Growth of the Soil (45 page)

Here comes Inger. "Isak, come in and have your food now," says she, kindly and pleasant as can be.

"Ay," says he, but will have her no nearer, and wants no questions.

Oh, but Inger, never dreaming, she comes nearer.

"What's in your mind now?" she asks, to soften him with a hint of the way he thinks out some new grand thing almost every day.

But Isak is sullen, terribly sullen and stern; he says: "Nay, I don't
know."

And Inger again, foolish that she is--ugh, keeps on talking and asking
and will not go.

"Seeing as you've seen it yourself," says he at last, "I'm getting up
this stone here."

"Ho, going to get him up?"

"Ay."

"And couldn't I help a bit at all?" she asks.

Isak shakes his head. But it was a kindly thought, anyway, that she would have helped him, and he can hardly be harsh in return.

"If you just wait the least bit of a while," says he, and runs home
for the hammers.

If he could only get the stone rough a bit, knocking off a flake or so in the right spot, it would give the lever a better hold. Inger holds the setting-hammer, and Isak strikes. Strikes, strikes. Ay, sure enough, off goes a flake. "'Twas a good help," says Isak, "and thanks. But don't trouble about food for me this bit of a while, I must get this stone up first."

But Inger does not go. And to tell the truth, Isak is pleased enough to have her there watching him at his work; 'tis a thing has always pleased him, since their young days. And lo, he gets a fine purchase now on the lever, and puts his weight into it--the stone moves! "He's moving," says Inger.

"'Tis but your nonsense," says Isak.

"Nonsense, indeed! But it is!"

Got so far, then--and that was something. The stone was, so to speak, converted now, was on his side; they were working together. Isak hoists and heaves with his lever, and the stone moves, but no more. He keeps at it a while, nothing more. All at once he understands that it is not merely a question of weight, the dead pull of his body; no, the fact is that he has no longer his old strength, he has lost the tough agility that makes all the difference. Weight? An easy matter enough to hang on with his weight and break an iron-shod pole. No, he was weakening, that was it. And the patient man is filled with bitterness at the thought--at least he might have been spared the shame of having Inger here to see it!

Suddenly he drops the lever and grasps the sledge. A fury takes him, he is minded to go at it violently now. And see, his cap still hangs on one ear, robber-fashion, and now he steps mightily, threateningly, round the stone, trying, as it were, to set himself in the proper light; ho, he will leave that stone a ruin and a wreck of what it had been. Why not? When a man is filled with mortal hatred of a stone, it is a mere formality to crush it. And suppose the stone resists, suppose it declines to be crushed? Why, let it try--and see which of the two survives!

But then it is that Inger speaks up, a little timidly, again; seeing, no doubt, what is troubling him: "What if we both hang on the stick there?" And the thing she calls a stick is the lever, nothing else.

"No!" cries Isak furiously. But after a moment's thought he says: "Well, well, since you're here--though you might as well have gone home. Let's try."

And they get the stone up on edge. Ay, they manage that. And "Puh!"
says Isak.

But now comes a revelation, a strange thing to see. The underside of the stone is flat, mightily broad, finely cut, smooth and even as a floor. The stone is but the half of a stone, the other half is somewhere close by, no doubt. Isak knows well enough that two halves of the same stone may lie in different places; the frost, no doubt, that in course of time had shifted them apart. But he is all wonder and delight at the find; 'tis a useful stone of the best, a door-slab. A round sum of money would not have filled this fieldworker's mind with such content. "A fine door-slab," says he proudly.

And Inger, simple creature: "Why! Now how on earth could you tell that
beforehand?"

"H'm," says Isak. "Think I'd go here digging about for nothing?"

They walk home together, Isak enjoying new admiration on false pretences; 'twas something he had not deserved, but it tasted but little different from the real thing. He lets it be understood that he has been looking out for a suitable door-slab for a long time, and had found it at last. After that, of course, there could be nothing in the least suspicious about his working there again; he could root about as much as he pleased on pretext of looking for the other half. And when Sivert came home, he could get him to help.

But if it had come to this, that he could no longer go out alone and heave up a stone, why, things were sorely changed; ay, 'twas a bad look-out, and the more need to get that site cleared quick as might be. Age was upon him, he was ripening for the chimney-corner. The triumph he had stolen in the matter of the door-slab faded away in a few days; 'twas a false thing, and not made to last. Isak stooped a little now in his walk.

Had he not once been so much of a man that he grew wakeful and attentive in a moment if one but said a word of stone, a word of digging? And 'twas no long time since, but a few years, no more. Ay, and in those days, folk that were shy of a bit of draining work kept out of his way. Now he was beginning, little by little, to take such matters more calmly; eyah,
Herregud
! All things were changed, the land itself was different now, with broad telegraph roads up through the woods, that had not been there before, and rocks blasted and sundered up by the water, as they had not been before. And folk, too, were changed. They did not greet coming and going as in the old days, but nodded only, or maybe not even that.

But then--in the old days there had been no Sellanraa, but only a turf hut, while now.... There had been no Margrave in the old days.

Ay, but Margrave, what was he now? A pitiful thing, nothing superhuman, but old and fading, going the way of all flesh. What though he had good bowels, and could eat well, when it gave him no strength? 'Twas Sivert had the strength now, and a mercy it was so--but think, if Isak had had it too! A sorry thing, to find his works running down. He had toiled like a man, carrying loads enough for any beast of burden; now, he could exercise his patience in resting.

Isak is ill-pleased, heavy at heart.

Here lies an old hat, an old sou'wester, rotting on the ground. Carried there by the gale, maybe, or maybe the lads had brought it there to the edge of the wood years ago, when they were little ones. It lies there year after year, rotting and rotting away; but once it had been a new sou'wester, all yellow and new. Isak remembers the day he came home with it from the store, and Inger had said it was a fine hat. A year or so after, he had taken it to a painter down in the village, and had it blacked and polished, and the brim done in green. And when he came home, Inger thought it a finer hat than before. Inger always thought everything was fine; ay, 'twas a good life those days, cutting faggots, with Inger to look on--his best days. And when March and April came, Inger and he would be wild after each other, just like the birds and beasts in the woods; and when May was come, he would sow his corn and plant potatoes, living and thriving from day to dawn. Work and sleep, loving and dreaming, he was like the first big ox, and that was a wonder to see, big and bright as a king. But there was no such May to the years now. No such thing.

Isak was sorely despondent for some days. Dark days they were. He felt neither wish nor strength to start work on the fodder loft--that could be left for Sivert to do some day. The thing to be done now was the house for himself--the last house to build. He could not long hide from Sivert what he was doing; he was clearing the ground, and plain to see what for. And one day he told.

"There's a good bit of stone if we'd any use for stonework," said he.
"And there's another."

Sivert showed no surprise, and only said: "Ay, first-rate stones."

"What you might think," said his father.

"We've been digging round here now to find that other door-slab piece; might almost do to build here. I don't know...."

"Ay, 'tis no bad place to build," said Sivert, looking round.

"Think so? 'Twas none so bad, maybe, to have a bit of a place to house folk if any should come along."

"Ay."

"A couple of rooms'd be as well. You saw how 'twas when they Swedish gentlemen came, and no proper place to house them. But what you think: a bit of a kitchen as well, maybe, if 'twas any cooking to be done?"

"Ay, 'twould be a shame to built with never a bit of kitchen," says
Sivert.

"You think so?"

Isak said no more. But Sivert, he was a fine lad to grasp things, and get into his head all at once just what was needed in a place to put up Swedish gentlemen that chanced to come along; never so much as asked a single question, but only said: "Doing it my way, now, you'd put up a bit of a shed on the north wall. Folks coming along, 'd be useful to have a shed place to hang up wet clothes and things."

And his father agrees at once: "Ay, the very thing."

They work at their stones again in silence. Then asks Isak: "Eleseus, he's not come home, I suppose?"

And Sivert answers evasively: "He'll be coming home soon."

'Twas that way with Eleseus: he was all for staying away, living away on journeys. Couldn't he have written for the goods? But he must go round and buy them on the spot. Got them so much cheaper. Ay, maybe, but what about cost of the journey? He had his own way of thinking, it seemed. And then, what did he want, anyway, with more cotton stuff, and coloured ribbons for christening caps, and black and white straw hats, and long tobacco pipes? No one ever bought such things up in the hills; and the village folk, they only came up to Storborg when they'd no money. Eleseus was clever enough in his way--only to see him write on a paper, or do sums with a bit of chalk! "Ay, with a head like yours," said folk, admiring him. And that was true enough; but he was spending overmuch. They village folk never paid their owings, and yet even a fellow like Brede Olsen could come up to Storborg that winter and get cotton print and coffee and molasses and paraffin on credit.

Isak has laid out a deal of money already for Eleseus, and his store and his long journeyings about; there's not overmuch left now out of the riches from the mine--and what then?

"How d'you think he's getting on, Eleseus?" asks Isak suddenly.

"Getting on?" says Sivert, to gain time.

"Doesn't seem to be doing so well."

"H'm. He says it'll go all right."

"You spoken to him about it?"

"Nay; but Andresen he says so."

Isak thought over this, and shook his head. "Nay, I doubt it's going ill," says he. "Tis a pity for the lad."

And Isak gloomier than ever now, for all he'd been none too bright
before.

But then Sivert flashes out a bit of news: "There's more folk coming
to live now."

"How d'you say?"

"Two new holdings. They've bought up close by us."

Isak stands still with his crowbar in hand; this was news, and good news, the best that could be. "That makes ten of us here," says he. And Isak learns exactly where the new men have bought, he knows the country all round in his head, and nods. "Ay, they've done well there; wood for firing in plenty, and some big timber here and there. Ground slopes down sou'west. Ay...."

Settlers--nothing could beat them, anyway--here were new folk coming to live. The mine had come to nothing, but so much the better for the land. A desert, a dying place? Far from it, all about was swarming with life; two new men, four new hands to work, fields and meadows and homes. Oh, the little green tracts in a forest, a hut and water, children and cattle about. Corn waving on the moorlands where naught but horsetail grew before, bluebells nodding on the fells, and yellow sunlight blazing in the ladyslipper flowers outside a house. And human beings living there, move and talk and think and are there with heaven and earth.

Here stands the first of them all, the first man in the wilds. He came that way, kneedeep in marsh-growth and heather, found a sunny slope and settled there. Others came after him, they trod a path across the waste
Almenning
; others again, and the path became a road; carts drove there now. Isak may be content, may start with a little thrill of pride; he was the founder of a district, the pioneer.

"Look here, we can't go wasting time on this bit of a house place if we're to get that fodder loft done this year," says he.

With a new brightness, new spirit; as it were, new courage and life.

A woman tramping up along the road. A steady summer rain falls, wetting her, but she does not heed it; other things are in her mind--anxiety. Barbro it is, and no other--Brede's girl, Barbro. Anxious, ay; not knowing how the venture will end; she has gone from service at the Lensmand's, and left the village. That is the matter.

She keeps away from all the farms on the road up, unwilling to meet with folk; easy to see where she was going, with a bundle of clothing on her back. Ay, going to Maaneland, to take service there again.

Ten months she has been at the Lensmand's now, and 'tis no little time, reckoned out in days and nights, but an eternity reckoned in longing and oppression. It had been bearable at first, Fru Heyerdahl looking after her kindly, giving her aprons and neat things to wear; 'twas a joy to be sent on errands to the store with such fine clothes to wear. Barbro had been in the village as a child; she knew all the village folk from the days when she had played there, gone to school there, kissed the lads there, and joined in many games with stones and shells. Bearable enough for a month or so. But then Fru Heyerdahl had begun to be even more careful about her, and when the Christmas festivities began, she was strict. And what good could ever come of that? It was bound to spoil things. Barbro could never have endured it but that she had certain hours of the night to herself; from two to six in the morning she was more or less safe, and had stolen pleasures not a few. What about Cook, then, for not reporting her? A nice sort of woman she must be! Oh, an ordinary woman enough, as the world finds them; Cook went out without leave herself. They took it in turns. And it was quite a long time before they were found out. Barbro was by no means so depraved that it showed in her face, impossible to accuse her of immorality. Immorality? She made all the resistance one could expect. When young men asked her to go to a Christmas dance, she said "No" once, said "No" twice, but the third time she would say: "I'll try and come from two to six." Just as a decent woman should, not trying to make herself out worse than she is, and making a display of daring. She was a servant-girl, serving all her time, and knew no other recreation than fooling with men. It was all she asked for. Fru Heyerdahl came and lectured her, lent her books--and a fool for her pains. Barbro had lived in Bergen and read the papers and been to the theatre! She was no innocent lamb from the countryside ...