Growth of the Soil Part 38

No, they were not always the best of friends, Axel and Barbro; there was trouble now and again. She had been with him now for a couple of years, and they had had words before; mostly when Barbro talked of finding another place. He wanted her to stay there for ever, to settle down there and share the house and life with him; he knew how hard it would be for him if he were left without help again. And she had promised several times--ay, in her more affectionate moments she would not think of going away at all. But the moment they quarrelled about anything, she invariably threatened to go. If for nothing else, she must go to have her teeth seen to in town. Go, go away ... Axel felt he must find a means to keep her.

Keep her? A lot Barbro cared for his trying to keep her if she didn't want to stay.

"Ho, so you want to go away again?" said he.

"Well, and if I do?"

"_Can_ you, d'you think?"

"Well, and why not? If you think I'm afraid because the winter's coming on ... But I can get a place in Bergen any day I like."

Then said Axel steadily enough: "It'll be some time before you can do that, anyway. As long as you're with child."

"With child? What are you talking about?"

Axel stared. Was the girl mad? True, he himself should have been more patient. Now that he had the means of keeping her, he had grown too confident, and that was a mistake; there was no need to be sharp with her and make her wild; he need not have ordered her in so many words to help him with the potatoes that spring--he might have planted them by himself. There would be plenty of time for him to a.s.sert his authority after they were married; until then he ought to have had sense enough to give way.

But--it _was_ too bad, this business with Eleseus, this clerk, who came swaggering about with his walking-stick and all his fine talk.

For a girl to carry on like that when she was promised to another man--and in her condition! It was beyond understanding. Up to then, Axel had had no rival to compete with--now, it was different.

"Here's a new paper for you," he said. "And here's a bit of a thing I got you. Don't know if you'll care about it."

Barbro was cold. They were sitting there together, drinking scalding hot coffee from the bowl, but for all that she answered icy cold:

"I suppose that's the gold ring you've been promising me this twelvemonth and more."

This, however, was beyond the mark, for it _was_ the ring after all.

But a gold ring it was not, and that he had never promised her--'twas an invention of her own; silver it was, with gilt hands clasped, real silver, with the mark on and all. But ah, that unlucky voyage of hers to Bergen! Barbro had seen real engagement rings--no use telling her!

"That ring! Huh! You can keep it yourself."

"What's wrong with it, then?"

"Wrong with it? There's nothing wrong with it that I know," she answered, and got up to clear the table.

"Why, you'll needs make do with it for now," he said. "Maybe I'll manage another some day."

Barbro made no answer.

A thankless creature was Barbro this evening. A new silver ring--she might at least have thanked him nicely for it. It must be that clerk with the town ways that had turned her head. Axel could not help saying: "I'd like to know what that fellow Eleseus keeps coming here for, anyway. What does he want with you?"

"With me?"

"Ay. Is he such a greenhorn and can't see how 'tis with you now?

Hasn't he eyes in his head?"

Barbro turned on him straight at that: "Oh, so you think you've got a hold on me because of _that_? You'll find out you're wrong, that's all."

"Ho!" said Axel.

"Ay, and I'll not stay here, neither."

But Axel only smiled a little at this; not broadly and laughing in her face, no; for he did not mean to cross her. And then he spoke soothingly, as to a child: "Be a good girl now, Barbro. 'Tis you and me, you know."

And of course in the end Barbro gave in and was good, and even went to sleep with the silver ring on her finger.

It would all come right in time, never fear.

For the two in the hut, yes. But what about Eleseus? 'Twas worse with him; he found it hard to get over the shameful way Barbro had treated him. He knew nothing of hysterics, and took it as all pure cruelty on her part; that girl Barbro from Breidablik thought a deal too much of herself, even though she _had_ been in Bergen....

He sent her back the photograph in a way of his own--took it down himself one night and stuck it through the door to her in the hayloft, where she slept. 'Twas not done in any rough unmannerly way, not at all; he had fidgeted with the door a long time so as to wake her, and when she rose up on her elbow and asked, "What's the matter; can't you find your way in this evening?" he understood the question was meant for some one else, and it went through him like a needle; like a sabre.

He walked back home--no walking-stick, no whistling. He did not care about playing the man any longer. A stab at the heart is no light matter.

And was that the last of it?

One Sunday he went down just to look; to peep and spy. With a sickly and unnatural patience he lay in hiding among the bushes, staring over at the hut. And when at last there came a sign of life and movement it was enough to make an end of him altogether: Axel and Barbro came out together and went across to the cowshed. They were loving and affectionate now, ay, they had a blessed hour; they walked with their arms round each other, and he was going to help her with the animals.

Ho, yes!

Eleseus watched the pair with a look as if he had lost all; as a ruined man. And his thought, maybe, was like this: There she goes arm in arm with Axel Strom. How she could ever do it I can't think; there was a time when she put her arms round me! And there they disappeared into the shed.

Well, let them! Huh! Was he to lie here in the bushes and forget himself? A nice thing for him--to lie there flat on his belly and forget himself. Who was she, after all? But he was the man he was.

Huh! again.

He sprang to his feet and stood up. Brushed the twigs and dust from his clothes and drew himself up and stood upright again. His rage and desperation came out in a curious fashion now: he threw all care to the winds, and began singing a ballad of highly frivolous import. And there was an earnest expression on his face as he took care to sing the worst parts loudest of all.

Chapter XIX

Isak came back from the village with a horse. Ay, it had come to that; he had bought the horse from the Lensmand's a.s.sistant; the animal was for sale, as Geissler had said, but it cost two hundred and forty _Kroner_--that was sixty _Daler_. The price of horseflesh had gone up beyond all bounds: when Isak was a boy the best horse could be bought for fifty _Daler_.

But why had he never raised a horse himself? He had thought of it, had imagined a nice little foal--that he had been waiting for these two years past. That was a business for folk who could spare the time from their land, could leave waste patches lying waste till they got a horse to carry home the crop. The Lensmand's a.s.sistant had said: "I don't care about paying for a horse's keep myself; I've no more hay than my womenfolk can get it in by themselves while I'm away on duty."

The new horse was an old idea of Isak's, he had been thinking of it for years; it was not Geissler who had put him up to it. And he had also made preparations such as he could; a new stall, a new rope for tethering it in the summer; as for carts, he had some already, he must make some more for the autumn. Most important of all was the fodder, and he had not forgotten that, of course; or why should he have thought it so important to get that last patch broken up last year if it hadn't been to save getting rid of one of the cows, and yet have enough keep for a new horse? It was, sown for green fodder now; that was for the calving cows.

Ay, he had thought it all out. Well might Inger be astonished again, and clap her hands just as in the old days.

Isak brought news from the village; Breidablik was to be sold, there was a notice outside the church. The bit of crop, such as it was,--hay and potatoes,--to go with the rest. Perhaps the live stock too; a few beasts only, nothing big.

"Is he going to sell up the home altogether and leave nothing?" cried Inger. "And where's he going to live?"

"In the village."

It was true enough. Brede was going back to the tillage. But he had first tried to get Axel Strom to let him live there with Barbro.

He didn't succeed. Brede would never dream of interfering with the relations between his daughter and Axel, so he was careful not to make himself a nuisance, though to be sure it was a hard set-back, with all the rest. Axel was going to get his new house built that autumn; well, then, when he and Barbro moved in there, why couldn't Brede and his family have a hut? No! 'Twas so with Brede, he didn't look at things like a farmer and a settler on new land; he didn't understand that Axel had to move out because he wanted the hut for his growing stock; the hut was to be a new cowshed. And even when this was explained to him, he failed to see the point of view; surely human beings should come before animals, he said. No, a settler's way was different; animals first; a man could always find himself a shelter for the winter. But Barbro put in a word herself now: "Ho, so you put the animals first and us after? 'Tis just as well I know it!" So Axel had made enemies of a whole family because he hadn't room to house them.