Arne: Early Tales and Sketches Part 16

"Your mother must be very fond of you. I should like to see your mother."

"Come over to Kampen when you are well."

And now all at once he pictured her sitting in the cheerful room at Kampen, looking out on the mountains; his chest began to heave, the blood rushed to his head. "It is warm in here," said he, getting up.

She heard this. "Are you going, Arne?" asked she, and he sat down again.

"You must come over to us often; mother likes you so much."

"I should be glad to come myself; but I must have some errand, though."

Eli was silent for a while, as if she were considering something. "I believe," said she, "that mother has something she wants to ask of you."

He heard her turn in bed. There was no sound to be heard, either in the room or outside, save the ticking of the clock on the wall. At last she burst out,--

"How I wish it were summer!"

"That it were summer?" and there rose up in his mind, blended with fragrant foliage and the tinkling of cattle bells, shouts from the mountains, singing from the valleys, Black Water glittering in the sunshine, the gards rocking in it, and Eli coming out and sitting down, as she had done that evening long ago.

"If it were summer," said she, "and I were sitting on the hill, I really believe I could sing a song."

He laughed and asked: "What would it be about?"

"Oh, something easy, about--I do not know myself--"

"Tell me, Eli!" and he sprang up in delight; then, recollecting himself, he sat down again.

"No; not for all the world!" She laughed.

"I sang for you when you asked me."

"Yes, you did; but--no! no!"

"Eli, do you think I would make sport of your little verse?"

"No; I do not think so, Arne; but it is not anything I have made myself."

"It is by some one else, then."

"Yes, it just came floating of itself."

"Then you can surely repeat it to me."

"No, no; it is not altogether that either, Arne. Do not ask me any more." She must have hid her face in the bedclothes, for the last words seemed to come out of them.

"You are not as kind to me now, Eli, as I was to you!" he said, and rose.

"Arne, there is a difference--you do not understand me--but it was--I do not know myself--another time--do not be angry with me, Arne! Do not go away from me!" She began to weep.

"Eli, what is the matter?" He listened. "Are you feeling ill?" He did not think she was. She still wept; he thought that he must either go forward or backward.

"Eli!"

"Yes!"

They both spoke in whispers.

"Give me your hand!"

She did not answer; he listened intently, eagerly, felt about on the coverlid, and clasped a warm little hand that lay outside.

They heard steps on the stairs, and let go of each other's hands. It was Eli's mother, who was bringing in a light. "You are sitting quite too long in the dark," said she, and put the candlestick on the table. But neither Eli nor Arne could bear the light; she turned toward the pillow, he held his hand up before his eyes. "Oh, yes; it hurts the eyes a little at first," said her mother; "but that will soon pa.s.s off."

Arne searched on the floor for the cap he did not have with him, and then he left the room.

The next day he heard that Eli was coming down-stairs for a little while after dinner. He gathered together his tools, and said good-by. When she came down he was gone.

CHAPTER XIII.

Spring comes late in the mountains. The mail that pa.s.sed along the highway during the winter three times a week, in April only pa.s.ses once, and the inhabitants know then that in the outside world the snow is thawed, the ice broken; that the steamers are running, and the plow put into the earth. Here, the snow still lies three ells deep; the cattle low in the stalls, and the birds come, but hide themselves, shivering with the cold. Occasionally some traveler arrives, saying he has left his cart down in the valley, and he has flowers with him, which he shows,--he has gathered them by the wayside. Then the people become restless, go about talking together, look at the sky and down in the valley, wondering how much the sun gains each day. They strew ashes on the snow, and think of those who are now gathering flowers.

It was at such a time that old Margit Kampen came walking up to the parsonage and asked to speak with "father."[24] She was invited into the study, where the priest, a slender, fair-haired, gentle-looking man with large eyes and spectacles, received her kindly, knew who she was, and asked her to sit down.

"Is it now something about Arne again?" he inquired, as though they had often talked together about him.

"Heaven help me!" said Margit; "it is never anything but good I have to say of him, and yet my heart is so heavy." She looked very sad as she spoke.

"Has that longing come back again?" asked the priest.

"Worse than ever," said the mother. "I do not even believe he will stay with me until spring comes to us here."

"And yet he has promised never to leave you."

"True enough; but, dear me, he must manage for himself now; when the mind is set upon going, go one must, I suppose. But what will become of me?"

"Still I will believe, as long as possible, that he will not leave you,"

said the priest.

"Certainly not; but what if he should never be content at home? I would then have it on my conscience that I stood in his way. There are times when I think I ought to ask him myself to go away."

"How do you know that he is longing now more than ever?"

"Oh, from many things. Since midwinter he has not worked out in the parish a single day. On the other hand, he has made three trips to town, and has stayed away a long while each time. He scarcely ever talks now when he is working, as he often used to do. He sits for hours by the little window up-stairs, and looks out over the mountains in the direction of the Kamp gorge; he sometimes stays there a whole Sunday afternoon, and often when it is moonlight, he sits there far into the night."