Growth of the Soil Part 17

"Ho!" said Isak.

"It will be twenty-five _Daler_ a year in your pocket."

"H'm," said Isak. "And what am I to do for that?"

"Keep the line in repair, mend the wires when necessary, clear away forest growth on the route as it comes up. They'll set up a little machine thing in the house here, to hang on the wall, that'll tell you when you're wanted. And when it does, you must leave whatever you're doing and go."

Isak thought it over. "I could do it all right in winter," he said.

"That's no good. It would have to be for the whole year, summer and winter alike."

"Can't be done," said Isak. "Spring and summer and autumn I've my work on the land, and no time for other things."

The engineer looked at him for quite a while, and then put an astonishing question, as follows: "Can you make more money that way?"

"Make more money?" said Isak.

"Can you earn more money in a day by working on the land than you could by working for us?"

"Why, as to that, I can't say," answered Isak. "It's just this way, you see--'tis the land I'm here for. I've many souls and more beasts to keep alive--and 'tis the land that keeps us. 'Tis our living."

"If you won't, I can find some one else," said the engineer.

But Isak only seemed rather relieved at the threat. He did not like to disoblige the great man, and tried to explain. "'Tis this way," he said, "I've a horse and five cows, besides the bull. I've twenty sheep and sixteen goats. The beasts, they give us food and wool and hide; we must give them food."

"Yes, yes, of course," said the other shortly.

"Well, and so I say, how am I to feed them when I've to run away all times in the busy season, to work on the telegraph line?"

"Say no more about it," said the engineer. "I'll get the man down below you, Brede Olsen; he'll be glad to take it." He turned to his men with a brief word: "Now, lads, we'll be getting on,"

Now Oline had heard from the way Isak spoke that he was stiff-necked and unreasonable in his mind, and she would make the most of it.

"What was that you said, Isak? Sixteen goats? There's no more than fifteen," said she.

Isak looked at her, and Oline looked at him again, straight in the face.

"Not sixteen goats?" said he.

"No," said she, looking helplessly towards the strangers, as if to say how unreasonable he was.

"Ho!" said Isak softly. He drew a tuft of his beard between his teeth and stood chewing it.

The engineer and his men went on their way.

Now, if Isak had wanted to show his displeasure with Oline and maybe thrash her for her doings, here was his chance--a Heaven-sent chance to do that thing. They were alone in the house; the children had gone after the men when they went. Isak stood there in the middle of the room, and Oline was sitting by the stove. Isak cleared his throat once or twice, just to show that he was ready to say something if he pleased. But he said nothing. That was his strength of soul. What, did he not know the number of his goats as he knew the fingers on his hands--was the woman mad? Could one of the beasts be missing, when he knew every one of them personally and talked to them every day--his goats that were sixteen in number? Oline must have traded away one of them the day before, when the woman from Breidablik had come up to look at the place. "H'm," said Isak, and this time words were on the very tip of his tongue. What was it Oline had done? Not exactly murder, perhaps, but something not far from it. He could speak in deadly earnest of that sixteenth goat.

But he could not stand there for ever, in the middle of the room, saying nothing. "H'm," he said. "Ho! So there's but fifteen goats there now, you say?"

"That's all I make it," answered Oline gently. "But you'd better count for yourself and see."

Now was his time--he could do it now: reach out with his hands and alter the shape of Oline considerably, with but one good grip. He could do it. He did not do it, but said boldly, making for the door: "I'll say no more just now." And he went out, as if plainly showing that, next time, he would have proper words to say, never fear.

"Eleseus!" he called out.

Where was Eleseus, where were the children? Their father had something to ask them; they were big fellows now, with their eyes about them. He found them under the floor of the barn; they had crept in as far as they could, hiding away invisibly, but betraying themselves by an anxious whispering. Out they crept now like two sinners.

The fact of the matter was that Eleseus had found a stump of coloured pencil the engineer had left behind, and started to run after him and give it back, but the big men with their long strides were already far up in the forest. Eleseus stopped. The idea occurred to him that he might keep the pencil--if only he could! He hunted out little Sivert, so that they might at least be two to share the guilt, and the pair of them had crept in under the floor with their find. Oh, that stump of pencil--it was an event in their lives, a wonder! They found shavings and covered them all over with signs; the pencil, they discovered, made blue marks with one end and red with the other, and they took it in turns to use. When their father called out so loudly and insistently, Eleseus whispered: "They've come back for the pencil!"

All their joy was dashed in a moment, swept out of their minds at a touch, and their little hearts began beating and thumping terribly.

The brothers crept forth. Eleseus held out the pencil at arm's length; here it was, they had not broken it; only wished they had never seen the thing.

No engineer was to be seen. Their hearts settled to a quieter beat; it was heavenly to be rid of that dreadful tension.

"There was a woman here yesterday," said their father.

"Yes."

"The woman from the place down below. Did you see her go?"

"Yes."

"Had she a goat with her?"

"No," said the boys. "A goat?"

"Didn't she have a goat with her when she left?"

"No. What goat?"

Isak wondered and wondered. In the evening when the animals came home, he counted the goats once over--there were sixteen. He counted them once more, counted them five times. There were sixteen. None missing.

Isak breathed again. But what did it all mean? Oline, miserable creature, couldn't she count as far as sixteen? He asked her angrily: "What's all this nonsense? there _are_ sixteen goats."

"Are there sixteen?" she asked innocently.

"Ay."

"Ay, well, then."

"A nice one to count, you are."

Oline answered quietly, in an injured tone, "Since all the goats are there, why, then, thank Heaven, you can't say Oline's been eating them up. And well for her, poor thing."

Oline had taken him in completely with her trickery; he was content, imagining all was well. It did not occur to him, for instance, to count the sheep. He did not trouble about further counting of the stock at all. After all, Oline was not as bad as she might have been; she kept house for him after a fashion, and looked to his cattle; she was merely a fool, and that was worst for herself. Let her stay, let her live--she was not worth troubling about. But it was a grey and joyless thing to be Isak, as life was now.

Years had pa.s.sed. Gra.s.s had grown on the roof of the house, even the roof of the barn, which was some years younger, was green. The wild mouse, native of the woods, had long since found way into the storehouse. t.i.ts and all manner of little birds swarmed about the place; there were more birds up on the hillside; even the crows had come. And most wonderful of all, the summer before, seagulls had appeared, seagulls coming all the way up from the coast to settle on the fields there in the wilderness. Isak's farm was known far and wide to all wild creatures. And what of Eleseus and little Sivert when they saw the gulls? Oh, 'twas some strange birds from ever so far away; not so many of them, just six white birds, all exactly alike, waddling this way and that about the fields, and pecking at the gra.s.s now and then.

"Father, what have they come for?" asked the boys.