Growth of the Soil (38 page)

He came back to Sellanraa that evening, had a little supper, and went to bed. Slept till late next morning, slept, rested thoroughly; he was tired, no doubt, after his meeting with the Swedish mine-owners. Not till two days after did he make ready to leave. He was his lordly self again by then, paid liberally for his keep, and gave little Rebecca a shining
Krone
.

He made a speech to Isak, and said: "It doesn't matter in the least if nothing came of the deal this time, it'll come all right later on. For the present, I'm going to stop the working up there and leave it a bit. As for those fellows--children! Thought they would teach me, did they? Did you hear what they offered me? Twenty-five thousand!"

"Ay," said Isak.

"Well," said Geissler, and waved his hand as if dismissing all impertinent offers of insignificant sums from his mind, "well, it won't do any harm to the district if I do stop the working there a bit--on the contrary, it'll teach folk to stick to their land. But they'll feel it in the village. They made a pile of money there last summer; fine clothes and fine living for all--but there's an end of that now. Ay, it might have been worth their while, the good folks down there, to have kept in with me; things might have been different then. Now, it'll be as I please."

But for all that, he did not look much of a man to control the fate of villages, as he went away. He carried a parcel of food in his hand, and his white waistcoat was no longer altogether clean. His good wife might have equipped him for the journey up this time out of the rest of the forty thousand she had once got--who could say, perhaps she had. Anyhow, he was going back poor enough.

He did not forget to look in at Axel Ström on the way down, and give the results of his thinking over. "I've been looking at it every way," said he. "The matter's in abeyance for the present, so there's nothing to be done just yet. You'll be called up for a further examination, and you'll have to say how things are...."

Words, nothing more. Geissler had probably never given the matter a thought at all. And Axel agreed dejectedly to all he said. But at last Geissler flickered up into a mighty man again, puckered his brows, and said thoughtfully: "Unless, perhaps, I could manage to come to town myself and watch the proceedings."

"Ay, if you'd be so good," said Axel.

Geissler decided in a moment. "I'll see if I can manage it, if I can get the time. But I've a heap of things to look after down south. I'll come if I can. Good-bye for now. I'll send you those machines all right."

And Geissler went.

Would he ever come again?

The rest of the workmen came down from the mine. Work is stopped. The
fjeld lies dead again.

The building at Sellanraa, too, is finished now. There is a makeshift roof of turf put on for the winter; the great space beneath is divided into rooms, bright apartments, a great salon in the middle and large rooms at either end, as if it were for human beings. Here Isak once lived in a turf hut together with a few goats--there is no turf hut to be seen now at Sellanraa.

Loose boxes, mangers, and bins are fitted up. The two stoneworkers are still busy, kept on to get the whole thing finished as soon as possible, but Gustaf is no hand at woodwork, so he says, and he is leaving. Gustaf has been a splendid lad at the stonework, heaving and lifting like a bear; and in the evenings, a joy and delight to all, playing his mouth-organ, not to speak of helping the womenfolk, carrying heavy pails to and from the river. But he is going now. No, Gustaf is no hand at woodwork, so he says. It looks almost as if he were in a hurry to get away.

"Can't it wait till tomorrow?" says Inger.

No, it can't wait, he's no more work to do here, and besides, going now, he will have company across the hills, going over with the last; gang from the mines.

"And who's to help me with my buckets now?" says Inger, smiling sadly.

But Gustaf is never at a loss, he has his answer ready, and says "Hjalmar." Now Hjalmar was the younger of the two stoneworkers, but neither of them was young as Gustaf himself, none like him in any way.

"Hjalmar--huh!" says Inger contemptuously. Then suddenly she changes her tone, and turns to Gustaf, thinking to make him jealous. "Though, after all, he's nice to have on the place, is Hjalmar," says she, "and so prettily he sings and all."

"Don't think much of him, anyway," says Gustaf. He does not seem
jealous in the least.

"But you might stay one more night at least?"

No, Gustaf couldn't stay one more night--he was going across with the
others.

Ay, maybe Gustaf was getting tired of the game by now. 'Twas a fine thing to snap her up in front of all the rest, and have her for his own the few weeks he was there--but he was going elsewhere now, like as not to a sweetheart at home--he had other things in view. Was he to stay on loafing about here for the sake of her? He had reason enough for bringing the thing to an end, as she herself must know; but she was grown so bold, so thoughtless of any consequence, she seemed to care for nothing. No, things had not held for so very long between them--but long enough to last out the spell of his work there.

Inger is sad and down-hearted enough; ay, so erringly faithful that she mourns for him. 'Tis hard for her; she is honestly in love, without any thought of vanity or conquest. And not ashamed, no; she is a strong woman full of weakness; she is but following the law of nature all about her; it is the glow of autumn in her as in all things else. Her breast heaves with feeling as she packs up food for Gustaf to take with him. No thought of whether she has the right, of whether she dare risk this or that; she gives herself up to it entirely, hungry to taste, to enjoy. Isak might lift her up to the roof and thrust her to the floor again--ay, what of that! It would not make her feel the less.

She goes out with the parcel to Gustaf.

Now she had set the bucket by the steps on purpose, in case he should care to go with her to the river just once more. Maybe she would like to say something, to give him some little thing--her gold ring; Heaven knows, she was in a state to do anything. But there must be an end of it some time; Gustaf thanks her, says good-bye, and goes.

And there she stands.

"Hjalmar!" she calls out aloud--oh, so much louder than she need. As if she were determined to be gay in spite of all--or crying out in distress.

Gustaf goes on his way....

* * * * *

All through that autumn there was the usual work in the fields all round, right away down to the village: potatoes to be taken up, corn to be got in, the horned cattle let loose over the ground. Eight farms there are now and all are busy; but at the trading station, at Storborg, there are no cattle, and no green lands, only a garden. And there is no trade there now, and nothing for any to be busy about there.

They have a new root crop at Sellanraa called turnips, sending up a colossal growth of green waving leaves out of the earth, and nothing can keep the cows away from them--the beasts break down all hedgework, and storm in, bellowing. Nothing for it but to set Leopoldine and little Rebecca to keep guard over the turnip fields, and little Rebecca walks about with a big stick in her hand and is a wonder at driving cows away. Her father is at work close by; now and again he comes up to feel her hands and feet, and ask if she is cold. Leopoldine is big and grown up now; she can knit stockings and mittens for the winter while she is watching the herds. Born in Trondhjem, was Leopoldine, and came to Sellanraa five years old. But the memory of a great town with many people and of a long voyage on a steamer is slipping away from her now, growing more and more distant; she is a child of the wilds and knows nothing now of the great world beyond the village down below where she has been to church once or twice, and where she was confirmed the year before....

And the little casual work of every day goes on, with this thing and that to be done beside; as, for instance, the road down below, that is getting bad one or two places. The ground is still workable, and Isak goes down one day with Sivert, ditching and draining the road. There are two patches of bog to be drained.

Axel Ström has promised to take part in the work, seeing that he has a horse and uses the road himself--but Axel had pressing business in the town just then. Heaven knows what it could be, but very pressing, he said it was. But he had asked his brother from Breidablik to work with them in his stead.

Fredrik was this brother's name. A young man, newly married, a light-hearted fellow who could make a jest, but none the worse for that; Sivert and he are something alike. Now Fredrik had looked in at Storborg on his way up that morning, Aronsen of Storborg being his nearest neighbour, and he is full of all the trader has been telling him. It began this way; Fredrik wanted a roll of tobacco. "I'll give you a roll of tobacco when I have one," said Aronsen.

"What, you've no tobacco in the place?"

"No, nor won't order any. There's nobody to buy it. What d'you think I make out of one roll of tobacco?"

Ay, Aronsen had been in a nasty humour that morning, sure enough; felt he had been cheated somehow by that Swedish mining concern. Here had he set up a store out in the wilds, and then they go and shut down the work altogether!

Fredrik smiles slyly at Aronsen, and makes fun of him now. "He's not so much as touched that land of his," says he, "and hasn't even feed for his beasts, but must go and buy it. Asked me if I'd any hay to sell. No, I'd no hay to sell. 'Ho, d'you mean you don't want to make money?' said Aronsen. Thinks money's everything in the world, seems like. Puts down a hundred-
Krone
note on the counter, and says 'Money!' 'Ay, money's well enough,' says I. 'Cash down,' says he. Ay, he's just a little bit touched that way, so to speak, and his wife she goes about with a watch and chain and all on weekdays--Lord He knows what can be she's so set on remembering to the minute."

Says Sivert: "Did Aronsen say anything about a man named Geissler?"

"Ay. Said something about he'd be wanting to sell some land he'd got. And Aronsen was wild about it, he was--'fellow that used to be Lensmand and got turned out,' he said, and 'like as not without so much as a five
Krone
in his books, and ought to be shot!' 'Ay, but wait a bit,' says I, 'and maybe he'll sell after all.' 'Nay,' says Aronsen, 'don't you believe it. I'm a business man,' says he, 'and I know--when one party puts up a price of two hundred and fifty thousand, and the other offers twenty-five thousand, there's too big a difference; there'll be no deal ever come out of that. Well, let 'em go their own way, and see what comes of it,' says he. 'I only wish I'd never set my foot in this hole, and a poor thing it's been for me and mine.' Then I asked him if he didn't think of selling out himself. 'Ay,' says he, 'that's just what I'm thinking of. This bit of bogland,' says he, 'a hole and a desert--I'm not making a single
Krone
the whole day now,' says he."

They laughed at Aronsen, and had no pity for him at all.

"Think he'll sell out?" asks Isak.

"Well, he did speak of it. And he's got rid of the lad he had already. Ay, a curious man, a queer sort of man, that Aronsen, 'tis sure. Sends away his lad could be working on the place getting in winter fuel and carting hay with that horse of his, but keeps on his storeman--chief clerk, he calls him. 'Tis true enough, as he says, not selling so much as a
Krone
all day, for he's no stock in the place at all. And what does he want with a chief clerk, then? I doubt it'll be just by way of looking grand and making a show, must have a man there to stand at a desk and write up things in books. Ha ha ha! ay, looks like he's just a little bit touched that way, is Aronsen."

The three men worked till noon, ate food from their baskets, and talked a while. They had matters of their own to talk over, matters of good and ill to folk on the land; no trifles, to them, but things to be discussed warily; they are clear-minded folk, their nerves unworn, and not flying out where they should not. It is the autumn season now, a silence in the woods all round; the hills are there, the sun is there, and at evening the moon and the stars will come; all regular and certain, full of kindliness, an embrace. Men have time to rest here, to lie in the heather, with an arm for a pillow.

Fredrik talks of Breidablik, how 'tis but little he's got done there
yet awhile.

"Nay," says Isak, "'tis none so little already, I saw when I was down
that way."

This was praise from the oldest among them, the giant himself, and Fredrik might well be pleased. He asks frankly enough: "Did you think so, now? Well, it'll be better before long. I've had a deal of things to hinder this year; the house to do up, being leaky and like to fall to pieces; hayloft to take down and put up again, and no sort of room in the turf hut for beasts, seeing I'd cow and heifer more than Brede he'd ever had in his time," says Fredrik proudly.

"And you're thriving like, up here?" asks Isak.

"Ay, I'll not say no. And wife, she's thriving too, why shouldn't we? There's good room and outlook all about; we can see up and down the road both ways. And a neat little copse by the house all pretty to look at, birch and willow--I'll plant a bit more other side of the house when I've time. And it's fine to see how the bogland's dried only since last year's ditching--'tis all a question now what'll grow on her this year. Ay, thrive? When we've house and home and land and all--'tis enough for the two of us surely."

"Ho," says Sivert slyly, "and the two of you--is that all there's ever
to be?"

"Why, as to that," says Fredrik bravely, "'tis like enough there'll be more to come. And as to thriving--well, the wife's not falling off anyway, by the looks of her."

They work on until evening, drawing up now and again to straighten their backs, and exchange a word or so.

"And so you didn't get the tobacco?" says Sivert.

"No, that's true. But 'twas no loss, for I've no use for it, anyway,"
says Fredrik.

"No use for tobacco?"

"Nay. 'Twas but for to drop in at Aronsen's like, and hear what he'd got to say." And the two jesters laughed together at that.