Arne; A Sketch of Norwegian Country Life Part 3

"How shrivelled and thin you've become already, there's no depth of flesh here!" She writhed beneath his touch, and seized his hand with both hers, but could not free herself.

"Father!" repeated Arne.

"Well at last you're roused. How she wriggles, the ugly thing! Can't you scream to make believe I am beating you? Tickle, tickle! I only want to take away your breath."

"Father!" Arne said once more, running to the corner of the room, and s.n.a.t.c.hing up an axe which stood there.

"Is it only out of perverseness, you don't scream? you had better beware; for I've taken such a strange fancy into my head. Tickle, tickle! Now I think I shall soon get rid of that screaming of yours."

"Father!" Arne shouted, rushing towards him with the axe uplifted.

But before Arne could reach him, he started up with a piercing cry, laid his hand upon his heart, and fell heavily down. "Jesus Christ!"

he muttered, and then lay quite still.

Arne stood as if rooted in the ground, and gradually lowered the axe.

He grew dizzy and bewildered, and scarcely knew where he was. Then the mother began to move to and fro in the bed, and to breathe heavily, as if oppressed by some great weight lying upon her. Arne saw that she needed help; but yet he felt unable to render it. At last she raised herself a little, and saw the father lying stretched on the floor, and Arne standing beside him with the axe.

"Merciful Lord, what have you done?" she cried, springing out of the bed, putting on her skirt and coming nearer.

"He fell down himself," said Arne, at last regaining power to speak.

"Arne, Arne, I don't believe you," said the mother in a stern reproachful voice: "now Jesus help you!" And she threw herself upon the dead man with loud wailing.

But the boy awoke from his stupor, dropped the axe and fell down on his knees: "As true as I hope for mercy from G.o.d, I've not done it. I almost thought of doing it; I was so bewildered; but then he fell down himself; and here I've been standing ever since."

The mother looked at him, and believed him. "Then our Lord has been here Himself," she said quietly, sitting down on the floor and gazing before her.

Nils lay quite stiff, with open eyes and mouth, and hands drawn near together, as though he had at the last moment tried to fold them, but had been unable to do so. The first thing the mother now did was to fold them. "Let us look closer at him," she said then, going over to the fireplace, where the fire was almost out. Arne followed her, for he felt afraid of standing alone. She gave him a lighted fir-splinter to hold; then she once more went over to the dead body and stood by one side of it, while the son stood at the other, letting the light fall upon it.

"Yes, he's quite gone," she said; and then, after a little while, she continued, "and gone in an evil hour, I'm afraid."

Arne's hands trembled so much that the burning ashes of the splinter fell upon the father's clothes and set them on fire; but the boy did not perceive it, neither did the mother at first, for she was weeping. But soon she became aware of it through the bad smell, and she cried out in fear. When now the boy looked, it seemed to him as though the father himself was burning, and he dropped the splinter upon him, sinking down in a swoon. Up and down, and round and round, the room moved with him; the table moved, the bed moved; the axe hewed; the father rose and came to him; and then all of them came rolling upon him. Then he felt as if a soft cooling breeze pa.s.sed over his face; and he cried out and awoke. The first thing he did was to look at the father, to a.s.sure himself that he still lay quietly.

And a feeling of inexpressible happiness came over the boy's mind when he saw that the father was dead--really dead; and he rose as though he were entering upon a new life.

The mother had extinguished the burning clothes, and began to lay out the body. She made the bed, and then said to Arne, "Take hold of your father, you're so strong, and help me to lay him nicely." They laid him on the bed, and Margit shut his eyes and mouth, stretched his limbs, and folded his hands once more.

Then they both stood looking at him. It was only a little past midnight, and they had to stay there with him till morning. Arne made a good fire, and the mother sat down by it. While sitting there, she looked back upon the many miserable days she had pa.s.sed with Nils, and she thanked G.o.d for taking him away. "But still I had some happy days with him, too," she said after a while.

Arne took a seat opposite her; and, turning to him, she went on, "And to think that he should have such an end as this! even if he has not lived as he ought, truly he has suffered for it." She wept, looked over to the dead man, and continued, "But now G.o.d grant I may be repaid for all I have gone through with him. Arne, you must remember it was for your sake I suffered it all." The boy began to weep too.

"Therefore, you must never leave me," she sobbed; "you are now my only comfort."

"I never will leave you; that I promise before G.o.d," the boy said, as earnestly as if he had thought of saying it for years. He felt a longing to go over to her; yet he could not.

She grew calmer, and, looking kindly over at the dead man, she said, "After all, there was a great deal of good in him; but the world dealt hardly by him.... But now he's gone to our Lord, and He'll be kinder to him, I'm sure." Then, as if she had been following out this thought within herself, she added, "We must pray for him. If I could, I would sing over him; but you, Arne, have such a fine voice, you must go and sing to your father."

Arne fetched the hymn-book and lighted a fir-splinter; and, holding it in one hand and the book in the other, he went to the head of the bed and sang in a clear voice Kingo's 127th hymn:

"Regard us again in mercy, O G.o.d!

And turn Thou aside Thy terrible rod, That now in Thy wrath laid on us we see To chasten us sore for sin against Thee."

V.

"HE HAD IN HIS MIND A SONG."

Arne was now in his twentieth year. Yet he continued tending the cattle upon the mountains in the summer, while in the winter he remained at home studying.

About this time the clergyman sent a message, asking him to become the parish schoolmaster, and saying his gifts and knowledge might thus be made useful to his neighbors. Arne sent no answer; but the next day, while he was driving his flock, he made the following verses:

"O, my pet lamb, lift your head, Though a stony path you tread, Over all the lonely fells, Only follow still your bells.

O, my pet lamb, walk with care; Lest you spoil your wool, beware: Mother now must soon be sewing New lamb-skins, for summer's going.

O, my pet lamb, try to grow Fat and fine where'er you go: Know you not, my little sweeting, A spring-lamb is dainty eating?"

One day he happened to overhear a conversation between his mother and the late owner of the place: they were at odds about the horse of which they were joint-owners. "I must wait and hear what Arne says,"

interposed the mother. "That sluggard!" the man exclaimed; "he would like the horse to ramble about in the wood, just as he does himself."

Then the mother became silent, though before she had been pleading her cause well.

Arne flushed crimson. That his mother had to bear people's jeers on his account, never before occurred to him, and, "Perhaps she had borne many," he thought. "But why had she not told him of it?" he thought again.

He turned the matter over, and then it came into his mind that the mother scarcely ever talked to him at all. But, then, he scarcely ever talked to her either. But, after all, whom did he talk much to?

Often on Sundays, when he was sitting quietly at home, he would have liked to read the sermon to his mother, whose eyes were weak, for she had wept too much in her time. Still, he did not read it. Often, too, on weekdays, when she was sitting down, and he thought the time might hang heavy, he would have liked to offer to read some of his own books to her: still, he did not.

"Well, never mind," thought he: "I'll soon leave off tending the cattle on the mountains; and then I'll be more with mother." He let this resolve ripen within him for several days: meanwhile he drove his cattle far about in the wood, and made the following verses:

"The vale is full of trouble, but here sweet Peace may reign; Within this quiet forest no bailiffs may distrain; None fight, like all in the vale, in the Blessed Church's name; But still if a church were here, perhaps 'twould be just the same.

Here all are at peace--true, the hawk is rather unkind; I fear he is looking now the plumpest sparrow to find; I fear yon eagle is coming to rob the kid of his breath; But still if he lived very long he might be tired to death.

The woodman fells one tree, and another rots away: The red fox killed the lambkin at sunset yesterday; But the wolf killed the fox; and the wolf, too, had to die, For Arne shot him down to-day before the dew was dry.

Back I'll go to the valley: the forest is just as bad-- I must take heed, however, or thinking will drive me mad-- I saw a boy in my dreams, though where I cannot tell-- But I know he had killed his father, and I think it was in h.e.l.l."

Then he went home and told the mother she might send for a lad to tend the cattle on the mountains; and that he would himself manage the farm: and so it was arranged. But the mother was constantly hovering about him, warning him not to work too hard. Then, too, she used to get him such nice meals that he often felt quite ashamed to take them; yet he said nothing.

He had in his mind a song having for its burden, "Over the mountains high;" but he never could complete it, princ.i.p.ally because he always tried to bring the burden in every alternate line; so afterwards he gave this up.

But several of his songs became known, and were much liked; and many people, especially those who had known him from his childhood, were fond of talking to him. But he was shy to all whom he did not know, and he thought ill of them, mainly because he fancied they thought ill of him.

In the next field to his own worked a middle-aged man named Opplands-Knut, who used sometimes to sing, but always the same song.

After Arne had heard him singing it for several months, he thought he would ask him whether he did not know any others. "No," Knut answered. Then after a few more days, when he was again singing his song, Arne asked him, "How came you to learn that one song?"