Growth of the Soil Part 56

Andresen drank and wiped his mouth with a handkerchief and looked at the time. "Is it far up to the mines?" he asked.

"No, 'tis an hour's walk, or hardly that."

"I'm going up to look over them, d'you see, for him, Aronsen--I'm his chief clerk."

"Ho!"

"You'll know me yourself, no doubt; I'm Aronsen's chief clerk. You've been down buying things at our place before."

"Ay."

"And I remember you well enough," says Andresen. "You've been down twice buying things."

"'Tis more than could be thought, you'd remember that," says Leopoldine, and had no more strength after that, but stood holding by a chair.

But Andresen had strength enough, he went on, and said: "Remember you?

Well, of course I should." And he said more:

"You wouldn't like to walk up to the mine with me?" said he.

And a little after something went wrong with Leopoldine's eyes; everything turned red and strange about her, and the floor was slipping away from under, and Chief Clerk Andresen was talking from somewhere ever so far off. Saying: "Couldn't you spare the time?"

"No," says she.

And Heaven knows how she managed to get out of the kitchen again. Her mother looked at her and asked what was the matter. "Nothing," said Leopoldine.

Nothing, no, of course. But now, look you, 'twas Leopoldine's turn to be affected, to begin the same eternal round. She was well fitted for the same, overgrown and pretty and newly confirmed; an excellent sacrifice she would make. A bird is fluttering in her young breast, her long hands are like her mother's, full of tenderness, full of s.e.x.

Could she dance?--ay, indeed she could. A marvel where she had managed to learn it, but learn it they did at Sellanraa as well as elsewhere.

Sivert could dance, and Leopoldine too; a kind of dancing peculiar to the spot, growth of the new-cleared soil; a dance with energy and swing: schottische, mazurka, waltz and polka in one. And could not Leopoldine deck herself out and fall in love and dream by daylight all awake? Ay, as well as any other! The day she stood in church she was allowed to borrow her mother's gold ring to wear; no sin in that, 'twas only neat and nice; and the day after, going to her communion, she did not get the ring on till it was over. Ay, she might well show herself in church with a gold ring on her finger, being the daughter of a great man on the place--the Margrave.

When Andresen came down from the mine, he found Isak at Sellanraa, and they asked him in, gave him dinner and a cup of coffee. All the folk on the place were in there together now, and took part in the conversation. Andresen explained that his master, Aronsen, had sent him up to see how things were at the mines, if there was any sign of beginning work there again soon. Heaven knows, maybe Andresen sat there lying all the time, about being sent by his master; he might just as well have hit on it for his own account--and anyway, he couldn't have been at the mines at all in the little time he'd been away.

"'Tis none so easy to see from outside if they're going to start work again," said Isak.

No, Andresen admitted that was so; but Aronsen had sent him, and after all, two pair of eyes could see better than one.

But here Inger seemingly could contain herself no longer; she asked: "Is it true what they're saying, Aronsen is going to sell his place again?"

Andresen answers: "He's thinking of it. And a man like him can surely do as he likes, seeing all the means and riches he's got."

"Ho, is he so rich, then?"

"Ay," says Andresen, nodding his head; "rich enough, and that's a true word."

Again Inger cannot keep silence, but asks right out:

"I wonder, now, what he'd be asking for the place?"

Isak puts in a word here; like as not he's more curious to know than Inger herself, but it must not seem that the idea of buying s...o...b..rg is any thought of his; he makes himself a stranger to it, and says now:

"Why, what you want to know for, Inger?"

"I was but asking," says she. And both of them look at Andresen, waiting. And he answers:

Answers cautiously enough that as to the price, he can say nothing of that, but he knows what Aronsen says the place has cost him.

"And how much is that?" asks Inger, having no strength to keep her peace and be silent.

"'Tis sixteen hundred _Kroner_" says Andresen.

Ho, and Inger claps her hands at once to hear it, for if there is one thing womenfolk have no sense nor thought of, 'tis the price of land and properties. But, anyway, sixteen hundred _Kroner_ is no small sum for folk in the wilds, and Inger has but one fear, that Isak may be frightened off the deal. But Isak, he sits there just exactly like a fjeld, and says only: "Ay, it's the big houses he's put up."

"Ay," says Andresen again, "'tis just that. 'Tis the fine big houses and all."

Just when Andresen is making ready to go, Leopoldine slips out by the door. A strange thing, but somehow she cannot bring herself to think of shaking hands with him. So she has found a good place, standing in the new cowshed, looking out of a window. And with a blue silk ribbon round her neck, that she hadn't been wearing before, and a wonder she ever found time to put it on now. There he goes, a trifle short and stout, spry on his feet, with a light, full beard, eight or ten years older than herself. Ay, none so bad-looking to her mind!

And then the party came back from church late on Sunday night. All had gone well, little Rebecca had slept the last few hours of the way up, and was lifted from the cart and carried indoors without waking.

Sivert has heard a deal of news, but when his mother asks, "Well, what you've got to tell?" he only says: "Nay, nothing much. Axel he's got a mowing-machine and a harrow."

"What's that?" says his father, all interested. "Did you see them?"

"Ay, I saw them right enough. Down on the quay."

"Ho! So that was what he must go in to town for," says his father.

And Sivert sits there swelling with pride at knowing better, but says never a word.

His father might just as well believe that Axel's pressing business in the town had been to buy machines; his mother too might think so for all that. Ho, but there was neither of them thought so in their hearts; they had heard whispers enough of what was the matter; of a new child-murder case in the wilds.

"Time for bed," says his father at last.

Sivert goes off to bed, swelling with knowledge. Axel had been summoned for examination; 'twas a big affair--the Lensmand had gone with him--so big indeed that the Lensmand's lady, who had just had another child, had left the baby and was gone in to town with her husband. She had promised to put in a word to the jury herself.

Gossip and scandal all abroad in the village now, and Sivert saw well enough that a certain earlier crime of the same sort was being called to mind again. Outside the church, the groups would stop talking as he came up, and had he not been the man he was, perhaps some would have turned away from him. Good to be Sivert those days, a man from a big place to begin with, son of a wealthy landowner--and then beside, to be known as a clever fellow, a good worker; he ranked before others, and was looked up to for himself. Sivert had always been well liked among folk. If only Jensine did not learn too much before they got home that day! And Sivert had his own affairs to think of--ay, folk in the wilds can blush and pale as well as other. He had seen Jensine as she left the church with little Rebecca; she had seen him too, but went by. He waited a bit, and then drove over to the smith's to fetch them.

They were sitting at table, all the family at dinner. Sivert is asked to join them, but has had his dinner, thanks. They knew he would be coming, they might have waited that bit of a while for him--so they would have done at Sellanraa, but not here, it seemed.

"Nay, 'tis not what you're used to, I dare say," says the smith's wife. And, "What news from church?" says the smith, for all he had been at church himself.

When Jensine and little Rebecca were seated up in the cart again, says the smith's wife to her daughter: "Well, good-bye, Jensine; we'll be wanting you home again soon." And that could be taken two ways, thought Sivert, but he said nothing. If the speech had been more direct, more plain and outspoken, he might perhaps ... He waits, with puckered brows, but no more is said.

They drive up homeward, and little Rebecca is the only one with a word to say; she is full of the wonder of going to church, the priest in his dress with a silver cross, and the lights and the organ music.

After a long while Jensine says: "'Tis a shameful thing about Barbro and all."

"What did your mother mean about you coming home soon?" asked Sivert.

"What she meant?"

"Ay. You thinking of leaving us, then?"