Growth of the Soil Part 19

"Os-Anders?" Oline has to set down the buckets and fold her hands."

May I never have more guilt to answer for! What's all this about a ewe and lambs you're talking of? Is it the goat you mean, with the flat ears?"

"You creature!" said Isak, turning away.

"Well, if you're not a miracle, Isak, I will say.... Here you've all you could wish for every sort, and a heavenly host of sheep and goats and all in your own shed, and you've not enough. How should I know what sheep, and what two lambs, you're trying to get out of me now?

You should be thanking the Lord for His mercies from generation to generation, that you should. 'Tis but this summer and a bit of a way to next winter, and you've the lambing season once more, and three times as many again."

Oh, that woman Oline!

Isak went off grumbling like a bear. "Fool I was not to murder her the first day!" he thought, calling himself all manner of names. "Idiot, lump of rubbish that I was! But it's not too late yet; just wait, let her go to the cowshed if she likes. It wouldn't be wise to do anything tonight, but tomorrow ... ay, tomorrow morning's the time. Three sheep lost and gone! And coffee, did she say!"

Chapter X

Next day was fated to bring a great event. There came a visitor to the farm--Geissler came. It was not yet summer on the moors, but Geissler paid no heed to the state of the ground; he came on foot, in rich high boots with broad, shiny tops; yellow gloves, too, he wore, and was elegant to see; a man from the village carried his things.

He had come, as a matter of fact, to buy a piece of Isak's land, up in the hills--a copper mine. And what about the price? Also, by the way, he had a message from Inger--good girl, every one liked her; he had been in Trondhjem, and seen her. "Isak, you've put in some work here."

"Ay, I dare say And you've seen Inger?"

"What's that you've got over there? Built a mill of your own, have you? grind your own corn? Excellent. And you've turned up a good bit of ground since I was here last."

"Is she well?"

"Eh? Oh, your wife!--yes, she's well and fit. Let's go in the next room. I'll tell you all about it."

"'Tis not in order," put in Oline. Oline had her own reasons for not wishing them to go in. They went into the little room nevertheless, and closed the door. Oline stood in the kitchen and could hear nothing.

Geissler sat down, slapped his knee with a powerful hand, and there he was--master of Isak's fate.

"You haven't sold that copper tract yet?" he asked.

"No."

"Good. I'll buy it myself. Yes, I've seen Inger and some other people too. She'll be out before long, if I'm not greatly mistaken--the case has been submitted to the King."

"The King?"

"The King, yes. I went in to have a talk with your wife--they managed it for me, of course, no difficulty about that--and we had a long talk. 'Well, Inger, how are you getting on? Nicely, what?' 'Why, I've no cause to complain.'' Like to be home again?' 'Ay, I'll not say no.'

'And so you shall before very long,' said I. And I'll tell you this much, Isak, she's a good girl, is Inger. No blubbering, not so much as a tear, but smiling and laughing ... they've fixed up that trouble with her mouth, by the way--operation--sewed it up again. 'Good-bye, then,' said I. 'You won't be here very long, I'll promise you that.'

"Then I went to the Governor--he saw me, of course, no difficulty about that. 'You've a woman here,' said I,' that ought to be out of the place, and back in her home--Inger Sellanraa.' 'Inger?' said he; 'why, yes. She's a good sort--I wish we could keep her for twenty years,' said he. 'Well, you won't,' said I. 'She's been here too long already.' 'Too long?' says he. 'Do you know what she's in for?' 'I know all about it,' says I, 'being Lensmand in the district.' 'Oh,'

says he, 'won't you sit down?' Quite the proper thing to say, of course. 'Why,' says the Governor then, 'we do what we can for her here, and her little girl too. So she's from your part of the country, is she? We've helped her to get a sewing-machine of her own; she's gone through the workshops right to the top, and we've taught her a deal--weaving, household work, dyeing, cutting out. Been here too long, you say?' Well, I'd got my answer ready for that all right, but it could wait, so I only said her case had been badly muddled, and had to be taken up again; now, after the revision of the criminal code, she'd probably have been acquitted altogether. And I told him about the hare. 'A hare?' says the Governor. 'A hare,' says I. 'And the child was born with a hare-lip.' 'Oh,' says he, smiling, 'I see. And you think they ought to have made more allowance for that?' 'They didn't make any at all,' said I, 'for it wasn't mentioned.' 'Well, I dare say it's not so bad, after all.' 'Bad enough for her, anyway.'

'Do you believe a hare can work miracles, then?' says he. 'As to that,' said I, 'whether a hare can work miracles or not's a matter I won't discuss just now. The question is, what effect the _sight_ of a hare might have on a woman with her disfigurement, in her condition.'

Well, he thought over that for a bit. 'H'm,' says he at last. 'Maybe, maybe. Anyhow, we're not concerned with that here. All we have to do is to take over the people they send us; not to revise their sentences. And according to her sentence, Inger's not yet finished her time.'

"Well, then, I started on what I wanted to say all along. 'There was a serious oversight made in bringing her here to begin with,' said I.

'An oversight?' 'Yes. In the first place, she ought never to have been sent across the country at all in the state she was in.' He looks at me stiffly. 'No, that's perfectly true,' says he. 'But it's nothing to do with us here, you know.' 'And in the second place,' said I, 'she ought certainly not to have been in the prison for full two months without any notice taken of her condition by the authorities here.'

That put him out, I could see; he said nothing for quite a while. 'Are you instructed to act on her behalf?' says he at last. 'Yes, I am,'

said I. Well, then, he started on about how pleased they had been with her, and telling me over again all they'd taught her and done for her there--taught her to write too, he said. And the little girl had been put out to nurse with decent people, and so on. Then I told him how things were at home, with Inger away. Two youngsters left behind, and only a hired woman to look after them, and all the rest. 'I've a statement from her husband,' said I, 'that I can submit whether the case be taken up for thorough revision, or an application be made for a pardon.' 'I'd like to see that statement,' says the Governor.

'Right,' said I. 'I'll bring it along tomorrow in visiting hours.'"

Isak sat listening--it was thrilling to hear, a wonderful tale from foreign parts. He followed Geissler's mouth with slavish eyes.

Geissler went on: "I went straight back to the hotel and wrote out a statement; did the whole thing myself, you understand, and signed it 'Isak Sellanraa.' Don't imagine, though, I said a word against the way they'd managed things in the prison. Not a word. Next day I went along with the paper. 'Won't you sit down?' says the Governor, the moment I got inside the door. He read through what I'd written, nodded here and there, and at last he says: 'Very good, very good indeed. It'd hardly do, perhaps, to have the case brought up again for revision, but....'

'Wait a bit,' said I. 'I've another doc.u.ment that I think will make it right.' Had him there again, you see. 'Well,' he says, all of a hurry, 'I've been thinking over the matter since yesterday, and I consider there's good and sufficient grounds to apply for a pardon.' 'And the application would have the Governor's support?' I asked. 'Certainly; yes, I'll give it my best recommendation.' Then I bowed and said: 'In that case, there will be no difficulty about the pardon, of course. I thank you, sir, on behalf of a suffering woman and a stricken home.'

Then says he: 'I don't think there should be any need of further declarations--from the district, I mean--about her case. You know the woman yourself--that should be quite enough.' I knew well enough, of course, why he wanted the thing settled quietly as possible, so I just agreed: said it would only delay the proceedings to collect further material....

"And there you are, Isak, that's the whole story." Geissler looked at his watch. "And now let's get to business. Can you go with me up to the ground again?"

Isak was a stony creature, a stump of a man; he did not find it easy to change the subject all at once; he was all preoccupied with thoughts and wondering, and began asking questions of this and that.

He learned that the application had been sent up to the King, and might be decided in one of the first State Councils. "'Tis all a miracle," said he.

Then they went up into the hills; Geissler, his man, and Isak, and were out for some hours. In a very short time Geissler had followed the lie of the copper vein over a wide stretch of land and marked out the limits of the tract he wanted. Here, there, and everywhere he was.

But no fool, for all his hasty movements; quick to judge, but sound enough for all that.

When they came back to the farm once more with a sack full of samples of ore--he got out writing materials and sat down to write. He did not bury himself completely in his writing, though, but talked now and again. "Well, Isak, it won't be such a big sum this time, for the land, but I can give you a couple of hundred _Daler_ anyway, on the spot." Then he wrote again. "Remind me before I go, I want to see that mill of yours," said he. Then he caught sight of some blue and red marks on the frame of the loom, and asked."Who drew that?" Now that was Eleseus, had drawn a horse and a goat; he used his coloured pencil on the loom and woodwork anywhere, having no paper. "Not at all bad,"

said Geissler, and gave Eleseus a coin.

Geissler went on writing for a bit, and then looked up. "You'll be having other people taking up land hereabouts before long."

At this the man with him spoke: "There's some started already."

"Ho! And who might that be?"

"Well, first, there's the folk at Breidablik, as they call it--man Brede, at Breidablik."

"Him--puh!" sniffed Geissler contemptuously.

"Then there's one or two others besides, have bought."

"Doubt if they're any good, any of them," said Geissler. And noticing at the same moment that there were two boys in the room, he caught hold of little Sivert and gave him a coin. A remarkable man was Geissler. His eyes, by the way, had begun to look soreish; there was a kind of redness at the edges. Might have been sleeplessness; the same thing comes at times from drinking of strong waters. But he did not look dejected at all; and for all his talking of this and that between times, he was thinking no doubt of his doc.u.ment all the while, for suddenly he picked up the pen and wrote a piece more.

At last he seemed to have finished.

He turned to Isak: "Well, as I said, it won't make you a rich man all at once, this deal. But there may be more to come. We'll fix it up so that you get more later on. Anyhow, I can give you two hundred now."

Isak understood but little of the whole thing, but two hundred _Daler_ was at any rate another miracle, and an unreasonable sum. He would get it on paper, of course, not paid in cash, but let that be. Isak had other things in his head just now.

"And you think she'll be pardoned?" he asked.

"Eh? Oh, your wife! Well, if there'd been a telegraph office in the village, I'd have wired to Trondhjem and asked if she hadn't been set free already."

Isak had heard men speak of the telegraph; a wonderful thing, a string hung up on big poles, something altogether above the common earth. The mention of it now seemed to shake his faith in Geissler's big words, and he put in anxiously: "But suppose the King says no?"

Said Geissler: "In that case, I send in my supplementary material, a full account of the whole affair. And then they _must_ set her free.