Ovind: A Story Of Country Life In Norway Part 3

Then she said these few words,--"I believe you both think of each other without admitting it."

"Let us talk of something else," said Anders.

Soon after, he rose and went towards the door; Baard hid himself in the stick house, but just there Anders came to get wood. Baard crouched in the corner, and could see him distinctly; he had doffed the poor clothes he wore at church, and had taken instead the uniform he had brought home from the war, the same as Baard's, and which they had promised each other never to use, but to descend as heirlooms in the family. Anders' was now all patched and torn. His strong well-built body seemed enveloped in a bundle of rags, and at the same moment Baard heard the gold watch ticking in his own pocket. Anders went to the spot where the wood lay, but instead of taking it he stood and leaned against the pile, and gazing up into the heavens, where the stars shone bright and clear, he gave a sigh and said, "Yes,--yes,--yes,--my G.o.d!

my G.o.d!"

So long as Baard lived these words sounded in his ears. He stepped forward towards him, but just then his brother coughed, and it felt so hard that he stopped. Anders took the bundle of wood, and pa.s.sed so close to Baard that the branches touched his face. There he stood, without moving, till a cold shudder ran through him. This aroused him; he went out, and confessed to himself that he was too weak to face his brother, and he therefore resolved upon another plan. In the corner of the stick-house he found a few pieces of charcoal; then he selected a piece of fir wood for a torch, went up to the hay-loft, and struck fire. When he had got the torch lighted, he sought for the nail where Anders would hang his lamp when he came in the morning to thrash. On this nail Baard hung the gold watch, blew out the light, and went down;--he felt so light-hearted that he sprang over the snow like a young lad.

The day after, he heard that the hay-loft had been burnt down the same night. Undoubtedly a spark must have fallen from his torch while he turned to hang up the watch.

This overpowered him so that he sat all day as though he were ill; then he took the psalm book out and sang, so that the people in the house could not think what was the matter. But in the evening he went out. It was bright moonlight; he made his way to the ruins of the hay-loft, and groped among the ashes. There, sure enough, he found a little lump of gold;--it was the watch.

It was with this in his hand, he went to his brother that evening as before related, and sought for a reconciliation.

A little girl had seen him groping among the ashes. He had also been observed going towards the farm the foregoing Sunday evening; the people in the house told how strangely he had behaved on Monday; everybody knew that he and his brother were not on good terms, and he was reported and brought up for trial. Nothing could be proved against him, but suspicion rested on him, and now more than ever it seemed impossible to approach his brother.

Though Anders had said nothing, he had thought of Baard when the hay-loft was burnt, and when the evening after, he saw him enter the room looking so pale and strange, he at once concluded that now remorse had struck him, but for such an offence, and against his own brother, there was no pardon. On hearing the circ.u.mstantial evidence against him, though nothing had been proved at the trial, he firmly believed that Baard was guilty. They met each other at the trial, Baard in his good clothes, and Anders in threadbare. Baard looked up as he went in, with so imploring a glance that Anders felt it deeply. "He does not want me to say anything," thought Anders, and when he was asked if he believed his brother guilty, he answered clearly and decidedly, "No."

From that day Anders took to drinking, and matters grew worse and worse with him. With Baard it was little better, although he never drank; he was not like himself.

Late one evening a poor woman entered the little room where Baard lived, and begged him to go with her. He knew her: it was his brother's wife. He understood the errand she had come upon, turned deadly pale, and followed without a word. There was a flickering light from the window of Anders' room that served to guide them, for there was no pathway over the snow. They reached the house and went in. On entering, Baard felt at once that here reigned poverty; the room was close; a little child sat on the hearth eating a piece of charcoal: its face was black all over, but it looked up with its white teeth and grinned.

There on the bed, with all sorts of clothes to cover him, lay Anders, thin and worn, with his clear high forehead, looking mildly upon him.

Baard trembled in all his limbs, he sat down on the bed foot, and burst into tears. The sick man continued silently looking at him. At last he told his wife to withdraw, but Baard signed to her to remain, and the two brothers began to speak together. They related each his history, from the day when they bid on the watch to the time they now met together, and it was clearly shown that during all these years they had never been happy for a single day. Baard finished by taking out the little lump of gold, which he always carried about with him.

Anders was not able to talk much, but as long as he was ill, Baard continued to watch by his bedside. "Now I am perfectly well," said Anders, one morning when he awoke,--"Now, my brother, we will always live together as in the olden time!" But that day he died.

Baard took the wife and the child to live with him, and they were well cared for from that time. That which the brothers had said to each other was soon known through the village, and Baard became the most esteemed man among them. Everybody met him as one who had known great sorrow and again found joy, or as one who had been long absent. Baard felt strengthened by all this friendliness around him, he loved G.o.d more, and felt a desire to be useful; so the old corporal became a schoolmaster. That which he impressed first and last upon his pupils, was love, and this precept was so exemplified in himself, that the children were attached to him as to a play-fellow and father at the same time.

This was the story told of the old schoolmaster that had such effect upon Ovind, that it became to him both religion and education.

He looked upon the schoolmaster as a being almost supernatural, although he sat there so familiarly and corrected them. Not to know his lessons was impossible, and if, after saying them well, he got a smile or a stroke of the head, he was glad and happy for the whole day. It always made a strong impression upon the children when, before singing, the schoolmaster would sometimes speak a little to them, and, at least once a week, read aloud a few verses about loving your neighbour. As he read the first of these verses his voice trembled, although he had now continually read it for twenty or thirty years. It ran thus:--

"Be kind to thy neighbour and scorn him not, Though virtue and beauty be all forgot, And no light is seen from above;-- Remember he too has a soul to save, He must live again when beyond the grave, Then forget not the power of love!"

But when the whole of the piece was said, and he had stood still a little while, he looked at them and blinked with his eyes,--"Up children, and go nicely and quietly home,--go nicely, that I may hear nothing but good of you, bairns!" Then, while they hastened to find each his own things, he called out through the noise,--"Come again to-morrow, come in good time, little girls and little boys, that we may be industrious."

CHAP. IV.

TWO BRIGHT b.u.t.tONS AND ONE BLACK.

Of his life, till one year before confirmation, there is not much to relate. He read in the mornings, worked in the afternoons, and played in the evenings.

As he was very lively the children of the neighbourhood sought his company during play hours. Close to the farm lay a great hill, as before mentioned, where, on a fine day, they a.s.sembled to drive their sledges on the snow. Ovind was always master in the field: he had two sledges, "Quick Trotter," and "Superior." The last he lent out, and the first he used himself, taking Marit with him.

The first thing Ovind did when he awoke in the morning, was to look out and see if it was fine weather; if it was thick and misty, or he heard it dripping from the roof, he dressed as slowly as if there was nothing to be done that day. But on the contrary, and especially on holidays, if it was sharp, cold, and clear weather,--his best clothes and no work, the whole of the afternoon and evening free,--hey! he bounded out of bed, was dressed like lightning, and could scarcely eat anything for excitement. When afternoon came he sprang over the hill to the sledge ground, and joined the party with a long shout that echoed from cliff to cliff, and the sound died far away. Then he looked for Marit, and when he found her there, he did not take much more notice of her.

Now one Christmas the boy and the girl were both about sixteen or seventeen years of age, and they were both to be confirmed in the Spring. In Christmas week there was to be a grand party at Heidegaard, where Marit's grand-parents lived, who had brought her up and educated her. They had promised her this fete for three years, and now at last they were obliged to fulfil their word. To this party Ovind was invited.

It was a dull evening, not a single star to be seen; it would probably rain next day. There were great drifts of snow along the mountain side, with here and there bare places, and again the groups of birch trees standing isolated and conspicuous against the white back ground. The farmstead lay in the middle of the fields on the mountain side, and in the darkness the houses looked like black clumps from which the light streamed first from one window then from another. It seemed as though they were busy inside. Old and young flocked thither from different directions. No one liked to go in first; so when they reached the farm, instead of going direct to the house, they loitered about the outbuildings. Some hid behind the cattle shed, a few under the granary, some stood beside the hay-loft and imitated foxes, while others replied in the distance as cats; one stood behind the bakehouse and howled like an angry old dog, until there was a general chase. The girls came by-and-bye in great numbers, accompanied by their younger brothers, who would fain conduct themselves as grown-up men. The girls were very shy, and when the older youths already a.s.sembled came out to meet them, they ran away in all directions, and had to be brought in one by one. A few there were who would not be persuaded to enter, till Marit came herself and bade them. Now and then there also came a few who had certainly not been invited, and whose intention had been simply to look on from outside, but who, seeing the dancing, at last ventured in just for one single turn. Marit invited those she liked best into the private sitting room where her grandparents sat, and they fared exceedingly well. Now Ovind was not of the number, and this he thought very strange.

The grand fiddler of the neighbourhood could not come until late, so they had to content themselves with the old gardener, known by the name of "Grey Knut." He could play four dances,--two Spring dances, a halling,[1] and a waltz. When they tired of these, they made him vary the hailing to suit a quadrille, and a Spring dance in the same way to the mazurka polka.

The party being at her grandfather's house, Marit was dancing nearly all the time, and this the more drew Ovind's attention to her. He wished to dance with her himself, and therefore he sat during one round in order to spring to her side the moment the dance was done; and this he succeeded in doing, but a tall, dark-looking fellow with black hair, stepped suddenly forward;--"Away, child!" he cried, and pushed Ovind that he nearly fell over Marit. Never before had he known such behaviour,--never had any one been so unkind to him, and never had he been called "Child!" in that contemptuous way. He blushed crimson, but said nothing, and turned back to where the new fiddler, who had just entered, had seated himself, and now tuned up. Every one stood still, waiting to hear the first strong tones of "Himself;" they waited long while he tuned the fiddle, but at last he began with a "Spring;"--the lads stepped out, and, pair by pair, they quickly joined in the dance.

Ovind looked at Marit as she danced with the dark-haired man; he saw her smiling face over the man's shoulder, and for the first time in his life he felt a strange pang at his heart.

He looked more and more earnestly at her, and it came forcibly before him that Marit was now quite grown up. "And yet it cannot be," thought he, "for she is still playing with us in the sledges." But grown she certainly was, and the dark-haired man drew her to him at the end of the dance; she loosened herself from his clasp but continued to sit by his side.

Ovind looked at the man: he wore a fine blue cloth suit, and fancy shirt, and carried a silk pocket handkerchief; he had a small face, deep blue eyes, laughing defying mouth; he was good looking. Ovind looked long at him, and at last he looked at himself. He had got new trousers for Christmas, which had much pleased him, but now he saw they were only of gray homespun; his jacket was of the same material but old and dark; his vest of common plaided cloth, also old, and with two bright b.u.t.tons and one black. He looked round and thought very few were so poorly clad as he. Marit wore a black bodice of fine stuff, a brooch in her necktie, and had a folded silk pocket handkerchief in her hand.

She had a little black head-dress fastened under the chin with broad striped silk ribbons; she was red and white; she smiled, and the man talked to her and laughed; the fiddler tuned up, and the dance must begin again.

One of his companions came and sat by him.

"Why don't you dance, Ovind?" he said kindly.

"Oh! no!" said Ovind, "I don't look like dancing."

"Don't look like dancing!" said his companion; but before he could get further, Ovind interrupted him,--

"Who is that in the blue cloth suit, dancing with Marit?"

"That is Jon Hatlen; he has been at the Agricultural School, and is now to take the farm."

At the same moment Jon and Marit seated themselves.

"Who is that light-haired lad sitting there by the fiddler and staring at me?" said Jon.

Then Marit laughed and said, "Oh! that's the peasant's son at the little farm."

Ovind had always known that he was a peasant's son, but until now he had never felt it. He felt now so insignificant, that in order to keep himself up, he tried to think of everything that had ever made him feel proud, from the sledge playing to the smallest word of commendation.

But when he thought of his father and mother sitting at home, and picturing him happy and glad, he could scarcely refrain from tears. All about him were laughing and joking; the fiddler thrummed close under his ear; it seemed to darken before his eyes; then he remembered the school with all his companions, and the schoolmaster who was so kind to him, and the pastor, who, at the last examination, had given him a book and said he was a clever lad; his father even, who sat by, hearing it had given him a smile. "Be a good boy, Ovind," he could fancy he heard the schoolmaster say, taking him on his knee as though he were still a child. "Dear me, it is so small a matter, and in reality they are all kind, it only looks as though they were not,--we two shall get on Ovind, as well as Jon Hatlen, we shall get good clothes, and dance with Marit, a fine room, a hundred people, smile and talk together, go to church together, chiming bells, a bride and bridegroom, the pastor and I in the vestry, all with gladsome faces, and mother at home, a large farm, twenty cows, three horses, and Marit good and kind as at school...."

The dance over, Ovind saw Marit opposite to him, and Jon sat by her side, his face close to hers; he felt again the sharp pain at his heart, and it was as if he said to himself,--"Yes, I am not well."

At the same moment Marit rose and came direct over to him. She bent down to speak to him,--"You must not sit and stare at me in that way,"

she said, "the people will notice it; now go and dance with some one."

He did not answer, but looked at her, and the tears came into his eyes.

She had already turned to go, but observing it she stopped. She blushed crimson, turned and went to her place, then turned again and took another seat. Jon quickly followed her.

Ovind rose and went out; he pa.s.sed through the house, and sat down on the steps of the adjacent porch, but did not know what he did it for.

He got up, but sat down again, for he would not go home, and thought he might as well be there as anywhere else. He could not realise anything of what had happened, and he would not think about it, neither would he think of the future, it seemed so void.