left or speaking to any one. He pressed his shako more firmly down on his forehead before he got into the cariole.
"Thanks, Halvor. Give me the reins. There you—"
He gave young Svarten, who began with some capers, a taste of the whip, and off he went with tight reins at full trot, so that the fence-posts flew like drumsticks past his eyes.
In the quiet, hazy autumn day the cattle here and there were out on the highway.
A pig provoked him by obstinately running before the cariole.
"There, take care to get your stumps out of the way!"
It ended with a little cut on its back.
"See there! there is a beast of a cow lying in the middle of the road," he broke out, with his lips firmly pressed together.
"Well, if you won't get up, then you are welcome to stay! If you please—I am stupid also—I'll drive on."
His bitterness took full possession of him, and he would have firmly allowed the wheel to go over the animal's back if the latter had not risen up quickly at the last moment, so near that the captain's cariole was half raised up, while it grazed and was within an ace of being upset.
"Hm, hm," he mumbled, somewhat brought to his senses as he looked back upon the object of his missed revenge.
"So, so—off, I say, you black knacker—if you once peep back again in that way, I will kill you! Ha, ha, ha! If you run, you will still find a hill, my good friend."
He had had a tremendous headache all day; but it was not that which annoyed him—that he knew.
And when he came home, where they were expecting father to-day in great suspense after his long absence, his looks were dark.
"There, Ola! Curry the horse—dry him with a wisp of straw first—take good care of him—put a blanket on his back; do you hear? I only drove the fellow a little up the hill."
Great-Ola looked at the captain and nodded his head confidently, as he led the horse and carriage away from the steps; there was surely something the matter; the captain had got cheated again with this new nag.
"Good day, Ma—good day!" and he kissed her hastily. "Yes, I am quite well."
He took off his cloak and shako. "Oh, can't you let Marit take the trunk and the travelling-bag so that they needn't stand there on the steps any longer?—Oh, yes; it has been tiresome enough," as he evaded rather coldly Thinka's attentions."Put the sabre on the peg, and carry the bag up to my chamber."
He himself went first up to the office to look at the mail, and then down to the stable to see how Great-Ola had treated Svarten.
There was something the matter with father; that was clear!
Ma's face, anxiously disturbed, followed him here and there in the doorways, and Thinka glided in and out without breaking the silence.
When he came in, the supper-table was spread—herring salad, decorated with red beets and slices of hard boiled eggs, and a glass of brandy by the side of it—and then half salted trout and a good bottle of beer.
Father was possibly not quite insensible, but extremely reticent. You could absolutely get only words of one syllable in answer to the most ingeniously conceived questions!
"The sheriff is going to marry again, they say; it is absolutely certain!" he let fall at last, as the first agreeable news he knew from the outer world; "Scharfenberg's youngest."
The remark was followed by deep silence, even if a gleam of perfect contentment glided over Thinka's face, and she busied herself with eating. They both felt that his ill-humor came from this.
"That man can say he is lucky with his daughters—Bine soon in a parsonage, and now Andrea thesheriff's wife! Perhaps you can get a position there, Thinka, when you need it some day, as governess for the children, or housekeeper; she won't be obliged to do more in the house than just what she pleases; she can afford it."
Thinka, blushing to the roots of her hair, kept her eyes on her plate.
"Yes, yes, Ma, as you make your bed you must lie in it in this world."
No more was said before Thinka cleared off the table, when Ma apologetically exclaimed, "Poor Thinka!"
The captain wheeled towards her on the floor with his fingers in the armholes of his vest and blinked indignantly at her.
"Do you know! After the parasol and the one attention after another which he has taken the pains to show all summer, if she could have given the man a bit of thanks and friendliness other than she has—It would not have gone so at all, if I had been at home!"—his voice rose to something like a peal of thunder—"But I think it is a flock of geese that I have here in the house, and not grown-up women who look out a little for themselves. Andrea Scharfenberg didn't let herself be asked twice, not she!" he said, walking out again when Thinka came in; he did not care if she did hear it.
Ma gazed somewhat thoughtfully at him, and in thedays that followed, they petted and coddled father in every way to make him a little more cheerful. Thinka, in the midst of her quiet carefulness, cast her eyes down involuntarily, when he groaned and panted in this way.
He did not go out any farther than to look after young Svarten.
The horse had fever in one hoof to-day after the new shoeing. It was a nail which had been driven in too far by that blockhead of a smith. It must come out.
The captain stood silently looking on in his favorite position, with his arms on the lower half of the stable door, while Great-Ola, with the hind leg of young Svarten over his leg, was performing the operation of extraction with the tongs. The animal was good-natured and did not so much as move his leg.
"O-o-ola," came hoarsely, half smothered.
Great-Ola looked up.
"Good Lord!" if the captain did not sink slowly down, while he still held onto the stable door, right on the dung!
Ola looked a moment irresolutely at his master, dropping the horse's foot. Then he took the stable pail and spattered some water into his face until he once more manifested a little life and consciousness.
He then held the pail to his mouth.
"Drink, drink, Captain! Don't be afraid. It is only the result of all that drilling and pleasuring. It is just as it is when one has kept up a wedding festivity too long. My brother—"
"Help me out, Ola! There, let me lean on you—gently, gently. Ah, it does one good to breathe—breathe," as he stopped. "Now it's over, I believe. Yes, entirely over, nothing more than a half fainting spell. Just go with me a little bit, Ola, as a matter of precaution. Hm, hm, that goes well enough. Yes, yes, I have no doubt it is the irregular life the whole of the autumn. Go and call my wife. Say I am up in the chamber. I can manage the stairs bravely."
There was no little fright.
This time it was the captain who was at ease and turned it off, and Ma who without authority dispatched a messenger. If the army surgeon was not at home, then he must go to the district doctor.
When the army surgeon, Rist, came, and had received at the door Ma's anxious explanations that Jäger had had a slight shock, for the calming of the house he delivered a humorous lecture.
It was wholly a question of degree. The man who drank only so much that he stammered suffered from paralytic palsy of the tongue—and in this way every blessed man that he knew was a paralytic patient. This was only a congestion not uncommon among full-blooded people.
Jäger himself was in fact so far over it that he demanded the toddy tray in the evening—true enough, only an extremely light dose for his part! But cock and bull stories from the encampment and about Svarten were told in the clouds of smoke, and with constant renewals of the thin essence, till half-past one in the morning.
There was a roaring in the stove on one of the following forenoons, while the captain sat in his office chair, and wrote so that his quill-pen sputtered.
As usual at this time of the year, after his long absence, there was a great multitude of things to be disposed of. Thea's Norwegian grammar was lying on the green table by the door; she had just finished reading, and was heard humming outside in the hall.
There was a noise on the stairs, and Ma showing some one the way up, "That way—to the captain."
There was a knocking at the door.
"Good day, my man! Well?"
It was an express from the sheriff—in Sunday dress—with a letter. It was to be given to the captain himself.
"What? Is there to be an answer? Well, well! Yes, go down to the kitchen and get a little something to eat and a dram.—Hm, hm," he mumbledand threw the letter, written on letter-paper and fastened with a seal, down on his desk, while in the mean time he took a turn up and down the floor. "Notice of the betrothal, I suppose—or perhaps an invitation to the wedding."
Opening it, he read it, standing up—eagerly running it over hastily—a cursed long introduction!—Over that—over that—quite to the third page.
"Well, there it comes!"
He struck the back of the hand in which he held the letter with a resounding whack into the other, and then seated himself—"Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!"
He snapped his fingers, once, twice, three times, in a brown study, scratched his head behind his ear, and then slyly up under his wig.
"Now, we shall see—we shall see!—And that nonsense about Scharfenberg." He rushed to the door and jerked it open; but bethought himself and walked on tiptoe to the stairs. "Who is there in the hall—you, Thea?"
The little square-built, brown-eyed Thea flew up the stairs.
"Tell Ma to come up," he said, nodding.
Thea looked up at her father: there was something out of the ordinary about him.
When Ma came in, he walked about with the letter behind his back, clearing his throat. Therewas the suitable deliberate seriousness about him which the situation demanded.
"I have got a letter, Ma—from the sheriff!—Read!—or shall I read?"
He stood leaning against the desk, and went through its three pages, period by period, with great moderation, till he came to the point, then he hurled it out so that it buzzed in the air, and hugged Ma wildly.
"Well, well!—what do you say, Ma? Take a trip when we want to go down to our son-in-law!" He rubbed his hands. "It was a real surprise, Ma,—hm, hm," he began, again clearing his throat. "It is best that we ask Thinka to come up and tell her the contents—don't you think?"
"Ye-es," said Ma huskily, having turned to the door; she could see no help or escape for her any more, poor girl!
The captain walked up and down in the office, waiting. He had the high-spirited, dignified, paternal expression which is completely absorbed in the importance of the moment.
But where was she gone to?
She could not be found. They had hunted for her over the whole house.
But the captain was not impatient to-day.
"Well, then, don't you see her?" he mildly asked two or three times through the door.
At last Thea found her in the garret. She hadtaken refuge up there and hid herself, when she saw the express and heard that it was from the sheriff, in anticipation of the contents. And now she was sitting with her head on her arms and her apron over her head.
She had not been crying; she had been seized with a sort of panic; she felt an irresistible impulse to hide herself away somewhere and shut her eyes, so that it would be really dark, and she would not be obliged to think.
She looked a little foolish when she went down with Thea to her father and mother in the office.
"Thinka," said the captain, when she came in, "we have received to-day from the sheriff an important letter for your future. I suppose it is superfluous to say—after all the attention you have allowed him to show you during the year—what it is about, and that your mother and I regard it as the greatest good fortune that could fall to your lot, and to ours also. Read the letter and consider it well. Sit down and read it, child."
Thinka read; but it did not seem as if she got far; she shook her head dumbly the whole time without knowing it.
"You understand very well, it is not any youthful love fancy, and any such exalted nonsense that he asks of you. It is if you will fill an honored position with him that you are asked, and if youcan give the good will and care for him which he would naturally expect of a wife."
There was no answer to be got, except a weak groan down into her lap.
The captain's face began to grow solemn.
But Ma whispered, with a blaze of lightning in her eyes, "You see plainly, she cannot think, Jäger.—Don't you think as I do, father," she said aloud, "that it is best we let Thinka take the letter, so that she can consider it till to-morrow? It is such a surprise."
"Of course, if Thinka prefers it," came after them, from the captain, who was greatly offended, as Ma went with her, shutting her up in her chamber.
She had her cry out under the down quilt during the whole afternoon.
In the twilight Ma went up and sat beside her.
"No place to turn to, you see, when one will not be a poor, unprovided-for member of a family. Sew, sew your eyes out of your head, till at last you lie in a corner of some one's house. Such an honorable proposal would seem to many people to be a great thing."
"Aas! Aas, mother!" articulated Thinka very weakly.
"God knows, child, that if I saw any other way out, I would show it to you, even if I should have to hold my fingers in the fire in order to do it."
Thinka slipped her hand onto her mother's thin hand and sobbed gently into her pillow.
"Your father is no longer very strong—does not bear many mental excitements,—so that the outlook is dark enough. The attack when he came home last—"
When Ma went out, sigh followed sigh in the darkness.
Late in the evening Ma sat and held her daughter's head so that she could get some sleep; she was continually starting up.
And now when Thinka finally slept, without these sudden starts any longer—quietly and peacefully, with her fair young head regularly breathing on the pillow—Ma went out with the candle. The worst was over.
If the captain was in an exalted mood after having seen from the office window Aslak, who went as express messenger to the sheriff, vanishing through the gate, then in certain ways he was doubly set up in the kingdom of hope by a little fragment of a letter from Inger-Johanna, dated Tilderöd:
We are all in a bustle, packing up and moving to the city, therefore the letter will be short this time.
There have been guests here to the very last; solitude suits neither uncle nor aunt, and so they had said "Welcome to Tilderöd" so often that wehad one long visit after another all through the summer—in perfect rusticity, it was said. But I believe indeed they did not go away again without feeling that aunt preserves style in it. With perfect freedom for every one, and collations both in the garden room and on the veranda, there is, after all, something about it which makes the guests feel that they must give something and be at their best. People don't easily sink down to the level of the commonplace when aunt is present. She flatters me that we are alike in that respect.
And I don't know how it is, I feel now that I am almost as much attracted by assemblies as formerly by balls. There certainly is much more of an opportunity to use whatever little wit one has, and they may be a real influential circle of usefulness: aunt has opened my eyes to that this summer. When we read of the brilliant Frenchsalons, where woman was the soul, we get an impression that here is an entire province for her. And to be able to live and work in the world has possessed me since I was little, and mourned so that I was not a boy who could come to be something.
I had got so far, dear parents, when Miss Jörgensen called me to go down into the garden to aunt. The mail had come from the office in the city, and on the table in a package lay a flat, red morocco leather box and a letter to me.
It was a gold band to wear in my hair, with ayellow topaz in it, and in the letter there was only, "To complete the portrait.Rönnow."
Of course aunt must try it on me at once—take down my hair, and call in uncle. Rönnow's taste was subtly inspired when it concerned me, she declared.
Oh, yes! it is becoming.
But with the letter and all the fantastical overvaluation, there is that which makes me feel that the gold band pinches my neck. Gratitude is a tiresome virtue.
Aunt lays so many plans for our social life next winter, and is rejoicing that Rönnow may possibly come for another trip.
For my part I must say I don't really know; I both want it and don't want it.