Chapter 21

“Funny to go and forget a thing like that,” he said. “It's gone clean out of my head. But come up home now. I'll be sure to hit on it again.”

All friendliness he was now. But I had one or two things to do myself, and would not go farther.

“You won't see the Captain tonight, anyway.”

No, but it was late. Emma would be in bed, and would only be a trouble.

“Not a bit of it,” said Lars. “And if she has gone to bed, what of it? I shouldn't wonder, now, if there was a shirt of yours up there, too. Better come up and take it with you, and save Emma going all the way down herself.”

But I would not go up. I ventured, however, to send a greeting to Emma this time.

“Ay, surely,” said Lars. “And if so be as you haven't time to come up to my bit of a place now, why, there it is. You'll be going off first thing tomorrow, I suppose?”

It slipped my mind for the moment that I should not be able to see the Captain that evening, and I answered now that I should be leaving as early as could be.

“Well, then, I'll send Emma down with that shirt of yours at once,” said Lars. “And good luck to you. And don't forget what I said.”

And that was farewell to Lars.

A little farther down I slackened my pace. After all, there was no real hurry about the few things I had to pack and finish off. I turned back and walked up again a little, whistling in the moonlight. It was a fine evening, not cold at all, only a soft, obedient calm all over the woods. Half an hour passed, and then to my surprise came Emma, bringing my shirt.

* * * * *

Next morning neither Grindhusen nor I went to the woods. Grindhusen was uneasy.

“Did you speak to the Captain about me?” he asked.

“I haven't spoken to him.”

“Oh, I know he'll turn me off now, you see! If he had any sense, he'd let me stay on to cut up all that cord-wood. But what's he know about things? It's as much as he can manage to keep a man at all.”

“Why, what's this, Grindhusen? You seemed to like the Captain well enough before.”

“Oh yes, you know! Yes, of course. He's good enough, I dare say. H'm! I wonder, now, if the Inspector down on the river mightn't have some little scrap of a job in my line. He's a man with plenty of money, is the Inspector.”

I saw the Captain at eight o'clock, and talked with him a while; then a couple of neighbours came to call--offering sympathy in his bereavement, no doubt. The Captain looked fatigued, but he was not a broken man by any means; his manner was firm and steady enough. He spoke to me a little about a plan he had in mind for a big drying-house for hay and corn.

No more of things awry now, Øvrebø, no more emotion, no soul gone off the rails. I thought of it almost with sadness. No one to stick up impertinent photographs on the piano, but no one to play on that piano, either; dumb now, it stands, since the last note sounded. No, for Fru Falkenberg is not here now; she can do no more hurt to herself or any other. Nothing of all that used to be here now. Remains, then, to be seen if all will be flowers and joy at Øvrebø hereafter.

“If only he doesn't take to drinking again,” I said to Nils.

“No, surely,” he said. “And I don't believe he ever did. It was just a bit of foolery, if you ask me, his going on like that just for the time. But talking of something else--will you be coming back here in the spring?”

“No,” I answered. “I shall not come again now.”

Then Nils and I took leave of each other. Well I remember that man's calm and fairness of mind; I stood looking after him as he walked away across the yard. Then he turned round and said:

“Were you up in the woods yesterday? Is there snow enough for me to take a sledge up for wood?”

“Yes,” I answered.

And he went off, relieved, to the stables, to harness up.

Grindhusen, too, comes along, on the way to the stable. He stops for a moment to tell me that the Captain has himself offered him work cutting wood. “'Saw up all the small stuff you can,' he said; 'keep at it for a while. I dare say we can agree all right about wages.' 'Honoured and thank you, Captain,' says I. 'Right! Go and tell Nils,' he says. Oh, but he's a grand open-handed sort, is the Captain! There's not many of his like about.”

A little while after, I was sent for up to the Captain's room. He thanked me for the work I had done both indoors, and out, and went on to settle up. And that was all, really. But he kept me there a little, asking one or two things about the drying-shed, and we talked over that for a bit. Anyhow it would have to wait till after Christmas, he said. But when the time came, he'd be glad to see me back. He looked me in the face then, and went on:

“But you won't come back here again now, I suppose?”

I was taken by surprise. But I faced him squarely in return, and answered:

“No.”

As I went down, I thought over what he had said. Had he seen through me, then? If so, he had shown a degree of trust in me that I was glad to think of. At least, he was a man of good feeling.

Trust me? And why should he not? Played out and done with as I was. Suffered to go about and do and be as I pleased, by virtue of my eminent incapacity for harm. Yes, that was it. And, anyhow, there was nothing to see through after all.

I went round, upstairs and down, saying good-bye to them all, to Ragnhild and the maids. Then, as I was coming in front of the house with my pack on my shoulder, the Captain called to me from the steps:

“Wait! I just thought--if you're going to the station, the lad could drive you in.”

Thoughtful and considerate again! But I thanked him and declined. I was not so played out but that I could surely walk that way.

* * * * *

Back in my little town again. And if I have come here now, it is because the place lies on my way to Trovatn, up in the hills.

All is as it was before here now, save for thin ice on the river above and below the rapids, and snow on the ice again.

I take care to buy clothes and equipment here in the town, and, having got a good new pair of shoes, I take my old ones to the cobbler to be half-soled. The cobbler is inclined to talk, and begs me to sit down. “And where's this man from, now?” he asks. In a moment I am enveloped by the spirit of the town.

I walk up to the churchyard. Here, too, care has been taken to provide equipment for the winter. Bundles of straw have been fastened round plants and bushes; many a delicate monument is protected by a tall wooden hood. And the hoods again armoured with a coat of paint. As if some provident soul had thought: Well, now, I have this funeral monument here; with proper care it may be made to last for generations!

There is a Christmas Fair on, too, and I stroll along to see. Here are skis and toboggans, butter scoops and log chairs from the underworld, rose-coloured mittens, clothes' rollers, foxes' skins. And here are horse-dealers and drovers mingling with drunken folk from up the valley. Jews there are, too, anxious to palm off a gaudy watch or so, for all there is no money in the town. And the watches come from that country up in the Alps, where Bocklin--did not come from; where nothing and nobody ever came from.

But in the evening there is brave entertainment for all. Two dancing-halls there are, and the music is supplied by masters on the _hardingfele,_ and wonderful music it is, to be sure. There are iron strings to it, and it utters no empty phrases, but music with a sting in its tail. It acts differently upon different people: some find it rich in national sweetness; some of us are rather constrained to grit our teeth and howl in melancholy wise. Never was stinging music delivered with more effect.

The dance goes on.

In one of the intervals the schoolmaster sings touching verses about an

“aged mother, worn with toil And sweating as 'twere blood....”

But some of the wild youths insist on dancing and nothing else. What's this! Start singing, when they're standing here with the girls all ready to dance--it's not proper! The singer stops, and meets the protest in broadest dialect: What? Not proper? Why, it's by Vinje himself! Heated discussion, _pro_ and _contra,_ arguing and shouting. Never were verses sung with more effect.

The dance goes on.

The girls from the valley are armoured five layers thick, but who cares for that! All are used to hard work. And the dance goes on--ay, the thunder goes on. _Brændevin_ helps things bravely along. The witches' cauldron is fairly steaming now. At three in the morning the local police force appears, and knocks on the floor with his stick. _Finis._ The dancers go off in the moonlight, and spread out near and far. And nine months later, the girls from the valley show proof that after all they were one layer of armour short. Never was such an effect of being one layer short.

The river is quieter now--not much of a river to look at: the winter is come upon it now. It drives the mills and works that stand on its banks, for, in spite of all, it is and will be a great river still, but it shows no life. It has shut down the lid on itself.

And the rapids have suffered, too. And I who stood watching them once and listening, and thought to myself if one lived down there in the roar of it for ever, what would one's brain be like at last? But now the rapids are dwindled, and murmur faintly. It would be shame to call it a roar. _Herregud!_ 'tis no more than a ruin of what it was. Sunk into poverty, great rocks thrust up all down the channel, with here and there a stick of timber hung up thwart and slantwise; one could cross dry-shod by way of stick and stone.

* * * * *

I have done all I have to do in the town, and my pack is on my shoulders. It is Sunday, and a fine clear day.

I look in at the hotel, to see the porter; he is going with me a bit of the way up the river. The great good-hearted fellow offers to carry my things--as if I could not carry them myself.

We go up along the right bank; but the road itself lies on the left; the way we are taking is only a summer path, trodden only by the lumbermen, and with some few fresh tracks in the snow. My companion cannot make out why we do not follow the road: he was always dull of wit; but I have been up this path twice before these last few days, and I am going up it once again. It is my own tracks we can see all the time.

I question him:

“That lady you told me about once--the one that was drowned--was it somewhere about here?”

“Eh? Oh, the one that fell in! Yes. Ay, it was close by here. Dreadful it was. There must have been twenty of us here, with the police, searching about.”

“Dragging the channel?”

“Yes. We got out planks and ladders, but they broke through under us; we cut up all the ice in the end. Here”--he stopped suddenly--“you can see the way we went.”

I can see in the dark space where the boats had moved out and broken through the ice to drag the depth; it was frozen over again now.

The porter goes on:

“We found her at last. And a mercy it was, I dare say. The river was low as it was. Gone right down at once, she had, and got stuck fast between two stones. There was no current to speak of; if it had been spring, now, she'd have travelled a long way down.”

“Trying to cross to the other side, I suppose?”

“Ay. They're always getting out on the ice as soon as it comes; a nasty way it is. Somebody had been over already, but that was two days before. She just came walking down on this side where we are, and the engineer, he was coming down the road on the other side--he'd been out on his bicycle somewhere. Then they caught sight of each other and waved or made a sign or something, for they were cousins or something, both of them. Then the lady must have mistaken him somehow, the engineer says, and thought he was beckoning, for she started to come across. He shouted at her not to, but she didn't hear, and he'd got his bicycle and couldn't move, but, anyhow, some one had got across before. The engineer told the police all about how it happened, and it was written down, every word. Well, and then when she's half-way across, she goes down. A rotten piece of ice it must have been where she trod. And the engineer, he comes down like lightning on his bicycle through the town and up to the hotel and starts ringing. I never heard the like, the way he rang. 'There's someone in the river!' he cries out. 'My cousin's fallen in!' Out we went, and he came along with us. We'd ropes and boat-hooks, but that was no use. The police came soon after, and the fire brigade; they got hold of a boat up there and carried it between them till they got to us; then they got it out and started searching about with the drag. We didn't find her the first day, but the day after. Ay, a nasty business, that it was.”

“And her husband came, you said. The Captain?”

“Yes, the Captain, he came. And you can reckon for yourself the state he was in. And we were all the same for that matter, all the town was. The engineer, he was out of his senses for a long while, so they told us at the hotel, and when the Captain arrived, the engineer went off inspecting up the river, just because he couldn't bear to talk any more about it.”

“So the Captain didn't see him, then?”

“No. H'm! Nay, I don't know,” said the porter, looking around. “No, I don't know anything about that--no.”

His answer was so confused, it was evident that he did know. But it was of no importance, and I did not question him again.

“Well, thanks for coming up with me,” I said, and shared a little money with him for a winter wrap or something of the sort. And I took leave of him, and wanted him to turn back.

He seemed anxious, however, to go on with me a little farther. And, to get me to agree, he suddenly confesses that the Captain had seen the engineer while he was here--yes. The porter, good foolish creature, had understood enough of the maids' gossip in the kitchen to make out that there was something wrong about the engineer and this cousin of his who had come to stay; more than this, however, he had not seen. But, as regards the meeting between the two men, it was he himself who had acted as guide to the Captain on his way up to find the engineer.

“He said he must find him, and so we went up together. And the Captain, he asked me on the way, what could there be to inspect up the river now it was frozen over? And I couldn't see myself, I told him. And so we walked up all day to about three or four in the afternoon. 'We might see if he's not in the hut here,' I said, for I'd heard the lumbermen used the place. Then the Captain wouldn't let me go on with him any farther, but told me to wait. And he walked up to the hut by himself, and went in. He'd not been in the place more than a bare couple of minutes, when out he comes, and the engineer with him. There was a word or so between them--I didn't hear; then all of a sudden the Captain flings up one arm like that, and lands out at the engineer, and down he goes. Lord! but he must have felt it pretty badly. And not content with that, he picks him up and lands out at him again as hard as before. Then he came back to me and said we'd be going home.”

I grew thoughtful at this. It seemed strange that this porter, a creature who bore no grudge or ill-will to any one, should leave the engineer up there at the hut without aid. And he had shown no disapproval in his telling of the thrashing. The engineer must have been miserly with him, too, I thought, and never paid him for his services, but only ordered him about and laughed at him, puppy that he was. That would be it, no doubt. And this time, perhaps, I was not misled by jealous feelings of my own.

“But the Captain--he was free with his money, if you like,” said the porter at last. “I paid off all my owings with what he gave me--ay, indeed I did.”

When at last I had got rid of the man, I crossed the river; the ice was firm enough. I was on the main road now. And I walked on, thinking over the porter's story. That scene at the hut--what did it amount to, after all? It merely showed that one of the two men was big and strong, the other a little, would-be sportsman heavily built behind. But the Captain was an officer--it was something of that sort, perhaps, he had been thinking. Perhaps he ought to have thought a little more in other ways while there was yet time--who can say? It was his wife! who had been drowned. The Captain might do what he pleased now; she would never come again.

But if she did, what then? She was born to her fate, no doubt. Husband and wife had tried to patch up the damage, but had failed. I remember her as she was six or seven years back. She found life dull, and fell in love a trifle here and there perhaps, even then, but she was faithful and delicate-minded. And time went on. She had no occupation, but had three maid-servants to her house; she had no children, but she had a piano. But she had no children.

And Life can afford to waste.

Mother and child it was that went down.

EPILOGUE

A wanderer plays with muted strings when he comes to fifty years. Then he plays with muted strings.

Or I might put it in this way.

If he comes too late for the harvest of berries in autumn, why, he is come too late, that is all; and if one fine day he finds he can no longer be gay and laugh all over his face in delight of life, 'tis because he is old, no doubt; blame him not for that! And there can be no doubt that it requires a certain vacuity of mind to go about feeling permanently contented with oneself and all else. But we have all our softer moments. A prisoner is being driven to the scaffold in a cart. A nail in the seat irks him; he shifts aside a little, and feels more at ease.

A Captain should not pray that God may forgive him--as he forgives his God. It is simply theatrical. A wanderer who cannot reckon every day on food and drink, clothes and boots, and house and home, feels just the right degree of privation when all these luxuries are lacking. If you cannot manage one way, why, there will be another. But if the other way should also fail, then one does not forgive one's God, but takes up the responsibility oneself. Shoulder against what comes--that is, bow to it. A trifle hard for flesh and blood, and it greys a man's hair sadly. But a wanderer thanks God for life; it was good to live!

I might put it that way.

For why these high demands on life? What have we earned? All the boxes of sweetmeats a sweet-tooth could wish for? Well and good. But have we not had the world to look upon each day, and the soughing of the woods to hear? There is nothing so grand in all the world as that voice of the woods.

There was a scent of jasmine in a shrubbery, and one I know thrilled with joy, not for the jasmine's scent but for all there was--for the light in a window, a memory, the whole of life. He was called away from the jasmines after, but he had been paid beforehand for that little mishap.

And so it is; the mere grace that we are given life at all is generous payment in advance for all the miseries of life--for every one of them.

No, do not think we have the right to more sweetmeats than we get. A wanderer's advice: no superstition. What is life's? All. But what is yours? Is fame? Oh, tell us why! A man should not so insist on what is “his.” It is comical; a wanderer laughs at any one who can be so comical. I remember one who could not give up that “his.” He started to lay a fire in his stove at noon, and by evening he got it to burn at last. He couldn't leave the comfortable warmth to go to bed, but sat there till other people got up, lest it should be wasted. A Norwegian writer of stage plays, it was.

I have wandered about a good deal in my time, and am grown foolish now, and out of bloom. But I do not hold the perverse belief of old men generally, that I am wiser than I was. And I hope I may never grow wise; 'tis a sign of decrepitude. If I thank God for life, it is not by virtue of any riper wisdom that has come to me with age, but because I have always taken a pleasure in life. Age gives no riper wisdom; age gives nothing but age.

* * * * *

I was too late for the berries this year, but I am going up that way all the same. I am allowing myself this little treat, by way of reward for having worked well this summer. And I reach my goal on the 12th of December.

It is true, no doubt, that I might have stayed down among the villages. I could have managed somehow, no doubt, as did all the others who had found it time to settle down. And Lars Falkenberg, my colleague and mate, he had urged me to take up a holding with keep for a wife and two cows and a pig. A friend's advice; _vox populi._ And then, why, one of the cows might be an ox to ride, a means of transport for my shivering age! But it came to naught--it came to naught! My wisdom has not come with age; here am I going up to Trovatn and the waste lands to live in a wooden hut!

What pleasure can there be in that? _Ai_, Lars Falkenberg, and _ai,_ every one else, have no fear; I have a man to come up with things I need.

* * * * *

So I drift about and about by myself, looking after myself, living alone. I miss that seal of Bishop Pavel's. One of his descendants gave it to me, and I had it in my waistcoat pocket this summer, but, looking for it now, I find I have lost it. Well, well; but, anyhow, I have been paid in advance for that mishap, in having owned it once.

But I do not feel the want of books to read.

The 12th of December--I can keep a date in mind and carelessly forget things more important. It is only just now I remember about the books--that Captain Falkenberg and his wife had many books in their house--novels and plays--a whole bookcase full. I saw it one day when I was painting windows and doors at Øvrebø. Entire sets of authors they had, and authors' complete works--thirty books. Why the complete works? I do not know. Books--one, two, three, ten, thirty. They had come out each Christmas--novels, thirty volumes--the same novel. They read them, no doubt, the Captain and his wife; knew every time what they should find in the poets of the home; there was always such a lot about all coming right in the end. So they read them, no doubt. How should I know? Heavens, what a host of books! Two men could not shift the bookcase when I wanted to paint behind; it took three men and a cook to move it. One of the men was Grindhusen; he flushed under the weight of those poets of the home, and said: “I can't see what folk want with such a mighty crowd of books!”

Grindhusen! As if he knew anything about it! The Captain and his wife had all those books, no doubt, that none should be lacking; there they were all complete. It would make a gap to take away a single one; they were paired each with the rest, uniform poetry, the same story throughout.

* * * * *

An elk-hunter has been up here with me in the hut. Nothing much; and his dog was an ill-tempered brute. I was glad when he went on again. He took down my copper saucepan from the wall, and used it for his cooking, and left it black with soot.

It is not my copper saucepan, but was here in the hut, left by some one who was here before. I only rubbed it with ashes and hung it up on the wall as a weather-guide for myself. I am rubbing it up again now, for it is a good thing to have; it turns dim unfailingly when there is rain or snow coming on.

If Ragnhild had been here, now, she would have polished up that saucepan herself. But then, again, I tell myself, I would rather see to my own weather-guides; Ragnhild can find something else to do. And if this place up in the woods were our clearing, then she would have the children, and the cows, and the pig. But _my_ copper things I prefer to do myself, Ragnhild.