Growth of the Soil (42 page)

No! The court could never convict this girl. It was not the object of a trial to secure an addition to the number of criminals, but rather to restore to society a good and useful member. It should be noted that the accused had now the prospect of a new position where she would be under the best possible supervision. Fru Lensmand Heyerdahl had, from her intimate knowledge of the girl, and from her own valuable experience as a mother, thrown wide the doors of her own home to the girl; the court would bear in mind the weight of responsibility attaching to its decision here, and would then convict or acquit the accused. Finally, he wished to express his thanks to the learned counsel for the prosecution, who had generously refrained from demanding a conviction--a pleasing evidence of deep and humane understanding.

The advocate for the defence sat down.

The remainder of the proceedings did not take long. The summing up was but a repetition of the same points, as viewed from opposite sides, a brief synopsis of the action of the play, dry, dull, and dignified. It had all been managed very satisfactorily all round; both the advocates had pointed out what the court should consider, and the presiding justice found his task easy enough.

Lights were lit, a couple of lamps hanging from the ceiling--a miserable light it was, the justice could hardly see to read his notes. He mentioned with some severity the point that the child's death had not been duly notified to the proper authorities--but that, under the circumstances, should be considered rather the duty of the father than of the mother, owing to her weakness at the time. The court had then to determine whether any case had been proved with regard to concealment of birth and infanticide. Here the evidence was again recapitulated from beginning to end. Then came the usual injunction as to being duly conscious of responsibility, which the court had heard before, and finally, the not uncommon reminder that in cases of doubt, the scale should be allowed to turn in favour of the accused.

And now all was clear and ready.

The judges left the room and went into another apartment. They were to consider a paper with certain questions, which one of them had with him. They were away five minutes, and returned with a "No" to all the questions.

No, the girl Barbro had not killed her child.

Then the presiding judge said a few more words, and declared that the girl Barbro was now free.

The court-house emptied, the comedy was over....

Someone takes Axel Ström by the arm: it is Geissler. "H'm," said he, "so you're done with that now!"

"Ay," said Axel.

"But they've wasted a lot of your time to no purpose."

"Ay," said Axel again. But he was coming to himself again gradually,
and after a moment he added: "None the less, I'm glad it was no
worse."

"No worse?" said Geissler. "I'd have liked to see them try!" He spoke with emphasis, and Axel fancied Geissler must have had something to do with the case himself; that he had intervened. Heaven knows if, after all, it had not been Geissler himself that had led the whole proceedings and gained the result he wished. It was a mystery, anyway.

So much at least Axel understood, that Geissler had been on his side
all through.

"I've a deal to thank you for," said he, offering his hand.

"What for?" asked Geissler.

"Why, for--for all this."

Geissler turned it off shortly. "I've done nothing at all. Didn't trouble to do, anything--'twasn't worth while." But for all that, Geissler was not displeased, maybe, at being thanked; it was as if he had been waiting for it, and now it had come. "I've no time to stand talking now," he said. "Going back tomorrow, are you? Good. Good-bye, then, and good luck to you." And Geissler strolled off across the street.

* * * * *

On the boat going home, Axel encountered the Lensmand and his wife, Barbro and the two girls called as witnesses.

"Well," said Fru Heyerdahl, "aren't you glad it turned out so well?"

Axel said, "Yes"; he was glad it had come out all right in the end.

The Lensmand himself put in a word, and said: "This is the second of these cases I've had while I've been here--first with Inger from Sellanraa, and now this. No, it's no good trying to countenance that sort of thing--justice must take its course."

But Fru Heyerdahl guessed, no doubt, that Axel was not over pleased with her speech of the day before, and tried to smooth it over, to make up for it somehow now. "You understood, of course, why I had to say all that about you yesterday?"

"H'm--ye--es," said Axel.

"You understood, of course, I know. You didn't think I wanted to make things harder for you in any way. I've always thought well of you, and I don't mind saying so."

"Ay," said Axel, no more. But he was pleased and touched at her words.

"Yes, I mean it," said Fru Heyerdahl. "But I was obliged to try and shift the blame a little your way, otherwise Barbro would have been convicted, and you too. It was all for the best, indeed it was."

"I thank you kindly," said Axel.

"And it was I and no other that went about from one to another through the place, trying to do what I could for you both. And you saw, of course, that we all had to do the same thing--make out that you were partly to blame, so as to get you both off in the end."

"Ay," said Axel.

"Surely you didn't imagine for a moment that I meant any harm to you? When I've always thought so well of you!"

Ay, this was good to hear after all the disgrace of it. Axel, at any rate, was so touched that he felt he must do something, give Fru Heyerdahl something or other, whatever he could find--a piece of meat perhaps, now autumn was come. He had a young bull....

Fru Lensmand Heyerdahl kept her word; she took Barbro to live with her. On board the steamer, too, she looked after the girl, and saw that she was not cold, nor hungry; took care, also, that she did not get up to any nonsense with the mate from Bergen. The first time it occurred, she said nothing, but simply called Barbro to her. But a little while after there was Barbro with him again, her head on one side, talking Bergen dialect and smiling. Then her mistress called her up and said: "Really, Barbro, you ought not to be going on like that among the men now. Remember what you've just been through, and what you've come from."

"I was only talking to him a minute," said Barbro. "I could hear he
was from Bergen."

Axel did not speak to her. He noticed that she was pale and clear-skinned now, and her teeth were better. She did not wear either of his rings....

And now here is Axel tramping up to his own place once more. Wind and rain, but he is glad at heart; a mowing-machine and a harrow down at the quay; he had seen them. Oh, that Geissler! Never a word had he said in town about what he had sent. Ay, an unfathomable man was Geissler.

Axel had no long time to rest at home, as it turned out; the autumn gales led to fresh trouble and bothersome work that he had brought upon himself: the telegraph apparatus on his wall announced that the line was out of order.

Oh, but he had been thinking overmuch of the money, surely, when he took on that post. It had been a nuisance from the start. Brede Olsen had fairly threatened him when he went down to fetch the apparatus and tools; ay, had said to him in as many words: "You don't seem like remembering how I saved your life last winter!"

"'Twas Oline saved my life," answered Axel.

"Ho, indeed! And didn't I carry you down myself on my own poor shoulders? Anyway, you were clever enough to buy up my place in summer-time and leave me homeless in the winter." Ay, Brede was deeply offended; he went on:

"But you can take the telegraph for me, ay, all the rubble of it for me. I and mine we'll go down to the village and start on something there--you don't know what it'll be, but wait and see. What about a hotel place where folk can get coffee? You see but we'll manage all right. There's my wife can sell things to eat and drink as well as another, and I can go out on business and make a heap more than you ever did. But I don't mind telling you, Axel, I could make things awkward for you in many odd ways, seeing all I know about the telegraph and things; ay, 'twould be easy enough both to pull down poles and cut the line and all. And then you to go running out after it midway in the busy time. That's all I'll say to you, Axel, and you bear it in mind...."

Now Axel should have been down and brought up the machines from the quay--all over gilt and colouring they were, like pictures to see. And he might have had them to look at all that day, and learn the manner of using them--but now they must wait. 'Twas none so pleasant to have to put aside all manner of necessary work to run and see after a telegraph line. But 'twas the money....

Up on the top of the hill he meets Aronsen. Ay, Aronsen the trader standing there looking and gazing out into the storm, like a vision himself. What did he want there? No peace in his mind now, it seems, but he must go up the fjeld himself and look at the mine with his own eyes. And this, look you, Trader Aronsen had done from sheer earnest thought of his own and his family's future. Here he is, face to face with bare desolation on the forsaken hills, machines lying there to rust, carts and material of all sorts left out in the open--'twas dismal to see. Here and there on the walls of the huts were placards, notices written by hand, forbidding any one to damage or remove the company's property--tools, carts, or buildings.

Axel stops for a few words with the mad trader, and asks if he has
come out shooting.

"Shooting? Ay, if I could only get within reach of him!"

"Him? Who, then?"

"Why, him that's ruining me and all the rest of us hereabout. Him that won't sell his bit of fjeld and let things get to work again, and trade and money passing same as before."

"D'you mean him Geissler, then?"

"Ay, 'tis him I mean. Ought to be shot!"

Axel laughs at this, and says: "Geissler he was in town but a few days back; you should have talked to him there. But if I might be so bold as to say, I doubt you'd better leave him alone, after all."

"And why?" asks Aron angrily.

"Why? I've a mind he'd be overwise and mysterious for you in the end."

They argued over this for a while, and Aronsen grew more excited than ever. At last Axel asked jestingly: "Well, anyway, you'll not be so hard on us all to run away and leave us to ourselves in the wilds?"

"Huh! Think I'm going to stay fooling about here in your bogs and never so much as making the price of a pipe?" cried Aron indignantly. "Find me a buyer and I'll sell out."

"Sell out?" says Axel. "The land's good ordinary land if she's handled as should be--and what you've got's enough to keep a man."

"Haven't I just said I'll not touch it?" cried Aronsen again in the gale. "I can do better than that!"

Axel thought if that was so, 'twould be easy to find a buyer; but Aronsen laughed scornfully at the idea--there was nobody there in the wilds had money to buy him out.

"Not here in the wilds, maybe, but elsewhere."

"Here's naught but filth and poverty," said Aron bitterly.

"Why, that's as it may be," said Axel in some offence. "But Isak up at Sellanraa he could buy you out any day."

"Don't believe it," said Aronsen.

"'Tis all one to me what you believe," said Axel, and turned to go.

Aronsen called after him: "Hi, wait a bit! What's that you say--Isak might take the place, was that what you said?"

"Ay," said Axel, "if 'twas only the money. He's means enough to buy up five of your Storborg and all!"

Aronsen had gone round keeping wide of Sellanraa on his way up, taking care not to be seen; but, going back, he called in and had a talk with Isak. But Isak only shook his head and said nay, 'twas a matter he'd never thought of, and didn't care to.

But when Eleseus came back home that Christmas, Isak was easier to deal with. True, he maintained that it was a mad idea to think of buying Storborg, 'twas nothing had ever been in his mind; still, if Eleseus thought he could do anything with the place, why, they might think it over.

Eleseus himself was midways between, as it were; not exactly eager for it, yet not altogether indifferent. If he did settle down here at home, then his career in one way was at an end. 'Twas not like being in a town. That autumn, when a lot of people from his parts had been up for cross-examination in a certain place, he had taken care not to show himself; he had no desire to meet any that knew him from that quarter; they belonged to another world. And was he now to go back to that same world himself?

His mother was all for buying the place; Sivert, too, said it would be best. They stuck to Eleseus both of them, and one day the three drove down to Storborg to see the wonder with their own eyes.

But once there was a prospect of selling, Aronsen became a different man; he wasn't pressed to get rid of it, not at all. If he did go away, the place could stand as it was; 'twas a first-rate holding, a "cash down" place, there'd be no difficulty in selling it any time. "You'd not give my price," said Aronsen.

They went over the house and stores, the warehouse and sheds, inspected the miserable remains of the stock, consisting of a few mouth-organs, watch-chains, boxes of coloured papers, lamps with hanging ornaments, all utterly unsaleable to sensible folks that lived on their land. There were a few cases of nails and some cotton print, and that was all.

Eleseus was constrained to show off a bit, and looked over things with a knowing air. "I've no use for that sort of truck," said he.

"Why, then, you've no call to buy it," said Aronsen.

"Anyhow, I'll offer you fifteen hundred
Kroner
for the place as it stands, with goods, live stock, and the rest," said Eleseus. Oh, he was careless, enough; his offer was but a show, for something to say.

And they drove back home. No, there was no deal; Eleseus had made a ridiculous offer, that Aronsen regarded as an insult. "I don't think much of you, young man," said Aronsen; ay, calling him young man, considering him but a slip of a lad that had grown conceited in the town, and thought to teach him, Aronsen, the value of goods.