Growth of the Soil (22 page)

He got up, and felt suddenly confused. H'm. What had happened now? Nothing, only that he had been sitting down a bit. Now there is something standing there before him, a Being, a spirit; grey silk--no, it was nothing. He felt strange--took one short, uncertain step forward, and walked straight into a look, a great look, a pair of eyes. At the same moment the aspens close by began rustling. Now any one knows that an aspen can have a horrible eerie way of rustling at times; anyhow, Isak had never before heard such an utterly horrible rustling as this, and he shuddered. Also he put out one hand in front of him, and it was perhaps the most helpless movement that hand had ever made.

But what was this thing before him? Was it ghost-work or reality? Isak would all his days have been ready to swear that this was a higher power, and once indeed he had seen it, but the thing he saw now did not look like God. Possibly the Holy Ghost? If so, what was it standing there for anyway, in the midst of nowhere; two eyes, a look, and nothing more? If it had come to him, to fetch away his soul, why, so it would have to be; it would happen one day, after all, and then he would go to heaven and be among the blest.

Isak was eager to see what would come next; he was shivering still; a coldness seemed to radiate from the figure before him--it must be the Evil One! And here Isak was no longer sure of his ground, so to speak. It might be the Evil One--but what did he want here? What had he, Isak, been doing? Nothing but sitting still and tilling the ground, as it were, in his thoughts--there could surely be no harm in that? There was no other guilt he could call to mind just then; he was only coming back from his work in the forest, a tired and hungry woodman, going home to Sellanraa--he means no harm....

He took a step forward again, but it was only a little one, and, to tell the truth, he stepped back again immediately. The vision would not give way. Isak knitted his brows, as if beginning to suspect something. If it were the Evil One, why, let it be; the Evil One was not all-powerful--there was Luther, for instance, who had nearly killed the fiend himself, not to speak of many who had put him to flight by the sign of the cross and Jesu name. Not that Isak meant to defy the peril before him; it was not in his mind to sit down and laugh in its face, but he certainly gave up his first idea of dying and the next world. He took two steps forward straight at the vision, crossed himself, and cried out: "In Jesu name!"

H'm. At the sound of his own voice he came, as it were, to himself again, and saw Sellanraa over on the hillside once more. The two eyes in the air had gone.

He lost no time in getting home, and took no steps to challenge the spectre further. But when he found himself once more safely on his own door-slab, he cleared his throat with a sense of power and security; he walked into the house with lofty mien, like a man--ay, a man of the world.

Inger started at the sight of him, and asked what made him so pale.

And at that he did not deny having met the Evil One himself.

"Where?" she asked.

"Over there. Right up towards our place."

Inger evinced no jealousy on her part. She did not praise him for it, true, but there was nothing in her manner suggestive of a hard word or a contemptuous kick. Inger herself, you see, had grown somewhat lighter of heart and kindlier of late, whatever the cause; and now she merely asked:

"The Evil One himself?"

Isak nodded: as far as he could see it was himself and no other.

"And how did you get rid of him?"

"I went for him in Jesu name," said Isak.

Inger wagged her head, altogether overwhelmed, and it was some time before she could get his supper on the table.

"Anyhow," said she at last, "we'll have no more of you going out alone in the woods by yourself."

She was anxious about him--and it did him good to know it. He made out to be as bold as ever, and altogether careless whether he went alone or in company; but this was only to quiet Inger's mind, not to frighten her more than necessary with the awful thing that had happened to himself. It was his place to protect her and them all; he was the Man, the Leader.

But Inger saw through it also, and said: "Oh, I know you don't want to frighten me. But you must take Sivert with you all the same."

Isak only sniffed.

"You might be taken poorly of a sudden, taken ill out in the woods--you've not been over well lately."

Isak sniffed again. Ill? Tired, perhaps, and worn out a bit, but ill? No need for Inger to start worrying and making a fool of him; he was sound and well enough; ate, slept, and worked; his health was simply terrific, it was incurable! Once, felling a tree, the thing had come down on top of him, and broken his ear; but he made light of it. He set the ear in place again, and kept it there by wearing his cap drawn over it night and day, and it grew together again that way. For internal complaints, he dosed himself with
treak
boiled in milk to make him sweat--liquorice it was, bought at the store, an old and tried remedy, the
Teriak
of the ancients. If he chanced to cut his hand, he treated the wound with an ever-present fluid containing salts, and it healed up in a few days. No doctor was ever Sent for to Sellanraa.

No, Isak was not ill. A meeting with the Evil One might happen even to the healthiest man. And he felt none the worse for his adventure afterwards; on the contrary, it seemed to have strengthened him. And as the winter drew on, and it was not such a dreadful time to wait till the spring, he, the Man and the Leader, began to feel himself almost a hero: he understood these things; only trust to him and all would be well. In case of need, he could exorcise the Evil One himself!

Altogether, the days were longer and lighter now; Easter was past, Isak had hauled up all his timber, everything looked bright, human beings could breathe again after another winter gone.

Inger was again the first to brighten up; she had been more cheerful now for a long time. What could it be? Ho, 'twas for a very simple reason; Inger was heavy again; expecting a child again. Everything worked out easily in her life, no hitch anywhere. But what a mercy, after the way she had sinned! it was more than she had any right to expect. Ay, she was fortunate, fortunate. Isak himself actually noticed something one day, and asked her straight out: "Looks to me as if you're on the way again; what do you say yourself?"

"Ay, Lord be thanked, 'tis surely so," she answered.

They were both equally astonished. Not that Inger was past the age, of course; to Isak's mind, she was not too old in any way. But still, another child ... well, well.... And little Leopoldine going to school several times a year down at Breidablik--that left them with no little ones about the place now--besides which, Leopoldine herself was grown up now.

Some days passed, and Isak resolutely threw away a whole week-end--from Saturday evening till Monday morning--on a trip down to the village. He would not say what he was going for when he set out, but on his return, he brought with him a girl. "This is Jensine," he said. "Come to help."

"'Tis all your nonsense," said Inger, "I've no need of help at all."

Isak answered that she did need a help--just now.

Need or not--it was a kind and generous thought of his; Inger was abashed and grateful. The new girl was a daughter of the blacksmith, and she was to stay with them for the present; through the summer, anyhow, and then they would see.

"And I've sent a telegram," said Isak, "after him Eleseus."

This fairly startled Inger; startled the mother. A telegram? Did he mean to upset her completely with his thoughtfulness? It had been her great sorrow of late that boy Eleseus was away in town--in the evil-minded town; she had written to him about God, and likewise explained to him how his father here was beginning to sink under the work, and the place getting bigger all the time; little Sivert couldn't manage it all by himself, and besides, he was to have money after his uncle one day--all this she had written, and sent him the money for his journey once for all. But Eleseus was a man-about-town now, and had no sort of longing for a peasant's life; he answered something about what was he to do anyway if he did come home? Work on a farm and throw away all the knowledge and learning he had gained? "In point of fact,"--that was how he put it,--"I've no desire to come back now. And if you could send me some stuff for underclothes, it would save me getting the things on credit." So he wrote. And yes, his mother sent him stuff--sent him remarkable quantities of stuff from time to time for underclothes. But when she was converted, and got religion, the scales fell from her eyes, and she understood that Eleseus was selling the stuff and spending the money on other things.

His father saw it too. He never spoke of it; he knew that Eleseus was his mother's darling, and how she cried over him and shook her head; but one piece of finely woven stuff went after another the same way, and he knew it was more than any living man could use for underclothes. Altogether, it came to this: Isak must be Man and Leader again--head of the house, and step in and interfere. It had cost a terrible lot of money, to be sure, getting the storekeeper to send a telegram; but in the first place, a telegram could not fail to make an impression on the boy, and also--it was something unusually fine for Isak himself to come home and tell Inger. He carried the servant-girl's box on his back as he strode home; but for all that, he was proud and full of weighty secrets as he had been the day he came home with that gold ring....

It was a grand time after that. For a long while, Inger could not do enough in the way of showing her husband how good and useful she could be. She would say to him now, as in the old days: "You're working yourself to death!" Or again: "'Tis more than any man can stand." Or again: "Now, you're not to work any more; come in and have dinner--I've made some wafers for you!" And to please him, she said: "I should just like to know, now, what you've got in your mind with all that wood, and what you're going to build, now, next?"

"Why, I can't say as yet," said Isak, making a mystery of it.

Ay, just as in the old days. And after the child was born--and it was a little girl--a great big girl, fine-looking and sturdy and sound--after that, Isak must have been a stone and a miserable creature if he had not thanked God. But what was he going to build? It would be more news for Oline to go gadding about with--a new building again at Sellanraa. A new wing of the house--a new house it was to be. And there were so many now at Sellanraa--they had a servant-girl; and Eleseus, he was coming home; and a brand-new little girl-child of their own, just come--the old house would be just an extra room now, nothing more.

And, of course, he had to tell Inger about it one day; she was so curious to know, and though maybe Inger knew it all beforehand, from Sivert,--they two were often whispering together,--she was all surprised as any one could be, and let her arms fall, and said: "'Tis all your nonsense--you don't mean it?"

And Isak, brimming over with greatness inside, he answered her: "Why, with you bringing I don't know how many more children on the place, 'tis the least I can do, it seems."

The two menfolk were out now every day getting stone for the walls of the new house. They worked their utmost together each in his own way: the one young, and with his young body firmly set, quick to see his way, to mark out the stones that would suit; the other ageing--tough, with long arms, and a mighty weight to bear down on a crowbar. When they had managed some specially difficult feat, they would hold a breathing-space, and talk together in a curious, reserved fashion of their own.

"Brede, he talks of selling out," said the father.

"Ay," said the son. "Wonder what he'll be asking for the place?"

"Ay, I wonder."

"You've not heard anything?"

"No."

"I've heard two hundred."

The father thought for a while, and said: "What d'you think, 'll this
be a good stone?"

"All depends if we can get this shell off him," said Sivert, and was on his feet in a moment, giving the setting-hammer to his father, and taking the sledge himself. He grew red and hot, stood up to his full height and let the sledge-hammer fall; rose again and let it fall; twenty strokes alike--twenty thunder-strokes. He spared neither tool nor strength; it was heavy work; his shirt rucked up from his trousers at the waist, leaving him bare in front; he lifted on his toes each time to give the sledge a better swing. Twenty strokes.

"Now! Let's look!" cried his father.

The son stops, and asks: "Marked him any?"

And they lay down together to look at the stone; look at the beast, the devil of a thing; no, not marked any as yet.

"I've a mind to try with the sledge alone," said the father, and stood up. Still harder work this, sheer force alone, the hammer grew hot, the steel crushed, the pen grew blunt.

"She'll be slipping the head," he said, and stopped. "And I'm no hand at this any more," he said.

Oh, but he never meant it; it was not his thought, that he was no hand
at the work any more!

This father, this barge of a man, simple, full of patience and goodness, he would let his son strike the last few blows and cleave the stone. And there it lay, split in two.

"Ay, you've the trick of it," said the father. "H'm, yes ... Breidablik ... might make something but of that place."

"Ay, should think so," said the son.

"Only the land was fairly ditched and turned."

"The house'd have to be done up."

"Ay, that of course. Place all done up--'twould mean a lot of work at first, but ... What I was going to say, d'you know if your mother was going to church come Sunday?"

"Ay, she said something like it."

"Ho!... H'm. Keep your eyes open now and look out for a good big door-slab for the new house. You haven't seen a bit would do?"

"No," said Sivert.

And they fell to work again.

A couple of days later both agreed they had enough stone now for the walls. It was Friday evening; they sat taking a breathing-space, and talking together the while.

"H'm--what d'you say?" said the father. "Should we think it over,
maybe, about Breidablik?"