Growth of the Soil Part 43

"You don't mean that, I know."

"Don't mean it? Oh, I've known what it is to live in town, and what it's like here; and I've been in a bigger town than you, for that matter--and shouldn't I miss it?"

"I didn't mean that way," says Eleseus hastily. "After you being in Bergen itself and all." Strange, how impatient she was, after all!

"I only know that if it wasn't for having the papers to read, I'd not stay here another day," says she.

"But what about Axel, then, and all the rest?--'twas that I was thinking."

"As for Axel, 'tis no business of mine. And what about yourself--I doubt there'll be some one waiting for you in town?"

And at that, Eleseus couldn't help showing off a little and closing his eyes and turning over the morsel on his tongue: perhaps true enough there was some one waiting for him in town. Oh, but he could have managed this ever so differently, snapped at the chance, if it hadn't been for Sivert sitting there! As it was, he could only say: "Don't talk such nonsense!"

"Ho," said she--and indeed she was shamefully ill-humoured today--"nonsense, indeed! Well, what can you expect of folk at Maaneland? we're not so great and fine as you--no."

Oh, she could go to the devil, what did Eleseus care; her face was visibly dirty, and her condition plain enough now even to his innocent eyes.

"Can't you play a bit on the guitar?" he asked.

"No," answered Barbro shortly. "What I was going to say: Sivert, couldn't you come and help Axel a bit with the new house a day or so? If you could begin tomorrow, say, when you come back from the village?"

Sivert thought for a moment. "Ay, maybe. But I've no clothes."

"I could run up and fetch your working clothes this evening, so they'll be here when you get back."

"Ay," said Sivert, "if you could."

And Barbro unnecessarily eager now: "Oh, if only you would come!

Here's summer nearly gone already, and the house that should be up and roofed before the autumn rains. Axel, he's been going to ask you a many times before, but he couldn't, somehow. Oh, you'd be helping us no end!"

"I'll help as well as I can," said Sivert.

And that was settled.

But now it was Eleseus' turn to be offended. He can see well enough that it's clever of Barbro and all that, to look out and manage to her own advantage and Axel's too, and get help for the building and save the house, but the whole thing is a little too plain; after all, she is not mistress of the place as yet, and it's not so long since he himself had kissed her--the creature! Was there never an atom of shame in her at all?

"Ay," said Eleseus, then suddenly: "I'll come back again in time and be a G.o.dfather when you're ready."

She sent him a glance, and answered in great offence: "G.o.dfather, indeed! And who's talking nonsense now, I'd like to know? 'Twill be time enough for you when I send word I'm looking out for G.o.dfathers."

And what could Eleseus do then but laugh foolishly and wish himself out of the place!

"Here's thanks!" says Sivert, and gets up from his seat to go.

"Here's thanks!" says Eleseus also; but he did not rise nor bow as a man should do in saying thanks for a cup of coffee; not he, indeed--he would see her at the devil for a bitter-tongued lump of ugliness.

"Let me look," said Barbro. "Oh yes; the young men I stayed with in town, they had silver plates on their overcoats too, much bigger than this," said she. "Well, then, you'll come in on your way back, Sivert, and stay the night? I'll get your clothes all right."

And that was good-bye to Barbro.

The brothers went on again. Eleseus was not distressed in any way in the matter of Barbro; she could go to the devil--and, besides, he had two big bank-notes in his pocket! The brothers took care not to touch on any mournful things, such as the strange way father had said good-bye, or how mother had cried. They went a long way round to avoid being stopped at Breidablik, and made a jest of that little ruse.

But when they came down in sight of the village, and it was time for Sivert to turn homeward again, they both behaved in somewhat unmanly fashion. Sivert, for instance, was weak enough to say: "I doubt it'll be a bit lonely, maybe, when you're gone."

And at that Eleseus must fall to whistling, and looking to his shoes, and finding a splinter in his finger, and searching after something in his pockets; some papers, he said, couldn't make out ... Oh, 'twould have gone ill with them if Sivert had not saved things at the last.

"Touch!" he cried suddenly, and touched his brother on the shoulder and sprang away. It was better after that; they shouted a word of farewell or so from a distance, and went each on his own way.

Fate or chance--whatever it might be. Eleseus went back, after all, to the town, to a post that was no longer open for him, but that same occasion led to Axel Strom's getting a man to work for him.

They began work on the house the 21st of August, and ten days later the place was roofed in. Oh, 'twas no great house to see, and nothing much in the way of height; the best that could be said of it was that it was a wooden house and no turf hut. But, at least, it meant that the animals would have a splendid shelter for the winter in what had been a house for human beings up to then.

Chapter II

On the 3rd of September Barbro was not to be found. 'Twas not that she was altogether lost, but she was not up at the house.

Axel was doing carpenter's work the best he could; he was trying hard to get a gla.s.s window and a door set in the new house, and it was taking all his time to do it. But being long past noon, and no word said about coming in to dinner, he went in himself into the hut. No one there. He got himself some food, and looked about while he was eating. All Barbro's clothes were hanging there; she must be out somewhere, that was all. He went back to his work on the new building, and kept at it for a while, then he looked in at the hut again--no, n.o.body there. She must be lying down somewhere. He sets out to find her.

"Barbro!" he calls. No. He looks all round the houses, goes across to some bushes on the edge of his land, searches about a long while, maybe an hour, calls out--no. He comes on her a long way off, lying on the ground, hidden by some bushes; the stream flows by at her feet, she is barefoot and bareheaded, and wet all up the back as well.

"You lying here?" says he. "Why didn't you answer?"

"I couldn't," she answers, and her voice so hoa.r.s.e he can scarcely hear.

"What--you been in the water?"

"Yes. Slipped down--oh!"

"Is it hurting you now?"

"Ay--it's over now."

"Is it over?" says he.

"Yes. Help me to get home."

"Where's ...?"

"What?"

"Wasn't it--the child?"

"No. Twas dead."

"Was it dead?"

"Yes."