Part 2

"Shall I sing to you, papa?"

"Sing! no, thank you. I'd rather not."

"But what's the matter? What's it all about?"

"What's the matter--good heavens, why, my '52 Madeira, isn't that enough?"

"Oh, is that all? I'm sure it couldn't have been put to better use. You ought to have heard Frantz Pettersen making up things on the spur of the moment; it was simply lovely."

She had clambered up on his knee, with her arms round his neck; the others were still in the drawing-room.

"Lovely, was it, little one?" said Holm in a somewhat gentler voice.

"Yes, papa--oh, I don't know when I've enjoyed myself so much as this evening. And only fancy, Hilmar Strom, the composer--there, you can see, the tall thin man in glasses--he said I had a beautiful voice--beautiful!"

"Don't you believe it, my child."

"What--when a great artist like that says so? Oh, I was so happy--and now you come and...." She stood up and put her handkerchief to her eyes. Just then William came in.

"Hullo, what's the matter? What are you crying for?"

"Papa--papa says I'm not to believe what Hilmar Strom said--that I'd a beautiful voice. Ugh--it's always like that at home--it's _miserable_." She leaned over in a corner of the sofa, hiding her face in her hands.

"Yes, you're right. Oh, we shall have pleasant memories of home to go out into the world with." And William stalked off in dudgeon.

Holm sat there like a criminal, at a loss what to make of it all. Oh, these young folk! They always seemed to manage to turn the tables on him somehow. He couldn't even get properly angry now.

And Marie--he was always helpless where she was concerned. He was sorry now he had not brought her up differently. But he had never said an unkind word to her--how could he, to a sweet little thing like that? Only last year she had nursed him herself for three weeks, when he was at death's door with inflammation of the lungs; that girl, that girl! He went over to the sofa and put his arms round her.

"There, there, little one, it's not so bad as all that."

"Hu--hu--hu--I didn't know--I didn't know about the old Madeira. It was me--hu--hu--that brought it up."

"Well, well, never mind about the Madeira, child. We can get some more; only don't cry now."

She turned towards him.

"Then you're not angry with me any more, papa?" "No, no, child. There--now go in and enjoy yourself again."

"Oh, but it's so horrid, papa--I'm sure the others must have noticed us."

Just then William came in and reported that the scene had made a painful impression on the guests; Strom, the composer, and Berg, the sculptor, were for going off at once, and were only with difficulty persuaded to stay.

Holm did not know what to say to this; the transition from accuser to accused was too sudden.

"Couldn't you make us some punch, father; it would sort of set things right again if you were to come marching in yourself with a big bowl of punch."

"Punch? H'm--well--I could, of course, but then..."

"Oh yes, that lovely punch, papa, you know, with champagne and hock and curacao in--and all the rest of it."

"Well, I suppose I must. Now that I have once got into all this--this artist business, why..." And off he went for the key of the cellar.

No sooner was he out of the room than William burst out laughing.

"Oh, Marie, you are the most irresistible little devil that ever lived." And he waltzed her round and round.

"Well, it wanted some doing to-day, William, I can tell you. I was half afraid I shouldn't manage it after all. As it was, I had to cry before he'd come round."

"First-rate. Woman's tears are the finest weapon ever invented--and punch on top of all--bravo! Come along, we must go and prepare the rest of the band for what's coming."

Out in the kitchen, Holm was busy over a punch bowl, solemnly stirring the brew and dropping in slices of lemon one by one.

"I am an old fool, I know, to let them get round me as they do. H'm. And the longer I leave it, the worse it will be. We shall have to come to a proper understanding some time; it can't go on like this...."

"Papa, are you nearly ready?"

"Coming, coming, dear, in a minute. Open the door, there's a good girl."

The entry of the host with a bowl of punch was the signal for a general demonstration of delight. Frantz Pettersen promptly sat down at the piano and started off, the rest of the party accompanying with anything they could lay hands on. One had a pair of fire tongs, one beat a brass tray, one rang a couple of glasses against each other, and so on. The words were something like this:

"Our host he is a lasting joy, A perfect Pa for girl and boy, A perfect Pa, hurray, hurrah, Hurrah, hurrip, hurroo!

He stands with head so meekly bowed, Withal a man of whom we're proud, We're proud of you, hurrah, hurroo, Hurrah, hurrip, hurray!

All honour to the grocery trade Whereby his fortune it was made, And a nice one too, hurrah, hurroo, Hurrah, hurrip, hurray!

It must have been a decent pile For his cellar's stocked in splendid style, Put it away, hurrah, hurray, Hurrah, hurrip, hurroo!

Though somebody must have made, we fear, a Sad mistake with that Madeira, Maderiah, hurray, hurrah, Hurrah, hurrip, hurroo!

But now he casts all care away And gladly joins our circle gay. Our circle gay, hurrah, hurray, Hurrah, hurrip, hurroo!

The flowing bowl he brings us here, So drink his health with a hearty cheer, Hip, hip, hurrah, hurrip, Hurrah, hurrip, hurra-a-ay!"

Holm did not know whether to laugh or cry at this exhibition, but chose the former; after all, it might be worth while to see how far they would go. He made speech after speech, and the company shouted in delight. Graarud, the literary critic of the _People's Guardian_, declared that Knut Holm was a credit to the merchant citizens of his country, and as fine a specimen of the type as was to be found.

Listad, another literary man, who edited a paper himself, was making love to Marie, but with little apparent success. He was a cadaverous-looking personage, but an idealist, and earnest in the cause of universal peace.

The speeches grew more and more exalted in tone as the evening went on. Pettersen invited the company to drink to the "coming dawn of Art in the land--a dawn that would soon appear when once the daughter of the house raised her melodious voice to ring o'er hill and dale." This was too much for Holm; he slipped into the hall and, putting on an overcoat, went out to get some fresh air.

It was a fine, starlight, frosty night, the river flowed broad and smooth and dark between the piers, the gas lamps on either side shedding long streaks of light across the silent water.

He swung round the corner, but--heavens, who was that sitting so quietly on the steps in front of the shop? He went up, and found a twelve-year-old boy leaning against the wall.

"Why, little man, what's the matter? What are you sitting out here for in the cold?"

The lad rose hurriedly to his feet and made as if to run away.

"No, here, wait a bit, son; there's nothing to be afraid of." Holm took the boy's hand, and looked into a pale childish face with deep dark eyes, and framed in a tangle of fair hair.

"I was only listening," he sobbed.... "The music upstairs there...."

"You're fond of music, then?"

"Yes; I always go out in the evening, when nobody can see, and sit outside where I know there's somebody that plays. And Holm's up there, they've got the loveliest piano."

"Would you like to learn to play yourself?"

The boy looked up at him in astonishment.

"Me?"

"Yes, you. If you're so fond of music, wouldn't you like to learn to play?"

"I've got to help mother at home, because father's dead. And when I'm big enough I'm going to be a sailor. Please, I must go home now."

"Mother getting anxious about you, eh?"

"No, she knows where I go of an evening; she doesn't mind."

"Well, what's your name, anyhow?"

"Hans Martinsen."

"Here you are, then, Hans, here's two shillings for you."

"Oh, er--that for me! I could go to heaps of concerts.... Thank you ever so much."

He clasped the outstretched hand in both his little fists, and looked up with beaming eyes.

"And now look here, little Hans. At eleven o'clock to-morrow morning you come round and ask for me. Here in the shop."

"But, are you--are you Mr. Holm, then?" He loosed the hand.

"Well, and what then? That's nothing to be afraid of, is it, little Hans? But now, listen to me. I want you to come round here to-morrow morning, as I said. And perhaps then we'll have some real nice music for you. And you can bring your mother too if you like."

"Music--to-morrow--oh, that will be lovely. And won't mother be pleased!"

"And now run along home, like a good boy, and get warm. You've been sitting here in the cold too long already. Good-night."

"Good-night, good-night!"

Holm watched the little figure hurrying with swift little legs across the bridge, till it disappeared into the dark on the farther side.

He stood for some time deep in thought. The dawn of Art--what was it Pettersen had said? What if he, Holm, the despised materialist, were to be the first to discover the dawn here! It was a strange coincidence, anyway. "And such strange, deep eyes the little fellow had; it went to my heart when his little hands took hold of mine.... Ay, little lad, you're one of God's flowers, I can see. And you shan't be left to perish of cold in this world as long as my name's Knut Holm."

III

BRAMSEN

On the morning after the party, Holm sent down for Paal Abrahamsen or "Bramsen" as he was generally called. Holm and Bramsen had known each other from childhood; they had gone to the same poor school, and had grown up together. After their confirmation, Bramsen had gone to sea, while Holm had got a place in a shop, and commenced his mercantile career. But he never forgot his old friend, and when in course of time he had established a business of his own, he made Bramsen his warehouseman and clerk on the quay, where he now held a position of trust as Holm's right-hand man. He was a short, bandy-legged man, with a humorous face set in a frame of shaggy whiskers, and a remarkably mobile play of feature. Agile as a cat, he could walk on his hands as easily as others on their feet, and, despite his fifty-five years, he turned out regularly on Contrition Day to compete with the boys for prizes in the park; and he was a hard man to beat!

"Paal he can never be serious," complained Andrine, his wife, who was something of a melancholy character herself, and constantly endeavouring to drag him along to various meetings and assemblies which Paal as regularly evaded on some pretext or other.

Holm's relations with his old comrade and subordinate were of a curious character. Down at the quay, when they were alone, they addressed each other in familiar terms, as equals; but in public, Bramsen was always the respectful employee, observing all formalities towards his master.

When the message came down from the office that Mr. Holm would be coming down to the waterside at 7.30 in the morning to see him, Bramsen turned thoughtful.

They had held a similar conference once, some years before, when the firm of Knut G. Holm looked like going to ruin--Heaven send it was not something of the same sort now!

Holm looked irritable and out of sorts. "Bramsen," he said, "I'm sick and tired of the whole blessed business."

Bramsen scratched his chin meditatively, and laid his head on one side. "H'm," he observed after a pause. "More trouble with that there guinea-pig up at the bank, fussing about bills and that sort?"

"No, no, nothing to do with that. We're all right as far as money goes."

"All right, eh? But you're put out about something, that's plain to see. Liver out of order, perhaps?"

"Oh no!"

"Why, then, there's nothing else that I can see."

"It's those wretched youngsters of mine."

"Ho, is that all?"

"All! As if it wasn't enough! I tell you they're going stark mad, the pair of them."

"Seems to me they've been that way a long time now."

"Oh, it's all very well to talk like that. But really, it's getting beyond all bearing. William's taken it into his head to go and be a painter."

"Well, and not a bad thing, either, as long as he does the work decently, with plenty of driers and not too much oil in the mixing. Look at Erlandsen up the river, he's made a good thing out of it."

"Oh, not that sort of painting. It's an artist, I mean. Painting pictures and things."

"Pictures!" Bramsen looked dumbfounded. "Painting pictures? Well, blister me if I ever heard the like. Wait a bit, though--there was Olsen, the verger; he'd a boy, I remember, a slip of a fellow with gold spectacles and consumption, he used to mess about with that sort of thing. But he never made a living out of it--didn't live long, anyway."

"But that's not the worst of it, Bramsen. There's Marie--she wants to be a singer."

Bramsen almost fell off the sugar-box on which he was seated.

"Singer--what! Singing for money, d'you mean? Going round with a hat?"

"Something very much like it, anyway--only it'll be my money that goes into the hat. What are we to do about it, eh?"

"H'm ... Couldn't you pack the boy off to sea? And the young lady--send her to a school to do needlework and such like?"

"Oh, what's the good of talking like that? No, my dear man, young people nowadays don't let themselves be sent anywhere that way. There's the pair of them, they simply laugh at us."

Holm walked back to the office deep in thought. On his return, he found Hans Martinsen, and Berg, the organist, awaiting him.

Bramsen remained seated on his sugar-box and murmured to himself: "Well, it's a nice apple-pie for Knut Holm, that it is. Lord, but they children can be the very devil."

A little later, Garner came down to the quay, and found Bramsen still meditating on his box.

"What's wrong with the old man to-day, Bramsen? He looks as if he was going in for the deaf-and-dumb school; there's no getting a word out of him."

Bramsen sat for quite a while without answering. Then at last he said solemnly:

"It's my humble opinion, and that's none so humble after all, that there's a deal of what you might call contrapasts in this here world."

"Meaning to say?"

"It's plain enough. Folk that's got a retipation, they does all they can to lose it, and they that hasn't, why--there's no understanding them till they've got one."

Garner was still in the dark as to whither all this wisdom tended, and began absently slitting up a coffee-sack.

"Look you, Garner," Bramsen went on. "It's this way with the women: they've each their station here in life, as by the Lord appointed. Some gets married, and some goes school-teaching, or out in service, and such-like--and all that sort, they stick to their retipation; but the woman that goes about singing for money in a hat, her retipation's like a broken window--it's out and gone to bits and done with."

Garner laughed and looked inquiringly at the other.

"_Now_, do you understand, Garner, what's the trouble with Holm?"

"Oh, so that's what you're getting at, is it? Miss Holm wants to go on the stage."

"Singing, my boy; singing for money, and if so be that was to happen to any daughter of mine, I'd give her a dose of something to make her lose her voice--ay, if it was rat poison, I would."

It was a regular thing for Garner and Bramsen to have a comfortable chat down at the waterside, when the old sailor would generally relate some of his experiences at sea. These yarns especially delighted Garner, who came of a peasant stock himself, and knew nothing of the sea or foreign parts until he came to the town. He tried now to open up the subject again.

"Ever been in the Arctic, Bramsen?"

"Have I? Why, I should think so. I was up that way in '76, on a whaling trip with Svend Foya."

It was a habit of Bramsen's at the beginning of a story to make some attempt at a literary style, but he invariably dropped it as he went on.

"Dangerous business, isn't it?"

"Why, that's as you take it or as you make it. If one of the brutes gets your boat with a flick of his tail, there's an end of you, of course. I remember once we were after a big fellow; had a shot at him and got in just aft of the spout-holes. And then, take my word for it, he led us a dance. Off he went, full-speed ahead, and us full speed astern, but blister me if he didn't win the tug-of-war and sail off with us at nineteen knots, till we were cutting along like a torpedo boat. He wasn't winded, ye see, for his blowpipe was intact, and his gear below-decks sound and ship-shape. But at last we got him fairly run down, and settled him with a straight one through the heart."

"A whale's heart must be pretty big?"

"Why, yes, he's what you might call a large-hearted beast. About the size of a middling chest o' drawers or a chiffonier."

"Rough on a whale, then, if he got heart disease," laughed Garner.

"Why, as to that, I suppose it would be in proportion, as you might say. But he's built pretty well to scale in the other parts as well, with his main arteries about as big round as a chimney."

"I wonder you didn't go up with Nansen to the Pole."

"And what for, I'd like to know? Messing about among a lot of nasty Eskimos; no, thankye, I'd a better use for my time." And Bramsen went on again with his whaling yarns for a spell, until Garner found it was time to get back to the shop.

Outside the store shed sat a row of urchins fishing from the edge of the quay. Bramsen was a popular character among the waterside boys; he would chat and fish with them at off-times, or help them in the manufacture of a patent "knock-out" bait, from a recipe of his own, the chief ingredients being flour and spirits. There was always a shout of delight when the small fish appeared at the surface, belly upwards. But to-day the knock-out drops appeared to fail of their effect, whether because the fish had grown used to French brandy, or for some other reason. Bramsen soon left the boys to their own devices, and went back into the shed. Here, to his astonishment, he found Amanda, his daughter and only child, weeping in a corner.

Amanda was about fifteen, a lanky slip of a girl, with her hair in a thick plait down her back, twinkling dark brown eyes, and a bright, pleasant face.

"Saints and sea-serpents--you here, child? What's amiss now?"

"Mother--mother wants us to go to meeting this evening, and you promised we should go to the theatre and see _Monkey Tricks_, and they say it's the funniest piece."

Bramsen grew suddenly thoughtful. What if the child were to go getting ideas into her head, like Miss Holm, and want to go about singing with a hat--h'm, perhaps after all it might be as well to take her to the meeting with Andrine.

But the mere suggestion sent Amanda off into a fresh burst of tears.

"There, there, child, I'll take you to the theatre, then, but on one condition."

Amanda looked up expectantly. "Yes?"

"You're never to think of singing for money yourself, or going on the stage, or anything like that. You understand?"

The girl had no idea of what was in his mind, and answered mechanically, "No, father--and you'll take me to see _Monkey Tricks_ after all?"

"All right! but don't let your mother know, that's all."

Amanda was out of the door like an arrow, and hurried home at full speed. That evening she and her father sat up in the gallery, thoroughly enjoying themselves. Bramsen, it must be confessed, had taken the title literally, and waited expectantly all through the piece for the monkey to appear, and was disappointed in consequence, but seeing Amanda so delighted with the play as it was, he said nothing about it. Had he been alone he would have demanded his money back; after all, it was rank swindling to advertise a piece as Monkey Tricks, when there wasn't a monkey.

Meanwhile, Andrine had gone to the meeting, and waited patiently for the others to appear--they had promised to come on after. Here, however, she was disappointed, as usual.

When the backsliders came home, they found her deploring the vanity of this world, the imperfections of our mortal life, and the weakness of human clay against the powers of evil.

Bramsen and Amanda let her go on, as they always did, exchanging glances the while; occasionally, when her back was turned, Bramsen would make the most ludicrous faces, until Amanda had to go out into the kitchen and laugh.

Bramsen was fond of his wife; she was indeed so good-hearted and unselfish that no one could help it; while Amanda, for her part, respected her mother as the only one who could keep her in order. And indeed it was needed, "with a father that never so much as thought of punishing the child."

Bramsen himself had never been thrashed in his life, except by his comrades as a boy, and had always conscientiously paid back in full. He had had no experience of the chastening rod, and could not conceive that anything of the sort was needed for Amanda. Consequently, the relation between father and daughter was of the nature of an alliance as between friends, and as the years went on, the pair of them were constantly combining forces to outwit Andrine.

Bramsen had no idea of the value of money, or its proper use and application, wherefore Andrine had, in course of time, taken over charge of the family finances, and kept the savings-bank book,--a treasure which Bramsen himself was allowed to view on rare occasions, and then only from the outside, its contents being quite literally a closed book to him. Amanda and he would often put their heads together and fall to guessing how much there might be in the book, "taking it roughly like," but the riddle remained unsolved.

Every month Bramsen brought home his pay and delivered it dutifully into Andrine's hands; he made no mention, however, of the ten-shilling rise that had been given him, but spent the money on little extras and outings for himself and Amanda, whom he found it hard to refuse at any time.

A month before, it had been her great wish to have an album "to write poetry in"; all the other girls in her class had one, and she simply couldn't be the only one without. Bramsen could not understand what pleasure there was to be got out of such an article; much better to get a song book with printed words and have done with it. But Amanda scorned the suggestion, and the album was duly bought. She had got two entries in it already, one from Verger Klemmeken of Strandvik, an old friend of her father's, who wrote in big straggling letters:

"Whene'er these humble lines you see, I pray that you'll remember me."

and one from Miss Tobiesen, an old lady at the infirmary, who had been engaged seven times, and therefore judged it appropriate to quote:

"'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all."

Amanda then insisted that her father should contribute something, but Bramsen declared in the first place that the album was much too fine a thing for his clumsy fist, and furthermore, that he couldn't hit on anything to write. Amanda, however, gave him no peace till he consented, and at last, after much effort, the worthy man achieved the following gem:

"I, Amanda's only father, Love her very much but rather Fear she causes lots of bother To her wise and loving mother."

This elegant composition was unfortunately not appreciated by Amanda, who, to tell the truth, was highly displeased. Fancy writing such a thing in her book--why, the whole class would laugh at her. Bramsen was obliged to scratch it out, but in so doing, scratched a hole in the paper, leaving no alternative but to take out the page altogether, much to Amanda's disgust.