She checked herself.

"To have me about the place. Yes, it would be unpleasant."

"To see you here. A little unpleasant; I mean, because you knew about me before. So I asked the engineer if he couldn't send you away. Not that he wanted to himself, you understand. Quite the reverse, in fact, but he did at last. I'm glad you're going back to Ovrebo."

"So?" said I. "But when Fruen comes home again surely it will be just as unpleasant to see me then?"

"Home?" she repeated. "I'm not going home."

Pause. She had frowned as she spoke. But now she nodded, and even smiled a little, and turned to go.

"Well, well, you'll pardon me, then, I know," she said.

"Have you any objection to my going back to Captain Falkenberg?" I asked.

She stopped, and looked me full in the face. Now, what was the right thing here? Three times she had spoken of Ovrebo. Was it with the idea that I might put in a word for her if opportunity offered, when I got back there? Or was she unwilling to ask of me as a favour not to go?

"No, no, indeed I've not!" she answered. "Go there, by all means."

And she turned and left me.

Neither sentimental nor calculating, as far as I could see. But she might well have been both. And what had I gained by my attempt at a confidential tone? I should have known better than to try, whether she stayed here or went elsewhere. What business was it of mine? 'Twas her affair.

You're playing and pretending, I said to myself. All very well to say she's literature and no more, but that withered soul of yours showed good signs of life when she was kind to you and began looking at you with those two eyes of hers. I'm disappointed; I'm ashamed of you, and to-morrow you go!

But I did not go.

And true it is that I went about spying and listening everywhere for anything I could learn of Fru Falkenberg; and then at times, ay, many a night, I would call myself to account for that same thing, and torture myself with self-contempt. From early morning I thought of her: is she awake yet? Has she slept well? Will she be going back home to-day? And at the same time all sorts of ideas came into my head. I might perhaps get work at the hotel where she was staying. Or I might write home for some clothes, turn gentleman myself, and go and stay at that same hotel. This last, of course, would at once have cut the ground from under my feet and left me farther removed from her than ever, but it was the one that appealed to me most of all, fool that I was. I had begun to make friends with the hotel porter, already, merely because he lived nearer to her than I. He was a big, strong fellow, who went up to the station every day to meet the trains and pick up a commercial traveller once a fortnight. He could give me no news; I did not ply him with questions, nor even lead him on to tell me things of his own accord; and, besides, he was far from intelligent. But he lived under the same roof with Fruen—ah yes, that he did. And one day it came about that this acquaintance of mine with the hotel porter brought me a piece of valuable information about Fru Falkenberg, and that from her own lips.

So they were not all equally fruitless, those days in the little town.

One morning I came back with the porter from the station; he had picked up a traveller with a heap of luggage, and had to take horse and cart to fetch the heavy grey trunks.

I had helped him to get them loaded up at the station, and now, as we pulled up at the hotel, he said: "You might lend a hand getting these things in; I'll stand you a bottle of beer this evening."

So we carried in the trunks together. They were to be taken up at once to the big luggage-room upstairs; the owner was waiting for them. It was an easy job for the two of us big, strong fellows both.

We had got them up all but one—that was still in the cart—when the porter was called back upstairs; the traveller was giving him instructions about something or other. Meantime, I went out, and waited in the passage; I did not belong to the place, and did not want to be seen hanging about on the stairs by myself.

Just then the door of Engineer Lassen's office opened, and he and Fru Falkenberg came out. They looked as if they had just got up; they had no hats on; just going down to breakfast, no doubt. Now, whether they did not notice me, or took me for the porter standing there, they went on with what they had been saying.

"Quite so," says the engineer. "And it won't be any different. I can't see what you've got to feel lonely about."

"Oh, you know well enough!" she answered.

"No, I don't, and I do think you might be a little more cheerful."

"You wouldn't like it if I were. You'd rather have me stay as I am, miserable and wretched, because you don't care for me any more."

He stopped on the stairs abruptly. "Really, I think you must be mad," he said.

"I dare say I am," she answered.

How poorly she held her own in a quarrel! It was always so with her. Why could she not be careful of her words, and answer so as to wound him, crush him altogether?

He stood with one hand on the stair-rail and said:

"So you think it pleases me to have things going on like this? I tell you it hurts me desperately—has done for a long time past."

"And me," she answered. "But now I'll have no more of it."

"Oh, indeed! You've said that before. You said it only a week ago."

"Well, I am going now."

He looked up at her.

"Going away?"

"Yes. Very soon."

But he saw that he had betrayed himself in grasping so eagerly, delightedly, at the suggestion, and tried now to smooth it over.

"There, there!" he said. "Be a nice sensible cousin now, and don't talk about going away."

"I am going," she said, and, slipping past him, went down the stairs by herself. He followed after.

Then the porter came out and we went down together. The last box was smaller than the others. I asked him to carry it up himself, pretending I had hurt my hand. I helped him to get it on his back, and went off home. Now I could go away the following day.

That afternoon Grindhusen, too, was dismissed. The engineer had sent for him, given him a severe talking to for doing no work and staying in town and getting drunk; in a word, his services were no longer needed.

I thought to myself: It was strangely sudden, this new burst of courage on the part of the engineer. He was so young, he had needed some one to back him up and agree to everything he said; now, however, seeing that a certain troublesome cousin was going away, he had no further need of comfort there. Or was my withered soul doing him an injustice?

Grindhusen was greatly distressed. He had reckoned on staying in town all the summer, as general handyman to the Inspector himself; but all hope of that was gone now. The Inspector was no longer as good as a father to him. And Grindhusen bore the disappointment badly. When they came to settle up, the Inspector had been going to deduct the two-Kroner pieces he had given him, saying they had only been meant as payment in advance. Grindhusen sat in the general room at the lodging-house and told us all about it, adding that the Inspector was pretty mean in the matter of wages after all. At this, one of the men burst out laughing, and said:

"No; did he, though? He didn't take them back, really?"

"Nay," said Grindhusen. "He didn't dare take off more than the one."

There was more laughter at this, and some one else asked:

"No, really? Which one was it? Did he knock off the first two-Kroner or the second? Ha, ha, ha! That's the best I've heard for a long time."

But Grindhusen did not laugh; he grew more and more sullen and despairing. What was he to do now? Farm labourers for the season's work would have been taken on everywhere by now, and here he was. He asked me where I was going, and when I told him, he begged me to put in a word for him with the Captain, and see if I couldn't get him taken on there for the summer. Meantime, he would stay on in the town, and wait till he heard from me.

But I knew there would soon be an end of Grindhusen's money if he stayed on in the town. The end of it was, I took him along with me, as the best thing to be done. He had been a smart hand at paint-work once, had Grindhusen; I remembered how he had done up old Gunhild's cottage on the island. He could come and help me now, for the time being; later on, we would surely find something else for him to do; there would be plenty of field-work in the course of the summer where he might be useful.

* * * * *

The 16th July found me back at Ovrebo. I remember dates more and more distinctly now, partly by reason of my getting old and acquiring the intensified interest of senility in such things, partly because of being a labourer, and obliged to keep account of my working days. But an old man may keep his dates in mind and forget all about far more important things. Up to now, for instance, I have forgotten to mention that the letter I had from Captain Falkenberg was addressed to me care of Engineer Lassen. Well and good. But the point appeared significant: the Captain, then, had ascertained whom I was working for. And it came into my mind that possibly the Captain was also aware of who else had been in the care of Engineer Lassen that summer!

The Captain was still away on duty when I arrived; he would be back in a week. As it was, Grindhusen was very well received; Nils was quite pleased to find I had brought my mate along, and refused to let me keep him to help with the painting, but sent him off on his own responsibility to work in the turnip and potato fields. There was no end of work—weeding and thinning out—and Nils was already in the thick of the hay-making.

He was the same splendid, earnest farmer as ever. At the first rest, while the horses were feeding, he took me out over the ground to look at the crops. Everything was doing well; but it had been a late spring that year, and the cat's-tail was barely forming as yet, while the clover had just begun to show bloom. The last rain had beaten down a lot of the first-year grass, and it could not pick up again, so Nils had put on the mowing-machine.

We walked back home through waving grass and corn; there was a whispering in the winter rye and the stout six-rowed barley. Nils, who had not forgotten his schooling, called to mind that beautiful line of Bjornson's:

"Beginning like a whisper in the corn one summer day."

"Time to get the horses out again," said Nils, stepping out a little. And waving his hand once more out over the fields, he said: "What a harvest we'll have this year if we can only get it safely in!"

So Grindhusen went off to work in the fields, and I fell to on the painting. I started with the barn, and all that was to be red; then I did over the flagstaff and the summer-house down among the lilacs with the first coat of oil. The house itself I meant to leave till the last. It was built in good old-fashioned country style, with rich, heavy woodwork and a carved border, a la grecque, above the doorway. It was yellow as it was, and a new lot of yellow paint had come in to do with this time. I took upon myself, however, to send the yellow back, and get another colour in exchange. In my judgment the house ought to be stone-grey, with doors and window-frames and verge-boards white. But that would be for the Captain to decide.

But though every one on the place was as nice as could be, and the cook in authority lenient, and Ragnhild as bright-eyed as ever, we all felt it dull with the master and mistress away. All save Grindhusen, honest fellow, who was quite content. Decent work and good food soon set him up again, and in a few days he was happy and waxing fat. His one anxiety was lest the Captain should turn him off when he came home. But no such thing—Grindhusen was allowed to stay.



IX

The Captain arrived.

I was giving the barn its second coat; at the sound of his voice I came down from the ladder. He bade me welcome.

"Running away from your money like that!" he said. And I fancied he looked at me with some suspicion as he asked: "What did you do that for?"

I answered simply that I had no idea of presuming to make him a present of my work; the money could stand over, that was all.

He brightened up at that.

"Yes, yes, of course. Well, I'm very glad you came. We must have the flagstaff white, I suppose?"

I did not dare tell him at once all I wanted done in white, but simply said:

"Yes. I've got hold of some white paint."

"Have you, though? That's good. You've brought another man up with you, I hear?"

"Yes. I don't know what Captain thinks...."

"He can stay. Nils has got him to work out in the fields already. And anyhow, you all seem to do as you like with me," he added jestingly. "And you've been working with the lumbermen, have you?"

"Yes."

"Hardly the sort of thing for you, was it?" Then, as if anxious not to seem curious about my work with Engineer Lassen, he broke off abruptly and said: "When are you going to start painting the house?"

"I thought of beginning this afternoon. It'll need scraping a bit here and there."

"Good. And if you find the woodwork loose anywhere, you can put in a nail or so at the same time. Have you had a look at the fields?"

"Yes."

"Everything's looking very nice. You men did good work last spring. Do no harm now if we had a little rain for the upper lands."

"Grindhusen and I passed lots of places on the way up that needed rain more than here. It's clay bottom here, and far up in the hills."

"That's true. How did you know that, by the way?"

"I looked about when I was here in the spring," I answered, "and I did a little digging here and there. I'd an idea you'd be wanting to have water laid on to the house some time or other, so I went prospecting a bit."

"Water laid on? Well, yes, I did think of it at one time, but.... Yes, I was going to have it done some years back; but I couldn't get everything done at once, and then it was held up. And just now I shall want the money for other things."

A wrinkle showed between his eyes for a moment; he stood looking down—in thought.

"Well, well, that thousand dozen battens ought to do it, and leave something over," he said suddenly. "Water? It would have to be laid on to the outbuildings as well. A whole system of pipes."

"There'd be no rock-work though, no blasting."

"Eh? Oh, well, we'll see. What was I going to say? Did you have a good time down there in the town? Not a big place, but you do see more people there. And the railway brings visitors now and again, no doubt."

"Aha," I thought to myself, "he knows well enough what visitor came to stay with Engineer Lassen this summer!" I answered that I did not care much for the place—which was perfectly true.

"No, really?"

He seemed to find something to ponder over in that; he stared straight in front of him, whistling softly to himself. Then he walked away.

The Captain was in good spirits; he had been more communicative than ever before; he nodded to me as he went off. Just as of old he was now—quick and determined, taking an interest in his affairs once more, and sober as water. I felt cheered myself to see him so. He was no wastrel; he had had a spell of foolishness and dissipation, but it needed only his own resolution to put an end to that. An oar in the water looks broken to the eye, but it is whole.

* * * * *

It set in to rain, and I had to stop work on the painting. Nils had been lucky enough to get in all the hay that was cut; we got to work now on the potatoes, all hands out in the fields at once, with the women folk from the house as well.

Meanwhile the Captain stayed indoors all alone; it was dull enough; now and again he would touch the keys of Fruen's piano. He came out once or twice to where we were at work, and he carried no umbrella, but let himself get drenched to the skin.

"Grand weather for the crops!" he would say; or again, "Looks like being an extra special harvest this year!" But when he went back to the house there was only himself and loneliness to meet him. "We're better off ourselves than he is now," said Nils.

So we worked away at the potatoes, and when they were done there were the turnips. And by the time we were through with them the weather began to clear. Ideal weather, all that one could wish for. Nils and I were as proud of it all as if we owned the place.

And now the haymaking began in earnest: the maids were out, spreading in the wake of the machine, and Grindhusen was set to work with a scythe in the corners and awkward parts where the machine could not go. And I got out my stone-grey paint and set about the house.

The Captain came up. "What colour's that you've got here?" he asked.

What could I say to that? I was nervous, I know, but my greatest fear was lest I should not be allowed to paint it grey after all. As it was, I said:

"Oh, it's only some ... I don't know ... it doesn't matter what we put on for the first coat...."

That saved me for the time being, at any rate. The Captain said no more about it then.

When I had done the house all grey, and doors and windows white, I went down to the summer-house and did that the same. But it turned out horrible to look at; the yellow underneath showed through and made it a ghastly colour. The flagstaff I took down and painted a clean white. Then I put in a spell of field-work with Nils and was haymaking for some days. Early in August it was.

Now, when I went back to my painting again I had settled in my mind to start on the house as early as possible, so as to be well on the way with it before the Captain was up—too far, if I could manage it, to go back! I started at three in the morning; there was a heavy dew, and I had to rub the woodwork over with a bit of sack. I worked away for an hour, and then had coffee, then on again till eight. I knew the Captain would be getting up then, so I went off to help Nils for an hour and be out of the way. I had done as much as I wanted, and my idea now was to give the Captain time to get over the shock of my grey, in case he should have got up in an irritable mood.

After breakfast I went back to work, and stood there on my ladder painting away, as innocently as could be, when the Captain came up.

"Are you doing it over with grey again?" he called up.

"Godmorgen! Yes. I don't know if...."

"Now what's the meaning of all this? Come down off that ladder at once!"

I clambered down. But I was not anxious now. I had thought out something to say that I fancied would prove effective at the right moment—unless my judgment was altogether at fault.

I tried first of all to make out it didn't matter really what colour we used for the second time either, but the Captain cut me short here and said:

"Nonsense! Yellow on top of that grey will look like mud; you can see that for yourself, surely."

"Well, then, we might give it two coats of yellow," I suggested.

"Four coats of paint? No, thank you! And all that white you've been wasting! It's ever so much dearer than the yellow."

This was perfectly true, and the very argument I had been fearing all along. I answered now straight-forwardly:

"Let me paint it grey."

"What?"

"It would look better. There's something about the house ... and with the green of the woods behind ... the style of the place is...."

"Is grey, you mean?" He swung off impatiently a few steps and came back again.

And then I faced him, more innocently than ever, with an inspiration surely sent from above:

"Now I remember! Yes.... I've always seen it grey in my mind, ever since one day—it was Fruen that said so...."

I was watching him closely; he gave a great start and stared at me wide-eyed for a moment; then he took out his handkerchief and began fidgeting with it at one eye as if to get out a speck or something.

"Indeed!" he said. "Did she say so?"

"Yes, I'm almost sure it was that. It's a long time back now, but...."

"Oh, nonsense!" he broke out abruptly, and strode away. I heard him clearing his throat—hard—as he crossed the courtyard behind.

I stood there limply for a while, feeling anything but comfortable myself. I dared not go on with the painting now, and risk making him angry again. I went round to the back and put in an hour cutting firewood. When I came round again, the Captain looked out from an open window upstairs and called down:

"You may as well go on with it now you've got so far. I don't know what possessed you, I'm sure. But get on with it now."

The window had been open before, but he slammed it to and I went on with the work.

A week passed. I spent my time between painting and haymaking. Grindhusen was good enough at hoeing potatoes and using a rake here and there, but not of much account when it came to loading hay. Nils himself was a first-rate hand, and a glutton for work.

I gave the house a third coat, and the delicate grey, picked out with white, made the place look nobler altogether. One afternoon I was at work, the Captain came walking up from the road. He watched me for a bit, then took out his handkerchief as if the heat troubled him, and said:

"Yes, better go on with it now you've got so far. I must say she wasn't far wrong about the colour. All nonsense though, really! H'm!"

I made no answer. The Captain used his handkerchief again and said:

"Hot again today—puh! What was I going to say? ... yes, it doesn't look so bad after all. No, she was right—that is, I mean, you were right about the colour. I was looking at it from down there just now, and it makes quite a handsome place. And anyhow, it's too late to alter it now."

"I thought so too," I said. "It suits the house."

"Yes, yes, it suits the house, as it were. And what was it she said about the woods behind—my wife, I mean? The background, or something?"

"It's a long time ago now, but I'm almost sure...."

"Yes, yes, never mind. I must say I never thought it would turn out like that—turn out so well. Will you have enough white, though, to finish?"

"Well ... yes, I sent back the yellow and got some white instead."

The Captain smiled, shook his head, and walked away. So I had been right after all!

Haymaking took up all my time now till it was done, but Nils lent me a hand in return, painting at the summer-house in the evening. Even Grindhusen joined in and took a brush. He wasn't much of a painter, he said, but he reckoned he could be trusted to paint a bit of a wall. Grindhusen was picking up fast.

At last the buildings were finished; hardly recognizable, they were, in their new finery. And when we'd cleaned up a bit in the shrubbery and the little park—this was our own idea—the whole place looked different altogether. And the Captain thanked us specially for what we'd done.

We started on the rye then, and at the same time the autumn rain set in; but we worked away all we knew, and there came a spell of sunshine in between whiles. There were big fields of thick, heavy rye, and big fields again of oats and barley, not yet ripe. It was a rich landscape to work in. The clover was seeding, but the turnips were somewhat behindhand. A good soaking would put them right, said Nils.

The Captain sent me up to the post from time to time; once he gave me a letter for his wife. A whole bundle of letters there were, to different people, and hers in the middle. It was addressed care of her mother in Kristianssand. When I came back in the evening and took in the incoming post, the Captain's first words were: "You posted the letters all right?"

"Yes," I said.

Time went on. On wet days, when there was little we could do out of doors, the Captain wanted me to paint a bit here and there about the house inside. He showed me some fine enamels he had got in, and said:

"Now here's the staircase to begin with. I want that white, and I've ordered a dark red stair-carpet to put down. Then there'll be doors and windows. But I want all this done as soon as possible really; it's been left too long as it is."

I quite agreed that this was a good idea of the Captain's. He had lived carelessly enough for years past now, never troubling about the look of his house; now he had begun to take an interest in it again; it was a sort of reawakening. He took me over the place, upstairs and down, and showed me what was to be done. I noticed the pictures and sculpture in the rooms; there was a big marble lion, and paintings by Askevold and the famous Dahl. Heirlooms, I supposed they would be. Fruen's room upstairs looked just as if she were at home, with all sorts of little trifles neatly in their places, and clothes hanging still on the pegs. It was a fine old house, with moulded ceilings, and some of the walls done in costly style, but the paint-work everywhere was faded or flaking off. The staircase was broad and easy, with seats, and a mahogany handrail.

I was painting indoors one day when the Captain came in.

"It's harvest-time, I know, but this indoor work's important too. My wife will be back soon. I don't know what we're to do, really! I'd like to have the place thoroughly cleaned up."

So that letter was asking her to come back! I thought to myself. But then, again, it was some days since he had written, and I had been to the post several times myself, after, but no answer had come. I knew Fruen's writing. I had seen it six years before. But the Captain thought perhaps that he had only to say "Come," and she would obey. Well, well, he might be right; she was taking a little time to get ready, that was all.... How was I to know?

The painting had grown so important now, that the Captain went up himself to the clearing and got Lars to come down and help with the field-work in my place. Nils was by no means pleased with the exchange, for Lars was not over willing under orders on the place where he had been in charge himself in days gone by.

But there was no such need of hurry about the painting, as it turned out. The Captain sent the lad up twice to the post, but I watched for him on the way back both times, and found he had no letter from Fruen. Perhaps she was not coming after all! Ay, it might be as bad as that. Or she felt herself in a false position, and was too proud to say yes because her husband called. It might be that.

But the paint was on and had time to dry; the red stair-carpet came and was laid down with brass rods; the staircase looked wonderfully fine; wonderfully fine, too, were the doors and windows in the rooms upstairs. But Fruen did not come—no.

We got through with the rye, and set to work in good time on the barley; but Fruen did not come. The Captain went out and gazed down the road, whistling to himself; he was looking thinner now. Often and often he would come out to where we were at work, and keep with us, looking on all the time without a word. But if Nils happened to ask him anything, he did not start as if his thoughts had been elsewhere, but was quick and ready as could be. He did not seem dejected, and as for looking thin, that was perhaps because he had got Nils to cut his hair.

Then I was sent up to the post again, and this time there was a letter. Fruen's hand, and postmarked Kristianssand. I hurried back, laid the letter in among the rest of the post, and handed the whole bundle to the Captain outside the house. He took it with a careless word of thanks, showing no eagerness to see what there was; he was used to being disappointed.

"Corn coming in everywhere, I suppose?" he asked casually, glancing at the letters one after another. "What was the road like? All right?" While I was telling him, he came upon Fruen's letter, and at once packing up the whole bundle together, he turned to me with a sudden intensified interest in other people's crops and the state of the roads. Keeping himself well in hand; he was not going to show feeling openly. He nodded as he walked off, and said "Thank you" once more.

Next day the Captain came out and washed and greased the carriage himself. But it was two days more before he used it. We were sitting at supper one evening when the Captain came into the kitchen and said he wanted some one to drive him to the station tomorrow. He could have driven himself, but he was going to fetch his wife, who was coming home from abroad, and he would have to take the landau in case it rained. Nils decided, then, that Grindhusen had better drive, he being the one who could best be spared.

The rest of us went on with our field-work while they were away. There was plenty to do; besides the rye and barley not yet in, there were still potatoes to hoe and turnips to see to. But Ragnhild and the dairymaid both lent a hand; all youth and energy they were.

It might have been pleasant enough to work side by side with my old mate Lars Falkenberg once more, but he and Nils could not get on together, and instead of cheerful comradeship, a gloomy silence hung over the fields. Lars seemed to have got over his late ill-will towards me in some degree, but he was short and sullen with us all on account of Nils.

At last Nils decided that Lars should take the pair of chestnuts and get to work on the autumn ploughing. Lars was offended, and said crossly: No. He'd never heard of doing things that way before, he said, starting to plough your land before you'd got the harvest off it. "That may be," said Nils, "but I'll find you land that has been reaped enough to keep you going."

There were more words over that. Lars found everything all wrong somehow at Ovrebo. In the old days he used to do his work and sing songs after for the company at the house; now, it was all a mess and a muddle, and no sense in any way of doing things. Ploughing, indeed! Not if he knew it.

"You don't know what you're talking about," said Nils. "Nowadays you'll see folk ploughing between the corn-poles and the hay-frames."

"I've not seen it yet," said Lars. "But it seems you've seen a lot. Of all the silly goats...."

But the end of it was that Lars gave way, Nils being head man there, and went on ploughing till the Captain came home.

It crossed my mind that I had left some washing behind with Emma when I went away, before. But I judged it best not to go up to the clearing after it now, while Lars was in his present mood.



X

The Captain and his wife came next day. Nils and I had talked over whether to hoist the flag; I dared not myself, but Nils was less cautious, and said we must. So there it was, flapping broad and free from its white staff.

I was close at hand when the carriage drove up and they got out. Fruen walked out far across the courtyard, looked at the house, and clapped her hands. I heard her, too, loud in wonder as she entered the hall—at sight of the stairs, no doubt, and the new red carpet.

Grindhusen had no sooner got the horses in than he came up to me, all agape with astonishment over something, and drew me aside to talk.

"There must be something wrong," he said. That's not Fru Falkenberg, surely? Is she married to him—the Captain, I mean?"

"Why, yes, Grindhusen, the Captain's wife is married to the Captain. What makes you ask?"

"But it's that cousin girl! I'll stake my life on it if it's not the very same one. The Inspector's cousin that was there."

"Not a bit of it, Grindhusen. But it might be her sister."

"But I'll stake my life on it. I saw her with him myself I don't know how many times."

"Well, well, she may be his cousin as far as that goes, but what's it to do with us?"

"I saw it the moment she got out of the train. And she looked at me, too, and gave a start. I could see her breathing quickly after. Don't come telling me.... But I can't make out.... Is she from here?"

"Was Fruen pleased, or did she look unhappy?" I asked.

"Nay, I don't know. Yes, I think she was." Grindhusen shook his head, still marvelling how this could be the Captain's wife. "You must have seen her with the Inspector yourself," he said. "Didn't you recognize her again?"

"Was she pleased, did you say?"

"Pleased? Why, yes, I suppose so. I don't know. They talked such a lot of queer stuff the pair of them, driving home—began at the station, the minute she got out. There was a whole lot I couldn't make out at all. 'I don't know what to say,' said she, 'but I beg you so earnestly to forgive me for it all.' 'And so do I,' says he. Now did you ever hear such a thing? And they were both of them crying, I believe, in the carriage after. 'I've had the place painted and done up a bit,' said the Captain. 'Have you?' says she. And then he went on talking about all her things, and how they were still there and never been touched. I don't know what things he meant, but he thought she'd find everything still in its place, he said. Did you ever hear the like? 'All your things,' he said. And then he went on about somebody Elisabet, and said he never gave her a thought, and never had, I think he said. And she cried like anything at that, and was all upset. But she didn't say a word about being abroad, as the Captain said. No, I'll stake my life she'd come from the Inspector."

I began to fear I had made a grave mistake in bringing Grindhusen to Ovrebo. It was done now, but I wished it undone. And I told Grindhusen himself as much, and that pretty plainly.

"Fruen here's the mistress of the place, and good and kind as could be to every one, and the Captain as well, remember that. But you'll find yourself whipped out of here, and at once, if you go gossiping and telling tales. Take my advice and be careful. You've got a good job here, with good pay and decent food. Think of that, and keep quiet while you're here."

"Yes, yes, you're right," said Grindhusen meekly enough. "I don't say a word; only, that she's the very image of that cousin down there. And did I ever say more than that? I don't know what you've got to make such a fuss about, and as for that, maybe she's a bit fairer than the cousin. I won't swear it's the same sort of hair. And I never said it was. But if you want to know what I thought, I'll tell you straight out. I was thinking she was too good to be that cousin girl. That was my very thought. 'Twould be a shame for her to be cousin to a fellow like that, and I can't think how anybody ever could. I'm not thinking about the money now; you know as well as I do I'm not the man to make a fuss over losing a two-Kroner piece, no more than you yourself, but it was a mean thing to do, all the same, giving me the money one day and taking it back the next. Ay, that it was. I say no more than that. But I don't know what's the matter with you lately, flying out the least word a man says. And what have I said, anyway? A mean lot, that he was; paid me two Kroner a day and find my own food, and always niggling and haggling over every little thing. I've had enough of your talk anyhow, but I'll tell you what was my very thought, if you want to know...."

But all his flow of talk did not avail to hide the fact that he had recognized Fruen at once, and was still convinced that he was right.

* * * * *

All things in order now, the Captain and Fruen at home, bright days and a rich harvest. What more could any wish for?

Fruen greets me with a kindly glance, and says:

"The place looks different altogether after the way you've painted it so nicely. The Captain's ever so pleased."

She seemed calmer now than when I had seen her last, on the stairs of the hotel in the town. She did not start and breathe quickly at sight of me as she had with Grindhusen, and that could only mean she was not displeased at seeing me again! So I thought to myself, and was glad to think so. But why had she not left off that unsteady glance, that flutter of the eyes, she had fallen into of late? If I were the Captain, now, I would speak to her about it. And her complexion, too, was not what it had been. There were some curious little spots about the temples. But what matter? She was no less pretty for that.

"I'm afraid, though," she went on, "it wasn't my idea at all with the lovely grey for the house. You must have made a mistake in thinking I said so."

"Well, then, I can't make it out. But, anyhow, it's no matter; the Captain himself decided to have it."

"The staircase is simply splendid, and so are the rooms upstairs. It's twice as bright as before...."

'Twas Fruen herself was trying to be twice as bright and

"Why, yes, Grindhusen, the Captain's wife is married twice as good as before." I knew that well enough. And she fancied she owed me these little marks of kindliness, for something or other. Well and good, but now it was enough. Best let it be.

Autumn drawing on, the scent of the jasmine all importunate down in the shrubbery, and red and yellow showing up long since on the wooded hills. Not a soul in the place but is glad to have Fruen at home again; the flag, too, does its part. 'Tis like a Sunday; the maids have put clean aprons on, fresh from the ironing.

In the evening I went down by the little stone steps to the shrubbery and sat there a while. The jasmines were pouring out waves of perfume after the heat of the day. After awhile Nils came down, looking for me.

"No visitors here now," says Nils. "And no high goings-on at nights. Have you heard anything of that sort at night now, since the Captain first came back?"

"No."

"And that's full ten weeks ago now. What d'you say if I tore off this thing now?" And he pointed to his temperance badge. "Captain's given up drinking, here's Fruen home again, and no call to be unfriendly anyway to either of them."

He handed me a knife, and I cut the badge away.

We talked for a bit about the farm-work—Nils thought of nothing else. "We'll have most of the corn under shelter by tomorrow night," he says. "And thank goodness for that! Then we'll sow the winter rye. Queer thing, isn't it? Here's Lars went on year after year sowing by machine, and thought it good enough. Not if I know it! We'll sow ours by hand."

"But why?"

"On land like ours! Now just take the man over there, for instance; he sowed by machine three weeks ago and some's come up and some not. No. The machine goes too deep in the soil."

"H'm! Don't the jasmines smell fine tonight?"

"Yes. There's been a big difference with the barley and oats these last few days. Getting on time for bed, though, now!"

He got up, but I did not move. "Looks like being fine again tomorrow," says Nils, glancing at the sky. And then he went on about the grass in the garden; worth cutting, he said it was.

"You going to stay down here long?" he asked suddenly.

"Yes, for a bit; why not? Oh, well, perhaps I'd better go up too."

Nils walked off a few paces, then came back again.

"Better not stay here any longer," he said. "Come along up here with me."

"Think so?" I said, and rose at once. Evidently Nils had something in his mind, and had come down here on purpose to fetch me.

Had he found me out? But what was there to find out?

Did I know myself what I had gone down to the shrubbery for? I remember now that I lay face downwards, chewing a stalk of grass. There was light in a certain upstairs window of the house. I was looking at that. And that was all.

"Not being inquisitive now, but what's the matter?" I asked.

"Nothing," said Nils. "The girls said you were down here, so I just came along. Why, what else?"

So the maids had found me out, I thought to myself, and was ill pleased at the thought. Ragnhild it must be, a devil of a girl, sharp as a needle; she must have said a lot more than Nils was willing to confess. And what if Fruen herself had seen me from the window!

I resolved now to be cold and indifferent as ice henceforward all the days of my life.

* * * * *

Ragnhild is properly in clover. The thick stair carpet muffles every step; she can run upstairs whenever she pleases and slip down again in a moment without a sound.

"I can't make it out about Fruen," says Ragnhild.

"Here she's come back, and ought to be happy and good tempered as could be, and instead she's all tears and frowning. I heard the Captain telling her today: 'Now do be a little reasonable, Lovise,' he said. 'I'm sorry, I won't do it any more,' says Fruen; and then she cried because she'd been unreasonable. But that about never doing it any more—she's said that now every day since she came back, but she's done it again, all the same. Poor dear, she'd a toothache today; she was simply crying out with the pain...."

"Go and get on with the potatoes, Ragnhild," said Nils quickly. "We've no time for gossiping now."

We'd all of us our field-work now; there was much to be done. Nils was afraid the corn would spoil if he left it too long at the poles; better to get it in as it was. Well and good; but that meant threshing the worst of it at once, and spreading the grain over the floor of every shed and outhouse. Even in our own big living-room there was a large layer of corn drying on the floor. Any more irons in the fire? Ay, indeed, and all the while hot and waiting. Bad weather has set in, and all the work ought to be done at once. When we've finished threshing, there's the fresh straw to be cut up and salted down in bins to keep it from rotting. That all? Not by a long way: irons enough still glowing hot. Grindhusen and the maids are pulling potatoes. Nils snatches the precious time after a couple of dry days to sow a patch of rye and send the lad over it with the harrow. Lars Falkenberg is still ploughing; he has given way altogether and turned out a fine ploughman since the Captain and Fruen came back. When the corn-land's too soft he ploughs the meadows; then, when sun and wind have dried things a bit, he goes on to the corn-land again.

The work goes on steadily and well; in the afternoon the Captain himself comes out to lend a hand. The last load of corn in being brought in.

Captain Falkenberg is no child at the work, big and strong he is, and with the right knack of it. See him loading up oats from the drying-frames: his second load now.

Just then Fruen comes along down the road, and crosses over to where we are at work. Her eyes are bright. She seems pleased to watch her husband loading up corn.

"Signe Arbejdet!" [Footnote: "A blessing on the work."] she says.

"Thanks," says the Captain.

"That's what we used to say in Nordland."

"What?"

"That's what we used to say in Nordland."

"Oh yes."

The Captain is busy with his work, and in the rustle of the straw he does not always hear what she says, but has to look up and ask again, and this annoys them both.

"Are the oats ripe?" she asks.

"Yes, thank goodness!"

"But not dry, I suppose?"

"Eh? I can't hear what you say."

"Oh, I didn't say anything."

A long, uncomfortable silence after that. The Captain tries once or twice with a good-humoured word, but gets no answer.

"So you're out on a round of inspection," he says jestingly. "Have you seen how the potatoes are getting on?"

"No," she answers. "But I'll go over there, by all means, if you can't bear the sight of me here."

It was too dreadful to hear them going on like this. I must have frowned unconsciously—shown some such feeling. Then, suddenly remembering that for certain reasons I was to be cold as ice, I frowned the more.

Freun looked straight at me and said:

"What are you scowling at?"

"Scowling, eh?" says the Captain, joining in, with a forced laugh.

Fruen takes him up on the instant.

"Ah! you managed to hear that time!"

"Really, Lovise...."

Fruen's eyes dimmed suddenly; she stood a moment then ran, stooping forward, round behind the frames, and sobbed.

The Captain went over to her. "What is it, Lovise, tell me?"

"Oh, nothing, nothing! Go away."

She was sick; we could hear it. And moaning and saying: "Heaven help me!"

"My wife's not very well just now," says the Captain to me. "We can't make out what it is."

"There's sickness in the neighbourhood," I suggested, for something to say. "Sort of autumn fever. I heard about it up at the post office."

"Is there, though? Why, there you are, Lovise," he calls out. "There's some sort of fever about, it seems. That's all it is."

Fruen made no answer.

We went on loading up, and Fruen moved farther and farther away as we came up. At last the frames were cleared, and she stood there guiltily, very pale after her trouble.

"Shall I see you back to the house?" asked the Captain.

"No, thank you, I'd rather not," she answered, walking away.

The Captain stayed out and worked with us till evening.

* * * * *

So here was everything gone wrong again. Oh, but it was hard for them both!

And it was not just a little matter that could be got over by a little give and take on either side, as folk say; no, it was a thing insuperable, a trouble rooted deep. And now it had come to mutiny, no less: Fruen had taken to locking her door at night. Ragnhild had heard the Captain, highly offended, talking to her through the wall.

But that evening the Captain had demanded to speak with her in her room before she went to bed. Fruen agreed, and there was a further scene. Each was willing and anxious, no doubt, to set matters right, but it was hopeless now; it was too late. We sat in the kitchen, Nils and I, listening to Ragnhild's story. I had never seen Nils look so miserable before.

"If things go wrong again now, it's all over," he said. "I thought to myself last summer that perhaps a good, sound thrashing would do her good. But that was just foolishness, I can see now. Did she talk about running away again?"

"She said something about it," answered Ragnhild. And then she went on something like this: "It began with the Captain asking if she didn't think it was this local sickness she had got. Fruen answered it could hardly be any local sickness that had turned her against him so. 'Turned you against me?' 'Yes. Oh, I could scream sometimes. At table, for instance, the way you eat and eat....' 'Do I?' says the Captain. 'Well, I can't see there's anything very wrong in that; it's just natural. There's no rule for how much one ought to eat at a meal.' 'But to have to sit and look at you—it makes me sick. It's that that makes me ill.' 'Well, anyhow, you can't say I drink too much now,' said he. 'So it's better than it was.' 'No, indeed, it's worse!' Then says the Captain: 'Well, really, I do think you might make allowances for me a little, after I've—I mean, considering what you did yourself this summer.' 'Yes, you're right,' says Fruen, beginning to cry. 'If you knew how it hurts and plagues me night and day, thinking of that.... But I've never said a word.' 'No, I know,' says she, crying all the more. 'And I asked you myself to come back,' he said. But at that she seemed to think he was taking too much credit to himself; she stopped crying, and answered, with a toss of her head: 'Yes, and it would have been better if you'd never asked me back, if it was only to go on like this.' 'Like what?' says he. 'You've your own way in everything now. The same as before, only you don't care for anything at all. You never touch the piano, even; only go about cross and irritable all the time; there's no pleasing you with anything. And you shut your door at night and lock me out. Well and good; lock me out if you like!' 'It's you that are hard to please, if you ask me,' she said. 'There's never a night and never a morning but I'm worried out of my life lest you shall be thinking of—this summer. You've never said a word about it, you say. Oh, don't you, though! I'm never left long in peace without you throwing it in my teeth. I happened to say "Hugo" one day, by a slip of the tongue, and what did you do? You might have been nice and comforted me to help me over it, but you only scowled and said you were not Hugo. No. I knew well enough, and I was ever so sorry to have said it.' 'That's just the point,' said the Captain. 'Were you really sorry?' 'Yes, indeed,' said Fruen; 'it hurt me ever so.' 'Well, I shouldn't have thought it; you don't seem very upset about it.' 'Ah, but what about you? Haven't you anything to be sorry for?' 'You've got photos of Hugo on your piano still; I haven't seen you move them away yet, though I've shown you not once but fifty times I wished you to—yes, and begged you to do it.' 'Oh, what a fuss you make about those photos!' said she. 'Oh, don't make any mistake! I'm not asking you now. If you went and shifted them now, it would make no difference. I've begged and prayed of you fifty times before. Only, I think it would have been a little more decent if you'd burned them the day you came home. But, instead of that, you've books here lying about in your room with his name in. And there's a handkerchief with his initials on, I see.' 'Oh, it's all your jealousy,' answered Fruen. 'I can't see what difference it makes. I can't kill him, as you'd like me to, and Papa and Mama say the same. After all, I've lived with him and been married to him.' 'Married to him?' 'Yes, that's what I say. It isn't every one that looks at Hugo and me the way you do.' The Captain sat a while, shaking his head. 'And it's all your own fault, really,' Fruen went on, 'the way you drove off with Elisabet that time, though I came and asked you not to go. It was then it happened. And we'd been drinking that evening. I didn't quite know what I was doing.' Still, the Captain said nothing for a while; then at last he said: 'Yes, I ought not to have gone off like that.' 'No, but you did,' said Fruen, and started crying again. 'You wouldn't hear a word. And you're always throwing it in my teeth about Hugo, but you never think of what you've done yourself.' 'There's just this difference,' says the Captain, 'that I've never lived with the lady you mention, never been married to her, as you call it.' Fruen gave a little scornful laugh. 'Never!' said the Captain, striking the table with his hand. Fruen gave a start, and sat staring at him. 'Then—I don't understand why you were always running after her and sitting out in the summer-house and lurking in corners,' said she. 'It was you that sat out in the summer-house,' he answered. 'Oh yes, it's always me,' said she. 'Never you by any chance!' 'As for my running after Elisabet,' said the Captain, 'it was solely and simply in the hopes of getting you back. You'd drifted away from me, and I wanted you.' Fruen sat thinking over that for a minute, then she sprang up and threw her arms around him and said: 'Oh, then you cared for me all the time! And I thought it was all over. You'd drifted away from me, too; it was years since. And it all seemed so hopeless. I never thought—I never knew.... And then it was me you cared for all the time! Oh, my dear, then it's all come right again.' 'Sit down,' said he. 'You seem to forget that something else has happened since.' 'Something else?' 'There you are, you've forgotten all about it. May I ask you, are you sorry enough for what's happened since?' At that Fruen turned hard again and said: 'Oh, you mean about Hugo? That's done and can't be altered.' 'That doesn't answer the question.' 'If I'm sorry enough? What about you; are you so innocent yourself?' At this the Captain got up and began walking up and down. 'The trouble is that we've no children,' said Fruen. 'I haven't a daughter that I could teach and bring up to be better than I am,' 'I've thought of that,' said the Captain, 'perhaps you're right.' Then he turned straight towards her and said: 'It's a nasty crash that's come over us, Lovise— like a landslide. But don't you think now we might set to work and shift away all the wreckage that's been burying us for years, and get clear and breathe again? You might have a daughter yet!' At that Fruen got up and made as if to say something, but couldn't. 'Yes,' was all she said, and 'Yes,' she said again. 'You're tired and nervous, I know,' he said. 'But think a little over what I've said. Another time.' 'Good-night,' said she."



XI

The Captain spoke to Nils about the timber; he thought of disposing of the whole lot, or selling it standing. Nils took this to mean that he didn't like the idea of having more new folk about the place. "It looks like things are as bad as ever with him and Fruen," said Nils.

We are getting in the potatoes now, and since we are thus far there is less hurry and anxiety about the work. But there is still much to be done. The ploughing is behindhand, and Lars Falkenberg and I are both at it, field and meadow land.

Nils, queer creature that he was, began to find things intolerable at Ovrebo again, and talked of throwing up his place and going off altogether. But he couldn't bear the disgrace of leaving his service like that. Nils had his own clear notions of honour, handed down through many generations. A young man from a big farm could not behave like a lad from a cottar's holding. And then he hadn't been here long enough yet; Ovrebo had been sadly ill-managed before he came: it would take some years to bring it round again. It was only this year, when he'd had more help with the work, that he'd been able to do anything properly. But from now onward he might begin to look for some result of his work; look at this year's harvest, the fine heavy grain! The Captain, too, had looked at the crops with wonder and thankfulness—the first time for many years. There would be plenty to sell.

All things considered, then, it was senseless for Nils to think of leaving Ovrebo. But he must go home for a couple of days to his people—they lived a little way north of us. So he gave himself two days' leave as soon as the potatoes were all out of the ground. No doubt he'd good reason for going—perhaps to see his sweetheart, we thought—and when he came back he was bright and full of energy as ever, and took up work again at once.

We were sitting at dinner in the kitchen one day when out comes Fruen from the front door of the house, and goes tearing down the road, all wild and excited. Then the Captain came out, calling after her: "Lovise, what is it, Lovise? Where are you going?" But Fruen only called back: "Leave me alone!"

We looked at one another. Ragnhild rose from the table; she must go after her mistress, she said.

"That's right," said Nils, calm as ever. "But go indoors first and see if she's moved those photographs."

"They're still there," said Ragnhild as she went out.

Outside, we heard the Captain telling her to go and look after her mistress.

There was no one but took thought for Fruen in her distress.

We went out to the fields again. Said Nils to me:

"She ought to take away those photos; it's not right of her to leave them there. I don't know what she can be thinking of to do it."

What do you know about it? I thought to myself. Oh, I was so clever with my knowledge of the world, and all I'd learned on my wanderings, I thought I would try him now; perhaps he was only showing off.

"I can't understand why the Captain hasn't taken and burnt them long ago," said I.

"No, that's all wrong," said Nils. "I wouldn't have done that either."

"Oh, indeed!"

"It wouldn't be for me to do it, but for her."

We walked on a little. And then Nils said a thing that showed his sound and right instinct.

"Poor lady!" he said. "She's not got over that slip of hers this summer; it's troubling her still. From all I can see, there's some people pick up again all right after a fall, and go on through life with no more than the mark of a bruise. But there's some that never get over it."

"Fruen seems to be taking it easy enough," said I, still trying him.

"How can we tell? She's been unlike herself, to my mind, ever since she's been back," he answered. "She's got to live, of course, but she's lost all harmony, perhaps. I don't know much about it, but harmony, that's what I mean. Oh yes, she can eat and laugh and sleep, no doubt, but ... I followed one such to the grave, but now...."

And at that I was no longer cold and wise, but foolish and ashamed, and only said:

"So it was that? She died, then?"

"Yes. She wished it so," said Nils. And then suddenly: "Well, you and Lars get on with the ploughing. We ought soon to be through with things now."

And we went each our separate way.

I thought to myself: a sister of his, perhaps, that had gone wrong, and he'd been home and followed her to the grave. Herregud! there are some that never get over it; it shakes them to their foundations; a revolution. All depends on whether they're coarse enough. Only the mark of a bruise, said Nils. A sudden thought came to me, and I stopped: perhaps it was not his sister, but his sweetheart.

Some association of ideas led me to think of my washing. I decided to send the lad up for it.

* * * * *

It was evening.

Ragnhild came to me and begged me to keep awake again; there was dreadful trouble up at the house. Ragnhild herself was greatly upset, and dared not sit anywhere now in the half-dark but upon my knees. It was always so with her; emotion made her frightened and tender—frightened and tender, yes.

"But can you be away like this? Is there any one in your place in the kitchen?" I asked.

"Yes. Cook's going to listen for the bell. You know, I side with the Captain," she declared. "I've sided with him all along."

"Oh, that's only because he's a man."

"No, it's not."

"You'd much better side with Fruen."

"You only say that because she's a woman," answered Ragnhild in her turn. "But you don't know all I do. Fruen's so unreasonable. We didn't care a bit about her, she said, and left her all to herself, whatever might happen. Did you ever hear such a thing, when I'd just gone after her. And then there's another dreadful thing...."

"I don't want to hear any more," I said.

"But I haven't been listening outside—what are you thinking of? I was there in the same room, and heard them."

"Did you? Well, well, stay here till you've calmed down a little; then we'll go and find Nils."

And so frightened and tender was Ragnhild that she threw her arms round me because I was kind to her. A strange girl!

Then we went down to Nils.

"Ragnhild thinks that somebody ought to keep awake for a bit," I said.

"Yes," said Ragnhild. "Oh, it's so dreadful—worse than ever it's been! Heaven knows what the Captain'll do! Perhaps he won't go to bed at all. Oh, she's fond of him and he's fond of her, too; only, everything's all wrong! When she went running off like that today, the Captain was standing outside the house, and said to me: 'Go and look after your mistress, Ragnhild,' and I went after her, and there she was, standing behind a tree down the road, and she just stood there, crying, and smiled at me. I tried to get her to come in again, but she said we didn't care about her; it didn't matter where she went. 'The Captain sent me after you,' said I. 'Did he, though?' she asked. 'Now? Was it just now?' 'Yes,' said I. 'Wait, then,' she said, and stood quite a while. 'Take those hateful books that are lying in my room and burn them,' she said; and then: 'Oh no, I'll do it myself, but I'll ring for you after supper, and then you must come up at once.' 'I will,' said I, and then I got her to come in."

"And you know," said Ragnhild suddenly, "she's going to have a child."

We looked at one another. Nils' face grew, as it were, veiled beneath a film of something indistinct. All expression faded, the eyes asleep. But why should it affect him so? For the sake of saying something, I turned to Ragnhild and asked:

"Fruen was going to ring for you, you said?"

"Yes, and so she did. There was something she wanted to tell the Captain, but she was afraid, and wanted to have me there. 'Light a candle and pick up all this host of buttons I've upset,' she said. And then she called out to the Captain in his room. I lit the candle and began picking up buttons; dozens of them there were, all sorts. The Captain came in. 'I only wanted to tell you,' says Fruen at once, 'that it was kind of you to send Ragnhild after me to-day. Heaven bless you for that!' 'Never mind about that, my dear,' says he. 'You were nervous, you know.' 'Yes, I'm all nerves just now,' she answered, 'but I hope it'll get better in time. No, the trouble is that I haven't a daughter I could bring up to be really good. There's nothing I can do!' The Captain sat down on a chair. 'Oh yes, there is,' he said. 'Yes, you say? Oh, I know it says in that book there.... Oh, those hateful books!—Ragnhild take them away and burn them,' she says. 'No, wait, I'll tear them to bits now myself and put them in the stove here.' And then she started pulling them to pieces, taking ever so many pages at a time and throwing them in the stove. 'Don't be so excited, Lovise,' said the Captain. 'The Nunnery,' she said—that was one of the books. 'But I can't go into a nunnery. There's nothing I can do. When I laugh, you think I'm laughing,' she said to the Captain, 'but I'm miserable all the time and not laughing a bit.' 'Is your toothache any better?' he asked. 'Oh, that toothache won't be better for a long time to come!' she said; 'you know that well enough.' 'No, indeed, I don't.' 'You don't know?' 'No.' 'But, heavens! can't you see what's the matter with me?' said Fruen. The Captain only looked at her and did not answer. 'I'm—oh, you said today I might have a daughter after all, don't you remember?' I happened to look up at the Captain just then...."

Ragnhild smiled and shook her head; then she went on:

"Heaven forgive me for smiling, but the Captain's face was so queer; he stood there like a sheep. 'Didn't you guess as much before?' asked Fruen. The Captain looked over at me and said: 'What's that you're doing there all this time?' 'I asked her to pick up those buttons for me,' said Fruen. 'I've finished now,' said I. 'Have you?' said Fruen, getting up. 'Let me see.' And she took the box and dropped them again all over the floor. Oh, they went rolling all over the place, under the table, under the bed and the stove! 'There, now, did you ever see such a mess?' said Fruen. But then she went off again at once talking about herself, and said again: 'But I can't understand you didn't you see I was—didn't see what was the matter with me.' Can't those buttons wait till tomorrow?' said the Captain. 'Why, yes, perhaps they can,' said Fruen. 'But then I'll be treading on them everywhere. I can't ... I'm rather afraid of stooping just now.... But, never mind, we'll leave them for now,' she said, and stroked his hand. 'Oh, my dear, my dear!' she says. But he drew his hand away. 'Oh, so you're angry with me!' she said. 'But then, why did you write and ask me to come back?' 'My dear Lovise, we're not alone here,' he says. 'But surely you must know what made you write?' 'I suppose it was because I hoped things would come right again.' 'And they didn't?' 'Well, no!' 'But what was in your mind when you wrote? Were you thinking of me? Did you want me again? I can't make out what was in your mind.' 'Ragnhild's finished, I see,' said the Captain. 'Good-night, Ragnhild!'"

"And then you came away?"

"Yes, but I dare not go far because of Fruen. You may be sure it wasn't nice for her when I was out of the room, so I had to be somewhere at hand. And if the Captain had come and found me and said anything, I'd have told him straight out I wasn't going farther away with Fruen in the state she was. As it happened, he didn't come at all, but they began again in there. 'I know what you're thinking of,' said Fruen—'that perhaps it's not ... it wouldn't be your child. Oh yes, indeed it might be so! But, God knows, I can't find words this moment to make you forgive me!' she said, all crying. 'Oh, my dear, forgive me, forgive me!' said Fruen, and went down on her knees on the floor. 'You've seen what I did with the books, and that handkerchief with the initials on—I burnt that before, and the books, you know....' 'Yes, and—here's another handkerchief with the same initials on—' says the Captain. 'Oh, heavens! yes, you're ever so considerate, Lovise.' Fruen was all upset at that. 'I'm sorry you should have seen it,' she said. 'It must be one I brought back with me when I came home. I haven't looked through my things properly since. But does it really matter so very much? Surely—' 'Oh no,' said he. 'And if you'd only listen to me,' she went on, I'm almost certain it's you that ... I mean, that the child is yours. Why should it not be? Oh, I don't know how to say it!' 'Sit down again,' said the Captain. But Fruen must have misunderstood; she got up and said: 'There you are! You won't listen to me. Really, I can't make out why you ever wrote to me at all. You might just as well have left me alone.' Then the Captain said something about being in prison; if a man grew up in a prison yard, he said, and you take him out, he'll long to be back in his prison yard again, he said. It was something like that, anyway. 'Yes, but I was with Papa and Mama, and they weren't hard like you; they said I had been married to him, and weren't unkind to me at all. It isn't every one that looks at things like you do,' 'You don't want that candle alight now Ragnhild's gone, do you?' said the Captain. 'It looks so out of place to have it burning there beside the lamp—as if it were ashamed.' 'Ashamed of me,' she says quickly. 'Oh yes, that was what you meant. But you've been to blame as well.' 'Don't misunderstand me,' he says. 'I know I've been to blame. But that doesn't make your part any better.' 'Oh, you think not? Well, of all the.... So yours doesn't count, then?' 'Yes, I say I've been to blame, not in the way you mean, but in other ways—in old things and new.' 'Oh, indeed!' 'Yes, but I don't come home bringing the fruits of it under my heart to you.' 'No,' says Fruen, 'but you know it was you all along that wouldn't ... that didn't want us to have children. And I didn't want it, either, but you ought to have known better. And they said the same thing at home. If only I'd had a daughter....' 'Oh, don't let's go over all that again,' says the Captain—he called it something or other—a romance, I think it was. 'But it's true,' says Fruen, 'and I can't think how you can deny it.' 'I'm not denying anything. Do sit down, now, Lovise, and listen to me. All this about having children, and a daughter to bring up and so on, it's something you've picked up lately. And, you snatched at the idea at once, to save yourself. But you never said a word about wanting children before—not that I ever heard.' 'Yes, but you ought to have known better.' 'There again, that's something you've heard, something new. But it doesn't matter: quite possibly things might have been different if we'd had children. I can see that myself now, but now it's too late, more's the pity. And here you are now—like that....' 'Oh, heavens, yes! But I tell you it may be yours after all—I don't know.... Oh!...' 'Mine? said the Captain, shaking his head. 'Well, the mother should be the one to know. But in this case, it seems, she doesn't. The woman I'm married to doesn't know—or do you?' But Fruen did not answer. 'Do you know? I ask you!' Oh, but again she could not answer, only slipped down to the floor again and cried. Really, I don't know—but perhaps I'm on her side after all; it was dreadful for her, poor thing. And then I was just going to knock at the door and go in, but then the Captain went on again. 'You can't say it,' he said. 'But that's an answer in itself, and plain enough.' 'I can't say more,' said Fruen. She was still crying. 'I'm fond of you for lots of things, Lovise,' says the Captain, 'and one of them's because you're truthful.' 'Thank you,' she says. 'They haven't taught you to lie as yet. Get up, now.' And he helped her up himself, and set her in the chair. But it was pitiful to see her crying so. 'Don't cry, now,' he says. 'I want to ask you something. Shall we wait and see what it's like when it comes—what sort of eyes it has, and so on?' 'Oh, heaven bless you, yes, if you would! Oh, my dear, God bless you, God bless you.' 'And I'll try to bear with things as they are. It's an aching misery all the time, but I'll try. And I've been to blame as well.' 'God bless you, God bless you!' she said again. 'And you,' he said. 'And now good-night until tomorrow.' Then Fruen leaned down over the table and cried and cried so dreadfully. 'What are you crying for now?' he asked. 'You're going,' she said. 'Oh, I was afraid of you before, but now I can't bear to be without you. Couldn't you stay a little?' 'Stay here, with you, now?' he asked. 'Oh no, I didn't mean ... it wasn't that ... only, it's so lonely. I didn't mean....' 'No,' said the Captain. 'You can understand I don't feel like staying any longer now. Ring for the maid!'"

"And then I had to run," Ragnhild concluded.

Said Nils, after a while: "Have they gone to bed now?"

Ragnhild could not say. Yes. Perhaps. Anyhow, Cook was there in case. "But, only think of it, how dreadful! I don't suppose Fruen can sleep."

"You'd better go and see if there's anything you can do."

"Yes," said Ragnhild, getting up. "But I side with the Captain after all, and no mistake, whatever you say. Yes, that I do."

"It's none so easy to know what's right."

"Only think of letting that engineer creature.... How she ever could, I don't know! And then to go down and stay with him there, after, as she did; what a thing to do! And she's all those handkerchiefs of his, ever so many, and a lot of her own are gone; I suppose they used each other's anyhow. Lived with him, she said! And she with a husband of her own!"



XII

The Captain has done as he said about the timber; there's a cracking and crashing in the woods already. And a mild autumn, too, with no frost in the ground as yet to stop the ploughing; Nils grasps at the time like a miser, to save as much as possible next spring.

Now comes the question whether Grindhusen and I are to work on the timber. It crosses my mind that I had intended really to go off for a tramp up in the hills and over the moors while the berries were there; what about that journey now? And another thing, Grindhusen was no longer worth his keep as a wood-cutter; he could hold one end of a saw, but that was about all he was good for now.

No, for Grindhusen was changed somehow; devil knows how it had come about. He had not grown bald at all; his hair was there, and thick and red as ever. But he had picked up a deal at Ovrebo, and went about bursting with health and good feeding; well off here? He had sent good sums of money home to his family all that summer and autumn, and was full of praise for Captain and Freun, who paid such good wages and treated their folk so well. Not like the Inspector, that weighed and counted every miserable Skilling, and then, as true as God's in heaven, go and take off two Kroner that he'd given as clear as could be ... ugh! He, Grindhusen, was not the man to make a fuss about a wretched two Kroner, as long as it was a matter of any sense or reason, but to go and take it off like that—fy Fan! Would you ever find the Captain doing such a thing?

But Grindhusen was grown so cautious now, and wouldn't even get properly angry with any one. Even yet, perhaps, he might go back and work for the Inspector on the river at two Kroner a day, and humbly agree with all his master said. Age, time, had overtaken him.

It overtakes us all.

Said the Captain:

"That water-supply you spoke about—is it too late to do anything with it this year?"

"Yes," I answered.

The Captain nodded and walked away.

I ploughed one day more, then the Captain came to me again. He was out and about everywhere these days, working hard, keeping an eye on everything. He gave himself barely time for a proper meal, but was out again at once, in the fields, the barn, the cattle-sheds, or up in the woods where the men were at work.

"You'd better get to work on that water-supply," he said. "The ground's workable still, and may stay so for a long time yet. What help will you want?"

"Grindhusen can help," I said. "But...."

"Yes, and Lars. What were you going to say?"

"The frost may set in any day now."

"Well, and then it may snow and soften the ground again. We're not frost-bound here every year," said the Captain. "You'd better take a few extra hands, and set some of them to digging, the rest to the masonry work. You've done all this before, I think you said?"

"Yes."

"And I've spoken to Nils myself," he said, with a smile. "So you'll have no trouble in that way. You can put the horses in now."

So bravely cheerful he was, I could not help feeling the same, and wanted to begin at once; I hurried back with the horses, almost at a run. The Captain seemed quite eager about this water-supply, now that the place looked so nice with its new paint, and after the fine harvest we'd had. And now he was cutting a thousand dozen battens in the woods, to pay off his debts and leave something over!

So I went off up the rising ground, and found the old place I had marked down long before for the reservoir, took the depth down to the house, pacing and measuring this way and that. There was a streamlet came down from the hillside far above, with such a depth and fall that it never froze in winter; the thing would be to build a small stone reservoir here, with openings at the sides for the overflow in autumn and spring. Oh, but they should have their water-supply at Ovrebo! As for the masonry work, we could break out our stone on the site itself; there was layer on layer of granite there.

By noon next day we were hard at work, Lars Falkenberg digging the trench for the pipe-line, Grindhusen and I getting stone. We were both well used to this work from the days when we had been road-making together at Skreia.

Well and good.

We worked four days; then it was Sunday. I remember that Sunday, the sky clear and far, the leaves all fallen in the woods, and the hillside showing only its calm winter green; smoke rose from the chimney up in the clearing. Lars had borrowed a horse and cart that afternoon to drive in to the station; he had killed a pig and was sending it in to town. He was to fetch letters for the Captain on the way back.

It occurred to me that this evening would be a good time to send the lad up to the clearing for my washing: Lars was away, and no one could take offence at that washing business now.

Oh yes, I said to myself, you're very careful to do what's right and proper, sending the lad up to fetch that washing. But you'll find it isn't that at all. Right and proper, indeed; you're getting old, that's what it is.

I bore with this reproach for an hour. Then—well, it was all nonsense, like as not, and here was a lovely evening, and Sunday into the bargain, nothing to do, no one to talk to down here.... Getting old, was I? Afraid of the walk uphill?

And I went up myself.

Early next morning Lars Falkenberg came over again. He drew me aside, as he had done once before, and with the same intent: I had been up to the clearing yesterday, it seemed; it was to be the last time, and would I please to make no mistake about that!

"It was the last of my washing, anyhow," I said.

"Oh, you and your washing! As if I couldn't have brought along your miserable shirt a hundred times since you've been here!"

Now, by what sort of magic had he got to know of my little walk up there already? Ragnhild, of course, at her old tricks again—it could be no one else. There was no doing anything with that girl.

But now, as it happened, Nils was at hand this time, as he had been the time before. He came strolling over innocently from the kitchen, and in a moment Lars's anger was turned upon him instead.

"Here's the other scarecrow coming up, too," says Lars, "and he's a long sight worse than you."

"What's that you say?" said Nils.

"What's that you say!" retorted Lars. "You go home and rinse your mouth with a mixture or something, and see if you can talk plain," said he.

Nils stopped short at this, and came up to see what it was all about.

"I don't know what you're talking about," said he.

"No, of course not. You don't know anything that's any sense. But you know all about ploughing in standing crops, don't you? There's not many can beat you at that."

But here Nils grew angry for once, and his cheeks paled.

"What an utter fool you are, Lars! Can't you keep your mouth shut with that nonsense?"

"Fool, eh? Hark at the silly goat!" said Lars, turning to me. "Thinks himself mighty fine, doesn't he? 'Utter'" he says—and goes white about it. "I've been more years than you at Ovrebo, and asked in to sing up at the house of an evening more than once, let me tell you. But things have changed since then, and what have we got instead? You remember," he said, turning to me, "what it was like in the old days. It was Lars here and Lars there, and I never heard but the work got done all right. And after me it was Albert, that was here for eighteen months. But then you, Nils, came along, and now it's toil and moil and ploughing and carting manure day and night, till a man's worn to a thread with it all."

Nils and I could not help laughing at this. And Lars was in no way offended; he seemed quite pleased at having said something funny, and, forgetting his ill-will, joined in the laugh himself.

"Yes, I say it straight out," said he. "And if it wasn't for you being a friendly sort between whiles—no, friendly I won't say, but someways decent and to get on with after a fashion ... if it wasn't for that...."

"Well, what then?"

Lars was getting more and more good humoured. "Oh," he said, with a laugh, "I could just pick you up and stuff you down in your own long boots."

"Like to feel my arm?" said Nils.

"What's going on here?" asked the Captain, coming up. It was only six o'clock, but he was out and about already.

"Nothing," said Lars and Nils as well.

"How's the reservoir getting on?" asked the Captain. This was to me, but before I could answer he turned to Nils. "I shall want the boy to drive me to the station," he said. "I'm going to Christiania."

Grindhusen and I went off to our work on the reservoir, and Lars to his digging. But a shadow seemed to have fallen over us all.

Grindhusen himself said openly: "Pity the Captain's going away."

I thought so, too. But he was obliged to go in on business, no doubt. There were the crops as well as the timber to be sold. But why should he start at that hour of the day? He couldn't catch the early train in any case. Had there been trouble again? Was he anxious to be out of the way before Fruen got up?

* * * * *

Trouble there was, often enough.

It had gone so far by this time that the Captain and Fruen hardly spoke to one another, and whenever they did exchange a word it was in a careless tone, and looking all the other way. Now and again the Captain would look his wife properly in the face, and say she ought to be out more in the lovely air; and once when she was outside he asked if she wouldn't come in and play a little. But this, perhaps, was only to keep up appearances, no more.

It was pitiful to see.

Fruen was quiet and nice. Now and again she would stand outside on the steps looking out towards the hills; so soft her features were, and her reddish yellow hair. But it was dull for her now—no visitors, no music and entertaining, nothing but sorrow and shame.

The Captain had promised to bear with things as they were, and surely he was bearing all he could. But he could do no more. Disaster had come to the home, and the best will in the world could not shoulder it off. If Fruen happened to be hasty, as she might now and then, and forgot to be grateful, the Captain would look down at the floor, and it would not be long before he put on his hat and went out. All the maids knew about it, and I had seen it myself once or twice. He never forgot what she had done—how could he?—though he could keep from speaking of it. But could he keep from speaking of it when she forgot herself and said:

"You know I'm not well just now; you know I can't walk far like I used to!"

"S—sh, Lovise!" he would say, with a frown. And then the mischief was there as bad as ever.

"Oh, of course you must bring that up again!"

"No, indeed! It's you that brought it up yourself. You've lost all sense of modesty, I think; you seem to have no shame left."

"Oh, I wish I'd never come back at all! I was better off at home!"

"Yes, or living with that puppy, I dare say."

"You said he'd helped you once yourself. And I often wish I were back there with him again. Hugo's a great deal better than you are."

She was all irresponsible in her words, going, perhaps, further than she meant. But she was changed out of knowledge to us all, and spoiled and shameless now. Fru Falkenberg shameless! Nay, perhaps not; who could say? Yet she was not ashamed to come out in the kitchen of an evening and say nice things to Nils about how young and strong he was. I was jealous again, no doubt, and envied Nils for his youth, for I thought to myself: Is every one gone mad? Surely we older ones are far to be preferred! Was it his innocence that attracted her? Or was she merely trying to keep up her spirits a little—trying to be younger than she was? But then one day she came up to the reservoir where Grindhusen and I were at work, and sat watching us for a while. It was easy work then for half an hour; the granite turned pliable, and yielded to our will; we built away like giants. Oh, but Fruen sat there irresponsible as ever, letting her eyes play this way and that. Why could she not rid herself of this new habit of hers? Her eyes were too earnest for such playing; it did not suit her. I thought to myself, either she was trying to make up for her foolishness towards Nils by favouring us in turn, or starting a new game altogether— which would it be? I could not make it out, and as for Grindhusen, he saw nothing in it at all, but only said, when Fruen had gone: "Eh, she's a strange, kind-hearted soul, is Fruen. Almost like a mother. Only fancy going and feeling if the water wasn't too cold for us!"

One day, when I was standing by the kitchen entrance, she said:

"Do you remember the old days here—when you first came?"

She had never once spoken of this till now, and I did not know what to say. I stammered out: Yes, I remembered.

"You drove me down to the Vicarage once," she said.

Then I half fancied that perhaps she was not disinclined to talk to me and occupy her mind a little; I felt I must help her, make it easier for her. And perhaps I was a little touched myself at the thought.

"Yes," I said, "I remember. It was a glorious drive. But Fruen must have found it cold towards the last."

"It was you that must have felt cold," she answered. "You lent me your own rug from the box. Oh, you poor thing!"

I was even more moved at this, and foolish ideas came into my head. Ah, then she had not forgotten me! The few years that had passed since then had not made so much difference in me after all!

"Fruen must be mistaken about the rug, I think," said I. "But I remember we stopped at a cottage to eat, and the woman made coffee, and you gave me things yourself."

As I spoke, I leaned up against the fence, with my arms round a post. Perhaps this somehow offended her, looking as if I expected her to stand gossiping there with me. And then I had said, "We stopped at a cottage," as if we had been equals. It was a bad mistake on my part, of course, but I had got a little out of hand after all these vagabond months.

I stood up straight again the moment I saw she was displeased, but it was too late. She was just as kind as ever, but she had grown suspicious and easily hurt with all her trouble, and found rudeness in what was merely awkwardness of mine.

"Well, well," she said, "I hope you find yourself as comfortable now at Ovrebo as before."

And she nodded and walked away.

* * * * *

Some days passed. The Captain had not come back, but he had sent a post card, with a kind message, to Fruen: he hoped to be home again next week. He was also sending pipes, taps, and cement for the water supply.

Fruen showed me that card. "Here," she said, "the Captain has sent these things for your work. You had better get them down from the station."

We stood there together, looking at the card; mid-day it was, and we were just outside the house. I can't say how it was, but I was standing there quite close to her, with my head bent in towards hers, and it made me feel happy all through. When she had finished reading she looked up at me. No play of her eyes now; but she must have caught some expression in my face, for she looked at me still. Did she feel my presence as I felt hers? Those two heavy eyes raised towards mine and held there were loaded to the brim with love. She could not be responsible for her actions now. There was a pathological depth in her glance, an influence from far within, from the life she bore under her heart. Her breath came heavily, her face flushed dark all over, then she swung round and walked slowly away.

There I stood, with the card in my hand. Had she given it to me? Had I taken it?

"Your card," I said. "Shall I...."

She held out her hand without looking round, and walked on.

This little episode occupied my mind a great deal for some days. Ought I to have gone after her when she walked away? Oh, I might have tried, might have made the attempt—her door was not far off. Pathological? But what had she brought me the card for at all? She could have told me by word of mouth what there was to say. I called to mind how six years before we had stood in just that same way reading a telegram the Captain had sent her. Did she find pleasure in situations of that sort, and go out of her way to seek them?

Next time I saw her there was no trace of any embarassment in her manner— she was kind and cold. So I had to let it drop altogether. And, anyhow, what did I want with her at all? No, indeed!

Some visitors came to see her one day—a neighbour's wife, with her daughter. They had heard, no doubt, that the Captain was away, and thought she might be glad of a little society; or perhaps they had come out of curiosity. They were well received; Fru Falkenberg was amiable as ever, and even played the piano for them. When they left, she went with them down to the road, talking sensibly of practical affairs, though she might well have had other things in her head than coops and killing pigs. Oh, she was full of kindly interest in it all! "Come again soon—or you, at any rate, Sofie...." "Thanks, thanks. But aren't you ever coming over to us at Nedrebo?" "Oh, I? Of course—yes. I'd walk down with you now if it weren't so late." "Well, tomorrow, then?" "Yes, perhaps I might come over tomorrow.—Oh, is that you?" This was to Ragnhild, who had come down with a shawl. "Oh, what an idea!—did you think I should catch cold?"

Altogether things were looking brighter now at Ovrebo; we no longer felt that shadow of uneasiness over us all. Grindhusen and I worked away at our famous reservoir, and Lars was getting on farther every day with his trench. Seeing the Captain was away, I wanted to make the most of the time, and perhaps have the work nearly done by the time he came back; it would be a grand thing if we could get it finished altogether! He would be all the better for a pleasant little surprise, for—yes, there had been something of a scene the night before he left. Some new reminder, no doubt, of the trouble that had come upon his house; a book, perhaps, still unburnt, lying about in Fruen's room. He had ended up by saying: "Anyhow, I'm cutting timber now to pay it off. And the harvest we've got in means a lot of money. So I hope the Lord will forgive me—as I do Him. Good-night, Lovise."

When we had laid the last stone of the reservoir, and cement over all, I went down with Grindhusen to help Lars with the trench—we took a section each. The work went on easily and with a will—here and there a stone had to be blasted out, or a tree felled up in the woods; but the trench moved steadily upwards, until we had a long black line from the house to the reservoir itself. Then we went back again and dug it out to the proper depth. This was no ornamental work, but a trench—an underground resting place for some pipes that were to be buried on the spot. All we were concerned with was to get down below the reach of frost, and that before the frost itself came to hinder us. Already it was coating the fields at night. Nils himself left all else now, and came to lend a hand.

But masonry and digging trenches are but work for the hands; my brain in its idleness was busy all the while with every conceivable idea. As often as I thought of that episode with the post card, it sent, as it were, a glow all through me. Why should I think any more about it? No, of course not. And I had not followed her to the door after all.

But there she stood, and you there. Her breath came towards you—a taste of flesh. Out of a darkness she was, nay, not of earth. And her eyes—did you mark her eyes?