CHAPTER VII.

Knutty was overjoyed at the return of her icebergs, and it was pathetic to see how glad they were to be with her again. She thought that, on the whole, they were the better for their journey; but when she questioned Clifford, he told her that Alan had not cared to be with him.

"He is much happier since he has returned and is not alone with me," Clifford said.

"And you?" asked Knutty.

"I am much happier too, Knutty," he said thoughtfully.

And he looked in the direction of the foss, where Katharine had just gone with the Sorenskriver.

"Ah," said Knutty, "you are a strange pair, you and your boy."

He made no reply; but afterwards said in an absent sort of way:

"I think I will take a stroll in the direction of the foss."

"Yes, I should, if I were you," said Knutty, with a twinkle in her eye. "The Sorenskriver will be so pleased to see you, I'm sure."

He glanced at her a little suspiciously, but saw only a grave, preoccupied expression on her naughty old face.

But when he had gone, she laughed to herself and said:

"Yes, there is decidedly daylight, not through a leper's squint, but through a rose-window! Only I must be careful not to turn it into black darkness again. I must see nothing and hear nothing, and I must talk frequently of Marianne--or oughtn't I to talk of her? Nã, I wonder which would be the best plan. If I do speak of her, it will encourage him to remember her; and if I don't speak of her it will encourage him to brood over her in silence. She always was a difficulty, and always will be until----And even then, there's the other iceberg to deal with--ah, and here he comes--made friends with Jens, I see, and no difficulty about the language--Jens never speaking a word, and Alan only saying something occasionally, like his father."

The two boys parted at the Stabur, where Ragnhild was standing on the steps holding a pile of freshly made Fladbröd. Alan looked up at her, took off his little round cricketing-cap, blushed, made his way over to the porch, and sat down by Knutty. And Ragnhild thought:

"That nice English boy. He shall have plenty of multebaer."

So she disappeared into the Stabur and brought out a plateful of multebaer, which she handed him with a friendly nod. He fell to without any hesitation, and Knutty watched him and smiled.

"Well, kjaere," she said, "and what do you think of this part of the world? Glad to be here?"

"Yes, Knutty," he answered. "And it is ripping to see you again."

"Am I so very 'bully'?" she said, in her teasing way.

"Yes," he said, smiling.

"Ah," she said, "I suppose I am!" And they both laughed.

"Jens and I are going fishing this afternoon up to a mountain lake over there," he said. "I wish you'd come too. Do, Knutty."

"Dear one," she answered, "I'll come with pleasure if you'll send over for one of the London cart-horses. Nothing else on this earth could carry me, and then I suppose he couldn't climb! You surely did not think of hoisting me up on one of those yellow ponies? No, I think I'll stop below and eat the fish you bring home. All the same, thank you for the invitation. Many regrets that age and weight, specially weight, prevent me from accepting."

There was a pause, and Alan went on eating his multebaer.

"Did you like your journey to America?" she asked, without looking up from her work.

"Yes," he answered half-heartedly, and his face clouded over. "But--but I was glad to come back."

"Well," she said, "that is what many people say. The New World may be good enough in its way, but the Old World is the Old World, when all is said and done. And you got tired of the Americans, did you?"

"Oh no," he said, "it wasn't that. But----"

He hesitated, and then he blurted out:

"I wish you'd been with us, Knutty. It would have been so different then."

"Nei, stakkar," she said. "You'll make old Knutty too conceited if you go on saying these nice things to her."

He had put down his plate of multebaer, and was now fiddling nervously with a Swedish knife that Knutty had given him. Knutty glanced at him with her sly little old eyes. She knew she was in for confidences if she conducted herself with discretion.

"Give it to me," she said, holding out her hand for the knife. "This is the way it opens--so--and then you stick it through the case--so--and then it's ready to stick anybody you don't like--so--in true Swedish fashion, with which I have great sympathy--there it is!"

The boy went on fiddling with the knife, and then he took his cap off and fiddled with that.

"Du milde Himmel!" thought Knutty. "These icebergs! Why do I ever put up with them?"

"Knutty," the boy began nervously, "I want so dreadfully to ask you something--about--mother. Was she--very unhappy--do you think? I can't get out of my head what Mrs Stanhope said. I tried to forget it--but----"

He looked up hopelessly at Knutty, and broke off.

Knutty gave no sign.

"Twice I nearly ran away from father," the boy went on. "I--I wanted to be alone--not with father--once at New York--and another time at Chicago. There were two fellows going out West from there, and--I wanted to be alone, not with father--and I thought I could get along somehow--other fellows do--and then I remembered how you said that he only had me--and I stayed--but----"

He looked up again at Knutty, and this time she answered:

"I know," she said. "I understand."

"You don't think it beastly of me?" he said.

"No," she said, "not beastly at all; only very, very sad."

"You won't let father know I--I nearly left him?" Alan asked.

"No; you may rely on me," she answered gently. And she knew that she was speaking the truth, and that she would have no heart to tell Clifford. With her quick insight she saw the whole thing in a flash of light. She guessed that Mrs Stanhope had got hold of the boy, and planted in his heart some evil seed which had grown and grown. The difficulty was to find out exactly what she had said to him; and Knutty knew that Alan would be able to tell her only unconsciously, as it were, involuntarily. Her kind old heart bled for the lad when she thought how much he must have suffered, alone and unhelped. His simple words about wanting to get away from his father spoke volumes in themselves. And he seemed to harp on this, for he said almost at once:

"You see, I shall be going back to school, and then to college, and then to work."

"And then out into the world to make your name as a great architect," she said.

He smiled a ghost of a smile.

"Yes," he said; "but far away, Knutty, out in the colonies somewhere."

"Alan," she said suddenly, "you asked me about your mother--whether I thought she had been unhappy. I don't know; I never knew her well enough to be able to say. I thought she seemed happy when I saw her last--about two years ago, I think--and she was looking very beautiful. She was a beautiful woman your mother, and well set-up, too, wasn't she?"

"Yes," she boy said, and his lip quivered. He turned away and leaned against the pillar of the porch.

"Oh, Knutty," he said, turning round to her impetuously, "why did she die? Why isn't she here? There wasn't any need for her to die. She never would have died if father had been kinder to her, if we'd both been kinder to her; but--she was unhappy. Mrs Stanhope said she was unhappy: she told me all about it before we left England. I can't forget what she said--what she said about--about father being the cause of mother's death; that's what she meant--I know that's what she meant.... I can't get it out of my head. I never thought of it like that until she told me; but when she spoke as she did, then I knew all at once that--that--that there was something wrong somewhere about mother's death, and that I oughtn't to forget it, being her son--and--and she was fond of me--and----"

He broke off. Knutty had risen, and put her hand on the boy's shoulder.

"Kjaere," she said in a strained voice, "I did not know things were as bad as this with you. My poor boy."

She slipped her arm through the boy's arm and led him away from the courtyard, down past the cowhouse and the hay-barns and through the white gate.

Old Kari was grubbing about, singing her favourite refrain to call the cows back:--

"Sulla ma, Sulla ma, Sulla ma, aa kjy! Sulla ma, Sulla ma, Sulla ma, aa kjy![K] Sullam, sullam, sy-y-y y-y-y!"

Bedstemor was in her garden, giving an eye to her red-currant bushes, of which she was specially proud, and casting a sly glance round to see what the Swedish artist-lady was doing perched on that rock in the next field. She was only looking towards the Gaard and measuring the cowhouse in the air. Bedstemor thought there was no harm in that; and any way, these people had to do something.

The Sorenskriver was coming down from the birch-woods, alone and apparently in a disagreeable mood, for he pushed roughly on one side the little golden-haired daughter of one of the cotters who was playing on the hillside.

"These wretched Englishmen," he said, frowning. "_Uff_, they are always in the way, all over the world. And I was having such a pleasant time with her before this fellow came."

Katharine and Clifford were lingering near the foss. Katharine was making a little water-colour of the lovely scene. Through the trees one could catch a glimpse of the shining river and a bit of the bright blue sky.

"Yes," Clifford was saying, "my old Dane was wise to send us, and we were wise to come back. We were not happy together, Miss Frensham. But since we have returned the boy is happier, and--I am happier too."

Katharine, bending over her work, whispered to herself:

"And I--I am happier too."

But down by Knutty's mountain-ashes, near the black hay-barn, an old woman and a young boy sat, with pale, drawn faces.

[Footnote K: _Kjy_, cows. The refrain is merely a doggerel.]