The priest listened patiently, and did not reject the idea at once.
“Really, now!” he said, with a smile. “Why, perhaps you're right. But it will cost a lot of money. And why should we trouble about it at all?”
“It's seventy paces from the house to the well we started to dig. Seventy steps for the maids to go through mud and snow and all sorts, summer and winter.”
“That's true, yes. But this other way would cost a terrible lot of money.”
“Not counting the well—that you'll have to have in any case; the whole installation, with work and material, ought not to come to more than a couple of hundred Kroner,” said I.
The priest looked surprised.
“Is that all?”
“Yes.”
I waited a little each time before answering, as if I were slow by nature, and born so. But, really, I had thought out the whole thing beforehand.
“It would be a great convenience, that's true,” said the priest thoughtfully. “And that water tub in the kitchen does make a lot of mess.”
“And it will save carrying water to the bedrooms as well.”
“The bedrooms are all upstairs. It won't help us there, I'm afraid.”
“We can run the pipes up to the first floor.”
“Can we, though? Up to the bedrooms? Will there be pressure enough for that, do you think?”
Here I waited longer than usual before answering, as a stolid fellow, who did not undertake things lightly.
“I think I can answer for a jet the height of the roof,” I said.
“Really, now!” exclaimed the priest. And then again: “Come and let us see where you think of digging the well.”
We went up the hill, the priest, Harald, and I, and I let the priest look through my instrument, and showed him that there would be more than pressure enough.
“I must talk to the other man about it,” he said.
But I cut out Grindhusen at once, and said: “Grindhusen? He's no idea of this work at all.”
The priest looked at me.
“Really?” he said.
Then we went down again, the priest talking as if to himself.
“Quite right; yes. It's an endless business fetching water in the winter. And summer, too, for that matter. I must see what the women think about it.”
And he went indoors.
After ten minutes or so, I was sent for round to the front steps; the whole family were there now.
“So you're the man who's going to give us water laid on to the house?” said Fruen kindly.
I took off my cap and bowed in a heavy, stolid fashion, and the priest answered for me: yes, this was the man.
Frøkenen gave me one curious glance, and then started talking in an undertone to her brother. Fruen went on with more questions—would it really be a proper water-supply like they had in town, just turn on a tap and there was the water all ready? And for upstairs as well? A couple of hundred Kroner? “Really, I think you ought to say yes,” she said to her husband.
“You think so? Well, let's all go up to the top of the hill and look through the thing and see.”
We went up the hill, and I set the instrument for them and let them look.
“Wonderful!” said Fruen.
But Frøkenen said never a word.
The priest asked:
“But are you sure there's water here?”
I answered carefully, as a man of sober judgment, that it was not a thing to swear to beforehand, but there was every sign of it.
“What sort of signs?” asked Fruen.
“The nature of the ground. And you'll notice there's willow and osiers growing about. And they like a wet soil.”
The priest nodded, and said:
“He knows his business, Marie, you can see.”
On the way back, Fruen had got so far as to argue quite unwarrantably that she could manage with one maid less once they'd water laid on. And not to fail her, I put in:
“In summer at least you might. You could water all the garden with a hose fixed to the tap and carried out through the cellar window.”
“Splendid!” she exclaimed.
But I did not venture to speak of laying a pipe to the cow-shed. I had realized all the time that with a well twice the size, and a branch pipe across the yard, the dairymaid would be saved as much as the kitchen-maids in the house. But it would cost nearly twice as much. No, it was not wise to put forward so great a scheme.
Even as it was, I had to agree to wait till Grindhusen came back. The priest said he wanted to sleep on it.
So now I had to tell Grindhusen myself, and prepare him for the new arrangement. And lest he should turn suspicious, I threw all the blame on the priest, saying it was his idea, but that I had backed him up. Grindhusen had no objection; he saw at once it meant more work for us since we should have the well to dig in any case, and the bed for the pipes besides.
As luck would have it, the priest came out on Monday morning, and said to Grindhusen half jestingly:
“Your mate here and I have decided to have the well up on the hill, and lay down a pipe-line to the house. What do you think of it? A mad idea?”
Grindhusen thought it was a first-rate idea.
But when we came to talk it over, and went up all three to look at the site of the well, Grindhusen began to suspect I'd had more to do with it than I had said. We should have to lay the pipes deep down, he said, on account of the frost....
“One metre thirty's plenty,” I said.
... and that it would cost a great deal of money.
“Your mate here said about a couple of hundred Kroner in all,” answered the priest.
Grindhusen had no idea of estimates at all, and could only say:
“Well, well, two hundred Kroner's a deal of money, anyway.”
I said:
“It will mean so much less inAabotwhen you move.”
The priest looked at me in surprise.
“Aabot? But I'm not thinking of leaving the place,” he said.
“Why, then, you'll have the full use of it. And may your reverence live to enjoy it for many a year,” said I.
At this the priest stared at me, and asked:
“What is your name?”
“Knut Pedersen.”
“Where are you from?”
“From Nordland.”
But I understood why he had asked, and resolved not to talk in that bookish way any more.
Anyhow, the well and the pipe-line were decided on, and we set to work....
The days that followed were pleasant enough. I was not a little anxious at first as to whether we should find water on the site, and I slept badly for some nights. But once that fear was past, all that remained was simple and straightforward work. There was water enough; after a couple of days we had to bale it out with buckets every morning. It was clay lower down, and our clothes were soon in a sorry state from the work.
We dug for a week, and started the next getting out stones to line the well. This was work we were both used to from the old days at Skreia. Then we put in another week digging, and by that time we had carried it deep enough. The bottom was soon so soft that we had to begin on the stonework at once, lest the clay walls should cave in on top of us.
So week after week passed, with digging and mining and mason's work. It was a big well, and made a nice job; the priest was pleased with it. Grindhusen and I began to get on better together; and when he found that I asked no more than a fair labourer's wage, though much of the work was done under my directions, he was inclined to do something for me in return, and took more care about his table manners. Altogether, I could not have wished for a happier time; and nothing on earth should ever persuade me to go back to town life again!
In the evenings I wandered about the woods, or in the churchyard reading the inscriptions on the tombstones, and thinking of this and that. Also, I was looking about for a nail from some corpse. I wanted a nail; it was a fancy of mine, a little whim. I had found a nice piece of birch-root that I wanted to carve to a pipe-bowl in the shape of a clenched fist; the thumb was to act as a lid, and I wanted a nail to set in, to make it specially lifelike. The ring finger was to have a little gold ring bent round.
Thinking of such trifles kept my mind calm and at ease. There was no hurry now for me about anything in life. I could dream as I pleased, having nothing else to do; the evenings were my own. If possible, too, I would see and arrive at some feeling of respect for the sacredness of the church and terror of the dead; I had still a memory of that rich mysticism from days now far, far behind, and wished I could have some share in it again. Now, perhaps, when I found that nail, there would come a voice from the tombs: “That is mine!” and I would drop the thing in horror, and take to my heels and run.
“I wish that vane up there wouldn't creak so,” Grindhusen would say at times.
“Are you afraid?”
“Well, not properly afraid; no. But it gives you a creeping feeling now and then to think of all the corpses lying there so near.”
Happy man!
One day Harald showed me how to plant pine cones and little bushes. I'd no idea of that sort of work before; we didn't learn it in the days when I was at school. But now I'd seen the way of it, I went about planting busily on Sundays; and, in return, I taught Harald one or two little things that were new to him at his age, and got to be friends with him.
And all might have been well if it had not been for Frøkenen, the daughter of the house. I grew fonder of her every day. Her name was Elischeba, Elisabeth. No remarkable beauty, perhaps; but she had red lips, and a blue, girlish glance that made her pretty to see. Elischeba, Elisabeth—a child at the first dawn of life, with eyes looking out upon the world. She spoke one evening with young Erik from the neighbouringgaard, and her eyes were full of sweetness and of something ripening.
It was all very well for Grindhusen. He had gone ravening after the girls when he was young, and he still spanked about with his hat on one side, out of habit. But he was quiet and tame enough now, as well he might be—'tis nature's way. But some there are who would not follow nature's way, and be tamed; and how shall it fare with them at last? And then there was little Elisabeth; and she was none so little after all, but as tall as her mother. And she'd her mother's high breast.
Since that first Sunday they had not asked me in to coffee in the kitchen, and I took care myself they should not, but kept out of the way. I was still ashamed of the recollection. But then, at last, in the middle of the week, one of the maids came with a message that I was not to go running off into the woods every Sunday afternoon, but come to coffee with the rest. Fruen herself had said so.
Good!
Now, should I put on my best clothes or not? No harm, perhaps, in letting that young lady get into her head that I was one who had chosen to turn my back upon the life of cities, and taken upon myself the guise of a servant, for all I was a man of parts, that could lay on water to a house. But when I had dressed, I felt myself that my working clothes were better suited to me now; I took off my best things again, and hid them carefully in my bag.
But, as it happened, it was not Frøkenen at all who received me on that Sunday afternoon, but Fruen. She talked to me for quite a while, and she had spread a little white cloth under my cup.
“That trick of yours with the egg is likely to cost us something before we've done with it,” said Fruen, with a kindly laugh. “The boy's used up half a dozen eggs already.”
I had taught Harald the trick of passing a hard boiled egg with the shell off through the neck of a decanter, by thinning the air inside. It was about the only experiment in physics that I knew.
“But that one with breaking the stick in the two paper loops was really interesting,” Fruen went on. “I don't understand that sort of thing myself, but.... When will the well be done?”
“The well is done. We're going to start on the trench tomorrow.”
“And how long will that take to do?”
“About a week. Then the man can come and lay the pipes.”
“No! really?”
I said my thanks and went out. Fruen had a way she had kept, no doubt, from earlier years; now and again she would glance at one sideways, though there was nothing the least bit artful in what she said....
Now the woods showed a yellowing leaf here and there, and earth and air began to smell of autumn. Only the fungus growths were now at their best, shooting up everywhere, and flourishing fine and thick on woolly stems—milk mushrooms, and the common sort, and the brown. Here and there a toadstool thrust up its speckled top, flaming its red all unashamed. A wonderful thing! Here it is growing on the same spot as the edible sorts, fed by the same soil, given sun and rain from heaven the same as they; rich and strong it is, and good to eat, save, only, that it is full of impertinent muscarin. I once thought of making up a fine old story about the toadstool, and saying I had read it in a book.
It has always been a pleasure to me to watch the flowers and insects in their struggle to keep alive. When the sun was hot they would come to life again, and give themselves up for an hour or so to the old delight; the big, strong flies were just as much alive as in midsummer. There was a peculiar sort of earth-bug here that I had not seen before—little yellow things, no bigger than a small-type comma, yet they could jump several thousand times their own length. Think of the strength of such a body in proportion to its size! There is a tiny spider here with its hinder part like a pale yellow pearl. And the pearl is so heavy that the creature has to clamber up a stalk of grass back downwards. When it comes upon an obstacle the pearl cannot pass, it simply drops straight down and starts to climb another. Now, a little pearl-spider like that is not just a spider and no more. If I hold out a leaf towards it to help it to its footing on a floor, it fumbles about for a while on the leaf, and thinks to itself: “H'm, something wrong about this!” and backs away again, refusing to be in any way entrapped on to a floor....
Some one calls me by name from down in the wood. It is Harald; he has started a Sunday school with me. He gave me a lesson out of Pontoppidan to learn, and now I'm to be heard. It is touching to be taught religion now as I should have taught it myself when I was a child.
The well was finished, the trench was dug, and the man had come to lay the pipes. He chose Grindhusen to help him with the work, and I was set to cutting a way for the pipes up from the cellar through the two floors of the house.
Fruen came down one day when I was busy in the cellar. I called out to her to mind the hole in the floor; but she took it very calmly.
“There's no hole there now, is there?” she asked, pointing one way. “Or there?” But at last she missed her footing after all, and slipped down into the hole where I was. And there we stood. It was not light there anyway; and for her, coming straight in from the daylight outside, it must have seemed quite dark. She felt about the edge, and said:
“Now, how am I to get up again?”
I lifted her up. It was no matter to speak of; she was slight of figure, for all she had a big girl of her own.
“Well, I must say....” She stood shaking the earth from her dress. “One, two, three, and up!—as neatly as could be.... Look here, I'd like you to help me with something upstairs one day, will you? I want to move some things. Only we must wait till a day when my husband's over at the annexe; he doesn't like my changing things about. How long will it be before you've finished all there is to do here?”
I mentioned a time, a week or thereabout.
“And where are you going then?”
“To the farm just by. Grindhusen's fixed it up for us to go and dig potatoes there....”
Then came the work in the kitchen; I had to saw through the floor there. Frøken Elisabeth came in once or twice while I was there; it could hardly have been otherwise, seeing it was the kitchen. And for all her dislike of me, she managed to say a word or two, and stand looking at the work a little.
“Only fancy, Oline,” she said to the maid, “when it's all done, and you'll only have to turn on a tap.”
But Oline, who was old, did not look anyways delighted. It was like going against Providence, she said, to go sending water through a pipe right into the house. She'd carried all the water she'd a use for these twenty years; what was she to do now?
“Take a rest,” said I.
“Rest, indeed! We're made to work, I take it, not to rest.”
“And sew things against the time you get married,” said Frøken Elisabeth, with a smile.
It was only girlish talk, but I was grateful to her for taking a little part in the talk with us, and staying there for a while. And heavens, how I did try to behave, and talk smartly and sensibly, showing off like a boy. I remember it still. Then suddenly Frøken Elisabeth seemed to remember it wasn't proper for her to stay out here with us any longer, and so she went.
That evening I went up to the churchyard, as I had done so many times before, but seeing Frøkenen already there, I turned away, and took myself off into the woods. And afterwards I thought: now she will surely be touched by my humility, and think: poor fellow, he showed real delicacy in that. And the next thing, of course, was to imagine her coming after me. I would get up from the stone where I was sitting, and give a greeting. Then she would be a little embarrassed, and say: “I was just going for a walk—it's such a lovely evening—what are you doing here?” “Just sitting here,” say I, with innocent eyes, as if my thoughts had been far away. And when she hears that I was just sitting there in the late of the evening, she must realize that I am a dreamer and a soul of unknown depth, and then she falls in love with me....
She was in the churchyard again the following evening, and a thought of high conceit flew suddenly into my mind: it was myself she came to see! But, watching her more closely, I saw that she was busy, doing something about a grave, so it was not me she had come for. I stole away up to the big ant-heap in the wood and watched the insects as long as I could see; afterwards, I sat listening to the falling cones and clusters of rowan berries. I hummed a tune, and whispered to myself and thought; now and again I had to get up and walk a little to get warm. The hours passed, the night came on, and I was so in love I walked there bare-headed, letting myself be stared out of all countenance by the stars.
“How's the time?” Grindhusen might ask when I came back to the barn.
“Just gone eleven,” I would say, though it might be two or three in the morning.
“Huh! And a nice time to be coming to bed.Fansmagt!Waking folk up when they've been sleeping decently!”
And Grindhusen turns over on the other side, to fall asleep again in a moment. There was no trouble with Grindhusen.
Eyah, it's over-foolish of a man to fall in love when he's getting on in years. And who was it set out to show therewasa way to quiet and peace of mind?
A man came out for his bricklayer's tools; he wanted them back. What? Then Grindhusen had not stolen them at all! But it was always the same with Grindhusen: commonplace, dull, and ordinary, never great in anything, never a lofty mind.
I said:
“You, Grindhusen, there's nothing in you but eat and sleep and work. Here's a man come for those tools now. So you only borrowed them; that's all you're good for. I wouldn't be you for anything.”
“Don't be a fool,” said Grindhusen.
He was offended now, but I got him round again, as I had done so many times before, by pretending I had only spoken in jest.
“What are we to do now?” he asked.
“You'll manage it all right,” said I.
“Manage it—will I?”
“Yes, or I am much mistaken.”
And Grindhusen was pacified once more.
But at the midday rest, when I was cutting his hair, I put him out of temper once again by suggesting he should wash his head.
“A man of your age ought to know better than to talk such stuff,” he said.
And Heaven knows but he may have been right. His red thatch of hair was thick as ever, for all he'd grandchildren of his own....
Now what was coming to that barn of ours? Were spirits about? Who had been in there one day suddenly and cleaned the place and made all comfortable and neat? Grindhusen and I had each our own bedplace; I had bought a couple of rugs, but he turned in every night fully dressed, with all he stood up in, and curled himself up in the hay all anyhow. And now here were my two rugs laid neatly, looking for all the world like a bed. I'd nothing against it; 'twas one of the maids, no doubt, setting to teach me neat and orderly ways. 'Twas all one to me.
I was ready now to start cutting through the floor upstairs, but Fruen begged me to leave it to next day; her husband would be going over to the annexe, and that way I shouldn't disturb him. But next morning we had to put it off again; Frøken Elisabeth was going in to the store to buy no end of things, and I was to go with her and carry them.
“Good,” said I, “I'll come on after.”
Strange girl! had she thought to put up with my company on the way? She said:
“But do you think you can find the way alone?”
“Surely; I've been there before. It's where we buy our things.”
Now, I couldn't well walk through all the village in my working things all messed up with clay: I put on my best trousers, but kept my blouse on over. So I walked on behind. It was a couple of miles or more; the last part of the way I caught sight of Frøken Elisabeth on ahead now and again, but I took care not to come up close. Once she looked round, and at that I made myself utterly small, and kept to the fringe of the wood.
Frøken Elisabeth stayed behind with some girl friend after she had done her shopping; I carried the things back to the vicarage, getting in about noon, and was asked in to dinner in the kitchen. The house seemed deserted. Harald was away, the maids were wringing clothes, only Oline was busy in the kitchen.
After dinner, I went upstairs, and started sawing in the passage.
“Come and lend me a hand here, will you?” said Fruen, walking on in front of me.
We passed by her husband's study and into the bedroom.
“I want my bed moved,” said Fruen. “It's too near the stove in winter, and I can't stand the heat.”
We moved the bed over to the window.
“It'll be nicer here, don't you think? Cooler,” said she.
And, happening to glance at her, I saw she was watching me with that queer, sideways look.... Ey.... And in a moment I was all flesh and blood and foolishness. I heard her say:
“Are you mad?—Oh no, dear, please ... the door....”
Then I heard my name whispered again and again....
I sawed through the floor in the passage, and got everything done. Fruen was there all the time. She was so eager to talk, to explain, and laughing and crying all the time.
I said:
“That picture that was hanging over your bed—wouldn't it be as well to move that too?”
“Ye—es, perhaps it would,” said Fruen.
Now all the pipes were laid, and the taps fixed; the water spurted out in the sink in a fine, powerful jet. Grindhusen had borrowed the tools we needed from somewhere else, so we could plaster up a few holes left here and there; a couple of days more, and we had filled in the trench down the hillside, and our work at the vicarage was done. The priest was pleased with us; he offered to stick up a notice on the red post saying we were experts in the business of wells and pipes and water-supply, but, seeing it was so late in the year, and the frost might set in any time, it wouldn't have helped us much. We begged him instead to bear us in mind next spring.
Then we went over to the neighbouring farm to dig potatoes, promising to look in at the vicarage again some time.
There were many hands at work on the new place; we divided up into gangs and were merry enough. But the work would barely last over a week; after that we should have to shift again.
One evening the priest came over and offered to take me on as an outdoor hand at the vicarage. It was a nice offer, and I thought about it for a while, but ended by saying no. I would rather wander about and be my own master, doing such work as I could find here and there, sleeping in the open, and finding a trifle to wonder at in myself. I had come across a man here in the potato fields that I might join company with when Grindhusen was gone. This new man was a fellow after my own mind, and from what I had heard and seen of him a good worker; Lars Falkberget was his name, wherefore he called himself Falkenberg. [Footnote: The latter name has a more distinguished sound than the native and rustic “Falkberget.”]
Young Erik was foreman and overseer in charge of the potato diggers, and carted in the crop. He was a handsome lad of twenty, steady and sound for his age, and a proper son of the house. There was something no doubt between him and Frøken Elisabeth from the vicarage, seeing she came over one day and stood talking with him out in the fields for quite a while. When she was leaving, she found a few words for me as well, saying Oline was beginning to get used to the new contrivances of water-pipes and tap.
“And yourself?” I asked.
Out of politeness, she made some little answer to this also, but I could see she had no wish to stay talking to me.
So prettily dressed she was, with a new light cloak that went so well with her blue eyes....
Next day Erik met with an accident; his horse bolted, dragging him across the fields and throwing him up against a fence at last. He was badly mauled, and spitting blood; a few hours later, when he had come to himself a little, he was still spitting blood. Falkenberg was now set to drive.
I feigned to be distressed at what had happened, and went about silent and gloomy as the rest, but I did not feel so. I had no hope of Frøken Elisabeth for myself, indeed; still, I was rid of one that stood above me in her favour.
That evening I went over to the churchyard and sat there a while. If only she would come, I thought to myself. And after a quarter of an hour she came. I got up suddenly, entirely as I had planned, made as if to slip away and hide, then I stopped, stood helplessly and surrendered. But here all my schemes and plans forsook me, and I was all weakness at having her so near; I began to speak of something.
“Erik—to think it should have happened—and that, yesterday....”
“I know about it,” she answered.
“He was badly hurt.”
“Yes, yes, of course, he was badly hurt—why do you talk to me about him?”
“I thought.... No, I don't know. But, anyhow, he'll get better. And then it will be all right again, surely.”
“Yes, yes....”
Pause.
It sounded as if she had been making fun of me. Then suddenly she said with a smile:
“What a strange fellow you are! What makes you walk all that way to come and sit here of an evening?”
“It's just a little habit I've got lately. For something to do till bedtime.”
“Then you're not afraid?”
Her jesting tone gave me courage; I felt myself on surer ground, and answered:
“No, that's just the trouble. I wanted to learn to shiver and shake.”
“Learn to shiver and shake? Like the boy in the fairy tale. Now where did you read about that, I wonder?”
“I don't know. In some book or other, I suppose.”
Pause.
“Why wouldn't you come and work for us when Father asked you?”
“I'd be no good at that sort of work. I'm going out on the roads now with another man.”
“Which way are you going?”
“That I cannot say. East or west. We are just wanderers.”
Pause.
“I'm sorry,” she said. “I mean, I don't think it's wise of you.... Oh, but what was it you said about Erik? I only came to ask about him....”
“He's in a baddish way now, but still.”
“Does the doctor think he will get better?”
“Yes, as far as I know. I've not heard otherwise.”
“Well—good-night.”
Oh to be young and rich and handsome, and famous and learned in sciences!... There she goes....
Before leaving the churchyard I found a serviceable thumbnail and put it in my pocket. I waited a little, peering this way and that, and listening, but all was still. No voice came saying, “That's mine!”
Falkenberg and I set out. It is evening; cool air and a lofty sky with stars lighting up. I persuaded him to go round by way of the churchyard; in my foolishness I wished to go that way, to see if there should be light in one little window down at the vicarage. Oh to be young and rich and....
We walked some hours, having but little weight to carry, and, moreover, we were two wanderers still a bit strange each to the other, so we could talk a little. We passed by the first trading station, and came to another; we could see the tower of the annexe church in the evening light.
From sheer habit I would have gone into the churchyard here as well. I said:
“What do you think? We might find a place here for the night?”
“No sense on earth in that,” said Falkenberg, “when there's hay in every barn along the road. And if we're turned out, there'll be shelter in the woods.”
And we went on again, Falkenberg leading.
He was a man of something over thirty. Tall and well-built, but with a slight stoop; his long moustaches rounded downwards. He was short of speech for the most, quick-witted and kindly; also he had a splendid voice for songs; a different sort from Grindhusen in every way. And when he spoke he used odd words from different local dialects, with a touch of Swedish here and there; no one could tell what part he came from.
We came to a farmstead where the dogs barked, and folk were still about. Falkenberg asked to see the man. A lad came out.
Had he any work for us?
No.
But the fence there along by the road was all to pieces, if we couldn't mend that, now?
No. Man himself had nothing else to do this time of the year.
Could they give us shelter for the night?
Very sorry, but....
Not in the barn?
No, the girls were still sleeping there.
“Swine,” muttered Falkenberg, as we moved away. We turned in through a little wood, keeping a look out now for a likely place to sleep.
“Suppose we went back to the farm now to the girls in the barn? Like as not they wouldn't turn us out.”
Falkenberg thought for a moment.
“The dogs will make a row,” he said.
We came out into a field where two horses were loose. One had a bell at its neck.
“Nice fellow this,” said Falkenberg, “with his horses still out and his womenfolk still sleeping in the barn. It'd be doing these poor beasts a good turn to ride them a bit.”
He caught the belled horse, stuffed its bell with grass and moss, and got on its back. My beast was shy, and I had a deal of trouble to get hold of it.
We rode across the field, found a gate, and came out on to the road. We each had one of my rugs to sit on, but neither had a bridle.
Still, we managed well enough, managed excellently well; we rode close on five miles, and came to another village. Suddenly we heard some one ahead along the road.
“Better take it at a gallop,” said Falkenberg over his shoulder. “Come along.”
But Falkenberg was no marvel of a horseman, for all his leg; he clutched the bell-strap first, then slithered forward and hung on with both arms round the horse's neck. I caught a glimpse of one of his legs against the sky as he fell off.
Fortunately, there was no great danger waiting us after all; only a young couple out sweethearting.
Another half-hour's riding, and we were both of us stiff and sore. We got down, turned the horses' faces to home, and drove them off. And now we were foot-passengers once more.
Gakgak, gakgak—the sound came from somewhere far off. I knew it well; it was the grey goose. When we were children, we were taught to clasp our hands and stand quite still, lest we should frighten the grey goose as it passed. No harm in that; no harm in doing so now. And so I do. A quiet sense of mystery steals through me; I hold my breath and gaze. There it comes, the sky trailing behind it like the wake of a ship.Gakgak, high overhead. And the splendid ploughshare glides along beneath the stars....
We found a barn at last, at a farmstead where all was still, and there we slept some hours. They found us next morning sound asleep.
Falkenberg went up to the farmer at once and offered to pay for our lodging. We had come in late the night before, he explained, and didn't like to wake folk out of their beds, but we were no runaways for all that. The man would not take our money; instead he gave us coffee in the kitchen. But he had no work for us; the harvest was in, and he and his lad had nothing to do themselves now but mend their fences here and there.
We tramped three days and found no work, but had to pay for our food and drink, getting poorer every day.
“How much have you got left, and how much have I got left? We'll never get any great way at this rate,” said Falkenberg. And he threw out a hint that we'd soon have to try a little stealing.
We talked it over a bit, and agreed to wait and see how things turned out. Food was no difficulty, we could always get hold of a fowl or so at a pinch. But ready money was the thing we really needed, and that we'd have to get. If we couldn't manage it one way, we'd have to manage another. We didn't set up to be angels.
“I'm no angel out of heaven alive,” said Falkenberg. “Here am I now, sitting around in my best clothes, and they no better than another man's workaday things. I can give them a wash in a stream, and sit and wait till they're dry; if there's a hole I mend it, and if I chance to earn a bit extra some day, I can get some more. And that's the end of it.”
“But young Erik said you were a beggar to drink.”
“That young cock. Drink—well, of course I do. No sense in only eating.... Let's look about for a place where there's a piano,” said Falkenberg.
I thought to myself: a piano on a place means well-to-do folk; that's where he is going to start stealing.
In the afternoon we came to just such a place. Falkenberg had put on my town clothes beforehand, and given me his sack to carry so he could walk in easily, with an air. He went straight up to the front steps, and I lost sight of him for a bit, then he came out again and said yes, he was going to tune their piano.
“Going towhat?”
“You be quiet,” said Falkenberg. “I've done it before, though I don't go bragging about it everywhere.”
He fished out a piano-tuner's key from his sack, and I saw he was in earnest.
I was ordered to keep near the place while he was tuning.
Well, I wandered about to pass the time; every now and then coming round to the south side of the house, I could hear Falkenberg at work on the piano in the parlour, and forcibly he dealt with it. He could not strike a decent chord, but he had a good ear; whenever he screwed up a string, he was careful to screw it back again exactly where it was before, so the instrument at any rate was none the worse.
I got into talk with one of the farm-hands, a young fellow. He got two hundred Kroner a year, he said, besides his board. Up at half-past six in the morning to feed the horses, or half-past five in the busy season. Work all day, till eight in the evening. But he was healthily content with his life in that little world. I remember his fine, strong set of teeth, and his pleasant smile as he spoke of his girl. He had given her a silver ring with a gold heart on the front.
“And what did she say to that?”
“Well, she was all of a wonder, you may be sure.”
“And what did you say?”
“What I said? Why, I don't know. Said I hoped she'd like it and welcome. I'd like to have given her stuff for a dress as well, but....”
“Is she young?”
“Why, yes. Talk away like a little jews' harp. Young—I should think so.”
“And where does she live?”
“Ah, that I won't say. They'd know it all over the village if I did.”
And there I stood like another Alexander, so sure of the world, and half contemptuous of this boy and his poor little life. When we went away, I gave him one of my rugs; it was too much of a weight to go carrying two. He said at once he would give it to his girl; she would be glad of a nice warm rug.
And Alexander said: If I were not myself I would be you....
When Falkenberg had finished and came out, he was grown so elegant in his manners all at once, and talked in such a delicate fashion, I could hardly understand him. The daughter of the house came out with him. We were to pass on without delay, he said, to the farm adjacent; there was a piano there which needed some slight attention. And so“Farvel, Frøken, Farvel.”
“Six Kroner, my boy,” he whispered in my ear. “And another six at the next place, that's twelve.”
So off we went, and I carried our things.