Arne: Early Tales and Sketches Part 27

When Aslaug had become a grown-up girl, there was not much peace to be had at Huseby; for there the finest boys in the parish quarreled and fought night after night. It was worst of all on Sat.u.r.day nights; but then old Knud Huseby never went to bed without keeping his leather breeches on, nor without having a birch stick by his bedside.

"If I have a daughter, I shall look after her, too," said old Huseby.

Th.o.r.e Naeset was only a houseman's son; nevertheless there were those who said that he was the one who came oftenest to see the gardman's daughter at Huseby. Old Knud did not like this, and declared also that it was not true, "for he had never seen him there." But people smiled slyly among themselves, and thought that had he searched in the corners of the room instead of fighting with all those who were making a noise and uproar in the middle of the floor, he would have found Th.o.r.e.

Spring came and Aslaug went to the saeter with the cattle. Then, when the day was warm down in the valley, and the mountain rose cool above the haze, and when the bells tinkled, the shepherd dog barked, and Aslaug sang and blew the loor on the mountain side, then the hearts of the young fellows who were at work down on the meadow would ache, and the first Sat.u.r.day night they all started up to the mountain saeter, one faster than the other. But still more rapidly did they come down again, for behind the door at the saeter there stood one who received each of them as he came, and gave him so sound a whipping that he forever afterward remembered the threat that followed it,--

"Come again another time and you shall have some more."

According to what these young fellows knew, there was only one in the parish who could use his fists in this way, and that was Th.o.r.e Naeset.

And these rich gardmen's sons thought it was a shame that this houseman's son should cut them all out at the Huseby saeter.

So thought, also, old Knud, when the matter reached his ears, and said, moreover, that if there was n.o.body else who could tackle Th.o.r.e, then he and his sons would try it. Knud, it is true, was growing old, but although he was nearly sixty, he would at times have a wrestle or two with his eldest son, when it was too dull for him at some party or other.

Up to the Huseby saeter there was but one road, and that led straight through the gard. The next Sat.u.r.day evening, as Th.o.r.e was going to the saeter, and was stealing on his tiptoes across the yard, a man rushed right at his breast as he came near the barn.

"What do you want of me?" said Th.o.r.e, and knocked his a.s.sailant flat on the ground.

"That you shall soon find out," said another fellow from behind, giving Th.o.r.e a blow on the back of the head. This was the brother of the former a.s.sailant.

"Here comes the third," said old Knud, rushing forward to join the fray.

The danger made Th.o.r.e stronger. He was as limber as a willow and his blows left their marks. He dodged from one side to the other. Where the blows fell he was not, and where his opponents least expected blows from him, they got them. He was, however, at last completely beaten; but old Knud frequently said afterwards that a stouter fellow he had scarcely ever tackled. The fight was continued until blood flowed, but then Huseby cried,--

"Stop!" and added, "If you can manage to get by the Huseby wolf and his cubs next Sat.u.r.day night, the girl shall be yours."

Th.o.r.e dragged himself homeward as best he could; and as soon as he got home he went to bed.

At Huseby there was much talk about the fight; but everybody said,--

"What did he want there?"

There was one, however, who did not say so, and that was Aslaug. She had expected Th.o.r.e that Sat.u.r.day night, and when she heard what had taken place between him and her father, she sat down and had a good cry, saying to herself,--

"If I cannot have Th.o.r.e, there will never be another happy day for me in this world."

Th.o.r.e had to keep his bed all day Sunday; and Monday, too, he felt that he must do the same. Tuesday came, and it was such a beautiful day. It had rained during the night. The mountain was wet and green. The fragrance of the leaves was wafted in through the open window; down the mountain sides came the sound of the cow-bells, and some one was heard singing up in the glen. Had it not been for his mother, who was sitting in the room, Th.o.r.e would have wept from impatient vexation.

Wednesday came and still Th.o.r.e was in bed; but on Thursday he began to wonder whether he could not get well by Sat.u.r.day; and on Friday he rose.

He remembered well the words Aslaug's father had spoken: "If you can manage to get by the Huseby wolf and his cubs next Sat.u.r.day, the girl shall be yours." He looked over toward the Huseby saeter again and again.

"I cannot get more than another thrashing," thought Th.o.r.e.

Up to the Huseby saeter there was but one road, as before stated; but a clever fellow might manage to get there, even if he did not take the beaten track. If he rowed out on the fjord below, and past the little tongue of land yonder, and thus reached the other side of the mountain, he might contrive to climb it, though it was so steep that a goat could scarcely venture there--and a goat is not very apt to be timid in climbing the mountains, you know.

Sat.u.r.day came, and Th.o.r.e stayed without doors all day long. The sunlight played upon the foliage, and every now and then an alluring song was heard from the mountains. As evening drew near, and the mist was stealing up the slope, he was still sitting outside of the door. He looked up the mountain, and all was still. He looked over toward the Huseby gard. Then he pushed out his boat and rowed round the point of land.

Up at the saeter sat Aslaug, through with her day's work. She was thinking that Th.o.r.e would not come this evening, but that there would come all the more in his stead. Presently she let loose the dog, but told no one whither she was going. She seated herself where she could look down into the valley; but a dense fog was rising, and, moreover, she felt little disposed to look down that way, for everything reminded her of what had occurred. So she moved, and without thinking what she was doing, she happened to go over to the other side of the mountain, and there she sat down and gazed out over the sea. There was so much peace in this far-reaching sea-view!

Then she felt like singing. She chose a song with long notes, and the music sounded far into the still night. She felt gladdened by it, and so she sang another verse. But then it seemed to her as if some one answered her from the glen far below. "Dear me, what can that be?"

thought Aslaug. She went forward to the brink of the precipice, and threw her arms around a slender birch, which hung trembling over the steep. She looked down but saw nothing. The fjord lay silent and calm.

Not even a bird ruffled its smooth surface. Aslaug sat down and began singing again. Then she was sure that some one responded with the same tune and nearer than the first time. "It must be somebody, after all."

Aslaug sprang up and bent out over the brink of the steep; and there, down at the foot of a rocky wall, she saw a boat moored, and it was so far down that it appeared like a tiny sh.e.l.l. She looked a little farther up, and her eyes fell on a red cap, and under the cap she saw a young man, who was working his way up the almost perpendicular side of the mountain. "Dear me, who can that be?" asked Aslaug, as she let go of the birch and sprang far back.

She dared not answer her own question, for she knew very well who it was. She threw herself down on the greensward and took hold of the gra.s.s with both hands, as though it were _she_ who must not let go her hold.

But the gra.s.s came up by the roots.

She cried aloud and prayed G.o.d to help Th.o.r.e. But then it struck her that this conduct of Th.o.r.e's was really tempting G.o.d, and therefore no help could be expected.

"Just this once!" she implored.

And she threw her arms around the dog, as if it were Th.o.r.e she were keeping from loosing his hold. She rolled over the gra.s.s with him, and the moments seemed years. But then the dog tore himself away. "Bow-bow,"

he barked over the brink of the steep and wagged his tail. "Bow-wow," he barked at Aslaug, and threw his forepaws up on her. "Bow-wow," over the precipice again; and a red cap appeared over the brow of the mountain and Th.o.r.e lay in her arms.

Now when old Knud Huseby heard of this, he made a very sensible remark, for he said,--

"That boy is worth having; the girl shall be his."

THE BEAR HUNTER.

A worse boy to tell lies than the priest's oldest son could scarcely be found in the whole parish; he was also a very good reader; there was no lack on that score, and what he read the peasants were glad to hear, but when it was something they were well pleased with, he would make up more of the same kind, as much as he thought they wanted. His own stories were mostly about strong men and about love.

Soon the priest noticed that the threshing up in the barn was being done in a more and more lazy manner; he went to see what the matter was, and behold it was Thorvald, who stood there telling stories. Soon the quant.i.ty of wood brought home from the forest became wonderfully small; he went to see what the trouble was, and there stood Thorvald again, telling stories. There must be an end to this, thought the priest; and he sent the boy to the nearest school.

Only peasant children attended this school, but the priest thought it would be too expensive to keep a private tutor for this one boy. But Thorvald had not been a week among the scholars, before one of his schoolmates came in pale as a corpse, and said he had met some of the underground folk coming along the road. Another boy, still paler, followed, and said that he had actually seen a man without a head walking about and moving the boats down by the landing-place. And what was worst of all, little Knud Pladsen and his young sister, one evening, as they were returning home from school, came running back, almost out of their senses, crying, and declaring that they had heard the bear up near the parsonage; nay, little Marit had even seen his gray eyes sparkle. But now the school-master got terribly angry, struck the table with his ferule, and asked what the deuce--G.o.d pardon me my wicked sin--had gotten into the school-children.

"One is growing more crazy than the other," said he. "There lurks a hulder in every bush; there sits a merman under every boat; the bear is out in midwinter! Have you no more faith in your G.o.d or in your catechism," quoth he, "or do you believe in all kinds of deviltry, and in all the terrible powers of darkness, and in bears roaming about in the middle of winter?"

But then he calmed down somewhat after a while, and asked little Marit whether she really did not dare to go home. The child sobbed and cried, and declared that it was utterly impossible. The school-master then said that Thorvald, who was the eldest of those remaining, should go with her through the wood.

"No, he has seen the bear himself," cried Marit; "it was he who told us about it."

Thorvald shrank within himself, where he was sitting, especially when the school-master looked at him and drew the ferule affectionately through his left hand.

"Have you seen the bear?" he asked, quietly.

"Well, at any rate, I know," said Thorvald, "that our overseer found a bear's den up in the priest's wood, the day he was out ptarmigan shooting."

"But have you seen the bear yourself?"

"It was not one, it was two large ones, and perhaps there were two smaller ones besides, as the old ones generally have their last year's cubs and this year's, too, with them."

"But have _you_ seen them?" reiterated the school-master, still more mildly, as he kept drawing the ferule between his fingers.

Thorvald was silent for a moment.