In God's Way Part 5

"What the devil are you doing there?"

The horse was pulled up sharp; its warm breath seemed to fill the air around the boy and envelop him in a thick mist of unpleasant vapours from its steaming body. Edward dared neither move nor answer. He only stared up at his father through the mist in a stupid, clumsy fashion, as though half-dazed.

His father dismounted without delay, and with the bridle round his left arm and the whip in his right hand he stood before the boy.

"What's the matter? Hey? Why are you here! Why the devil can't you answer?"

Mechanically Edward slipped farther and farther away, his father after him; mechanically, too, the boy raised his right arm to shield his face, and stretched out his left to ward off the coming blows.

"Where are you going to?"

"To Ole Tuft."

"What are you going to do there? Hey? Is Ole Tuft at home? Hey?"

"Yes."

"What are you going there for?"

"I am going to--to----"

"Well!"

"To beg his pardon."

"To beg his pardon? What for? What for? Hey?" and he raised his whip.

The boy answered, hurriedly: "He won't come to school any more."

"Oh, indeed! So you've been teasing him? Hey? You at the head? Hey?"

"Yes."

"Your fault, was it? Hey?" he cried.

"I found out----" here he stopped.

"Well?"

"That he--that he----" and the boy began to cry.

"Well?"

"That he goes to visit the sick."

"So you told the others? Hey? Carried tales? Hey?"

Edward dared not answer, and then the whip began to be troublesome; both the lad's arms swung up and down, keeping time with the whip, as if uncertain where it would fall next. He kept slipping farther and farther away.

"Stand still!" shouted his father.

But instead the boy sprang with one bound right to the edge of the ditch. Fiercely the father lifted his whip again; but, unintentionally, the horse behind him received such a sharp cut that it pulled so hard at the bridle as nearly to upset its master. Edward could not resist the comical side of this most welcome deliverance and he burst into a roar of laughter. But he was so startled at hearing himself laugh that he hopped over the ditch and ran into the wood. He could not possibly control himself as he turned away; he began to laugh again, and could hit upon no better way of hiding it than to set up a good howl.

The father's contempt for his son was not to be described. He recovered his temper, though, quieted the horse, and mounted again. "Come along,"

said he, quietly, pointing with his whip in the direction of the Tuft valley.

"There will be more accounts to settle when we get there," thought the boy to himself.

He obeyed his father's call, of course, and walked on, but at a safe distance in front of the horse. He kept at the same distance all the time; the horse was a quick stepper, so it was an effort.

The man in gray on the chestnut horse drove his son mercilessly on before him, through the snow and slush, although one could clearly see by the way he walked that his feet hurt him, and although his hands were half-frozen--he kept putting them in his mouth--and although he was dripping wet; his fur cap was sticking to his head like a washed-out rag. The man in gray sat comfortably on his horse, in warm, waterproof clothes, his whip in his hand, his eyes glistening on each side of his hooked nose. No one who saw this little procession could have guessed that the dearest wish of this stern-looking man was to love the boy he was so angrily driving before him.

But in order to love anyone that person must be exactly as we would wish--is not that the case? And supposing now the boy was not willing?

And that Kallem was not accustomed to opposition? His wife's death was the first serious blow he had met with; it happened not very long before this affair with the boy. Up to that time they had all lived abroad, Kallem leading a quiet retired life with his wife, his business, sport, and his silent books (he was a great reader), and had never been worried or annoyed. His wife's brother took charge of the business, which was a flourishing one, and his wife took charge of the house, where all flourished too. Everything was managed without fear or disturbance, and exactly as was proper, until the wife died. But afterward!

At first neither he himself nor any of the others could realize the unexpected change that had come over him. Some people thought that the loss of his wife had made him mad; he himself thought that the air of Spain was too warm; he was anxious to leave, and longed for home. The head of the firm agreed at once. It would be a capital speculation to move the princ.i.p.al house of business to Norway and just have a branch house in Spain. And so they left--now about a year ago.

But it was the boy who, when they were still in Spain, had been the cause of his father's first losing command of himself, and indeed the second time too, and unfortunately also the third, fourth, fifth, sixth time; it was always the boy. And the same thing, too, when they had moved to Norway. Hot or cold climate, the boy was equally troublesome.

Soon there began to come complaints about him over from the school, then from the apothecary, who was an old friend of Kallem's, and in whose house they had lodgings; then from the courtyard, from the neighbours, and from the wharf. But possibly other parents also heard complaints about their sons, and perhaps people in this part of the world were more given to complaining; of course Kallem could know nothing about that, for he was a solitary man. But he knew that his son was the cleverest lad in all the school; one master after the other came and a.s.sured him of that; he knew that nothing was lacking in the boy, neither heart nor will; but he was peculiar, indifferent to all, and yet liked meddling in matters that did not concern him. He was both brave and cowardly, a shameful tease, and altogether hopelessly naughty. He would have tried the patience of an angel from heaven, to say nothing of Kallem, who was entirely without that virtue.

This thin, slippery customer, limping on in front of him with frightened side-glances at both horse and whip, had spoilt the peace of his father's life. Not only had he made him feel inwardly so unsafe and uncertain, but at times his want of power became perfect helplessness, and on those occasions he longed to beat the boy to smithereens.

He would send for him and try both threats and entreaties. Last night, the night of the storm, he had kept guard over him and used all his powers of persuasion trying to talk the boy out of his shameful fright, scolded him and tried to make it clear to him by all manner of natural history proofs that the prophecy about the end of the world was all a lie, an invention. The boy answered, yes, and indeed, but did not believe a word his father said! As soon as the storm broke he was like one crazy, out and away in the most abject state of fear.

And here he is now to-day, out on the open high road, a mile from the town, in rain, storm, and wind, and of course without permission. First he goes and ill-treats the best lad in the school, a little fellow whom Kallem was really fond of and had helped with a few pence now and then for his little mission, which he heard of from Josephine; and then on the top of that----

"Look at him!" said he, to himself. "Deuce take the boy, if he isn't laughing!" but he pretended not to see it.

What was that? Why, the horse behind him with "What the devil" on its back, and the whip, and the heavy tramp, tramp in the snow and slush.

Sop-sop, sop-sop, sop-sop, sop-sop; all this grew and grew and got larger and larger, until it became a huge monster all twisted and shapeless.... Hurriedly the boy began thinking of other things. He threw himself into the coal-mine in England that had been inundated, and tried to conjure up before him the horse that had neighed so piteously after the escaping miner lad. But no, he could not force himself into the mine; there was nothing but the high road and "sop-sop, sop-sop," and "What the devil" and his whip, and he himself in front limping along with one leg and a half, he, he--e--e!

A shrill "Hey!" came from behind. The sound seemed to creep down the boy's back like a sharp piece of ice.

Presently Store Tuft came in sight. It lay just below the hill they were going down. There were many outhouses, most of them in a square round the farmyard; a stream rushed noisily by on the other side where the corn and saw-mills lay; the islands outside and the two arms of land on either side shut in the bay so completely that the water there was as still and quiet as a millpond, with ice in the corners; there was a row of boathouses side by side along the bay; there were fruit-gardens, too, most of them a good size.

The smoke rose up from the house-chimney at Store Tuft--at last! Ole's mother must be cooking dinner for him! And hunger, grief, and longing came over the boy, and the thought of a warm room and dry clothes, and the remembrance of his own mother and of their home in Spain nearly made him cry again; but then he thought that his father would say: "Devil take him! Now he's crying again!" so he controlled himself.

He looked toward the farm with fear and trembling.

The house lay with its longest side out to the garden; it was a two-storied wooden house, painted red, with white window-sills. They turned up the road, the boy still in front, the father after him.

Pa.s.sing the short end of the house they came into the yard; on the other side of that lay cow-house and stable, under the same roof; these buildings were quite new, and lay at right angles with the barn, wood-house, and other buildings in the middle. A herd of goats stood in this corner munching leaves, and surrounded by an incredible number of sparrows. The whole party were collected together just outside the barn.

The goats caught sight of the newcomers; they lifted their heads and stretched out their necks all at the same moment, their eyes wide open, ears standing up stiff, with the last bite immovable in their mouths, inquisitive to the last degree. The billy-goat only kept on munching as he looked at them, lazily satisfied. The flock of sparrows flew away with a whirr.

Between the cattle-stable and the short end of the dwelling-house, the father stopped and dismounted. The boy was already inside the yard, and stood staring at the barn roof, which was broken up and being renewed, but there were no workmen to be seen; probably they had gone off to the herring fishery; the ladder still stood on the scaffolding, leaning upward.

"Stop!" shouted the father, and the boy stopped and turned round; his father was tying up his old hack to one of the grinding stones which stood up against this short end of the dwelling-house; the lad stood and looked on.