In God's Way Part 14

Hush!--Again he began to read, aloud this time: "An outer foundation for justification is therefore that Jesus has fulfilled the laws; the inner condition is that the sinner believe this. However much G.o.d may be reconciled with the world, He can grant His grace to that sinner only who is attached to Christ through faith in Him as his Saviour."

The book was lowered, the minister was not conscious of what he was reading. There was a certain pa.s.sage in Ephesians that made him pause.

If the wife be not subject in all things, ... now, just the fact of the wife having the disposal of her fortune, would sow seeds of dissent.

He was so firmly persuaded of this and could produce such convincing proofs, that he neither saw nor heard a thing, near or distant--except as though he were listening to another person's account of it. He drummed on the window-sill and looked down the road. Two newly awakened b.u.t.terflies circling round each other above and below his window, had not the smallest idea of all the difficulties that can ensue when one has a fortune and not the disposal of it. A little further away, shaded by the boy's footstool which had stood there forgotten for some days, a graceful declytera with its thin stalk covered with little red bells, rang her wedding-bells, a wedding without the slightest regard to the epistle to the Ephesians, V. 24. Therefore it was overlooked by the minister. Not even the bees belonging to Nergrd the gardener--up here perhaps for the first time this year (would they remember the way, now that the wind had changed and the scent of the flowers gave them warning)--not even the bees did he hear buzzing round the new blossoms shaded by the house. Matrimonial difficulties as regards Ephesians V.

24, can weave a covering for the head even though the sun's rays be shining on the hair. His eyes were blind as the wind itself as he let them wander over the town, yonder on the gentle slope, with its three shades of green, the meadows, the corn-fields, and the woods. Just at that moment there lay a long black stripe across the water, and some single wavy lines; he was in the midst of it all, but saw nothing. A cow tethered over the way was lowing for water, water! All around him seemed in a state of invisible expectancy ... until the despairing cry of a child seemed to pierce the warm spring air, ... one single scream.

He seemed to hear each vibration, it was like a cutting hand laid on his chest; he started up, listening breathlessly for the next. Would it never come, that next scream; the child must have disappeared after the first ... no, there it is again. The first scream had been despairing, this next was horror itself, and the next one too and the following one!... The minister stood there quite pale, with all his senses on the alert. He heard rapid footsteps across the sand to the right; it was his mother who came to the gate between the two gardens; she was a thin old woman, a black cap covering her chalk-white hair, which framed in a cautious and dry-looking face.

"No," exclaimed the minister, "no, G.o.d be praised, that is not Edward; that flourish in the crying was not his; no, there are no flourishes about him; he bellows right out, he does!"

"Whoever it is, it's a bad business," answered she.

"You are right, mother," and in his heart he prayed for the little one crying so pitifully. But when he had done that, he gave thanks that it was not his boy, which was quite allowable.

A tall man in light clothes and with a Stanley hat on, was walking up the road while this was going on. He kept looking at the house and garden; the minister looked at him too, but did not recognize him. He bent his way to that side of the road, straight up to the steps--a tall man with short, sun-burnt face, spectacles, and a peculiar rapid way of walking; but, in all the world?... The minister drew back from the window just as the stranger reached the steps, which he must have taken at a bound, for now there was a footstep in the pa.s.sage. Then came a knock.

"Come in!"

The door opened wide, but the stranger still stood outside.

"Edward!"

The other made no answer. "What, Edward? you here! without first letting me know? Is it really you?" The minister advanced to meet him, gave him both hands and drew him in. "Welcome! dear old fellow, you are heartily welcome!" His face was red with delight.

Edward's sunburnt hands pressed those of his brother-in-law in answer, his eyes glistened behind his spectacles; but he had not yet spoken.

"Have you not a word to say, old fellow?" exclaimed the minister, dropping his hands and laying his on his shoulders. "Did you not meet your sister?"

"Yes, it was she who told me where you lived."

"And did you run and leave her? You wanted to get on quicker? I suppose the boy walked too slowly for you?" asked the minister, his kind eyes looking into the other's with unmixed joy.

"That was not the only reason. What a pretty place you have here!"

"I am sure your house will be just as nice, although I would have preferred this north side of the town to the centre."

"But there was no choice left me."

"No, that is quite true. As you were going to buy the infirmary, you were obliged to buy the doctor's house as well; for they go together.

Everyone thinks it was very cheap. And convenient in every way, and a good deal of ground to it! What a long time you have been away! A long time at a stretch.--And why did you not write now, and let me know?

Good heavens, how could I not know you directly! You are really almost totally unchanged." He looked at his brother-in-law's thin face, which seemed to have gained a milder expression. Then he went on talking.

They walked up and down beside each other, sometimes standing together at the window. Then Edward turned to him:

"But you, Ole, you are not unchanged."

"Indeed! I thought I was. In fact, everyone says so."

"No, you have got something of a clergyman's manner about you."

"A clergyman? Ha, ha! you mean that I have got stouter? I a.s.sure you I do everything a fellow can to prevent it; I work in the garden, I take long walks; but all to no purpose!... You see, my wife takes too good care of me. And everyone here is much too good to me."

"You should do as I do."

"And what do you do?"

"I walk on my hands."

"Ha, ha, ha, on my hands? I, in my position?"

"In your position? If you walked up the church on your hands, that would be a nice sermon!"

"Ha, ha, ha! Can you really walk on your hands?"

"Yes, I say, can?" At the same moment he proceeded to walk on his hands; his short, loose tussore silk coat fell down over his head, the minister gazed at it and at the back of his waistcoat, and at the piece of shirt which showed between it and the band of his trousers, at part of the braces, and lastly at the trousers down to the stockings, and leather shoes with thick, gutta-percha soles. Kallem ran round the room in no time. Ole hardly knew how to take it. Kallem stood panting on his feet again, took off and wiped his spectacles, and began to examine the bookshelves closely in his short-sighted way.

The minister could distinctly feel that there was something the matter.

Something must have put his brother-in-law out. Could his sister have said anything to wound him? No, dear me; what could it be? She who admired him so greatly? He would ask right out what it was; why not have it cleared up on the spot? Kallem had put his spectacles on and pa.s.sed across to the desk; a woodcut of Christ by Michael Angelo hung just above it; he glanced casually at it, and then looked down at the open pamphlet lying on the desk. And before the minister was sufficiently recovered to ask any questions, Kallem said: "Johnsen's systematic theology? I bought it at once at Kristianssand."

"That book? You bought it?"

"Yes, it was never to be had before. However, now it lay on the counter. It was just like a new landchart."

"Yes, it is not like Norway any longer," said the minister. "The most of it is nothing but impossible jurisdiction."

Astonished at the minister's answer, Kallem turned towards him. "Is this way of thinking general among the younger Norwegian theologians?"

"Yes. I laid it there so as to find out to-morrow all the different opinions that exist on the doctrine of propitiation."

"Ah, I see, that is a capital plan." Again Kallem looked out of the window, for the fourth or fifth time. There could be no doubt that something was the matter.

"There they are!" he said. He was standing at the furthest window, and Ole Tuft in front at the other; from it he could see his wife's parasol above her muslin dress; she was walking slowly, and held her little boy by the hand; he was evidently talking incessantly, for his face was turned upwards towards her, whilst he jogged along the uneven road.

They kept to the other side. But here, just by the hedge, a lady was walking. She raised her green parasol (what a beauty it was!). She was not as tall as Josephine, but slight; she was looking about and turned slightly; she was fair, with reddish hair, and had a tartan travelling dress on; it had a decidedly foreign cut; she must surely be a stranger. It was not at all wonderful that Edward ran on in front; he wished to be alone and leave them by themselves.

"Who can that lady be walking with Josephine? Did she come by the same steamer as you?"

"Yes, she did."

"Do you know her, then?"

"Yes; she is my wife."

"Your wife? Are you a married man?"

He said this with such a loud voice that both the ladies looked up. In went his head into the room; but nothing but vacant air met him there; the doctor's head was still outside. It was from out there the answer came. "I have been married for six years."

"For six years?" Out popped the minister's head again and stared at Kallem with the greatest astonishment. Six years, he thought. "How long ago is it since?... My dear fellow, it is scarcely six years since?..."

The ladies were now close by; the strange lady walking by the furthest hedge, while Josephine and the boy had crossed over to the other side.

"I say, mother, why do little boys fall and knock their heads?" No answer. "I say mother, why don't they fall on their legs?" No answer.