In the Wilderness (13 page)

After a while he came out into a field, where red-dappled cattle were grazing in the fog. Olav called to the old man who was
herding them, but received no answer that he could understand. Again a while, and he was in a little village street, and now he could ask his way, so that he reached London just as the sun was breaking through and all the bells of the city were ringing. He entered by one of the gates on the east side—he had gone a great way round out in the country. Olav looked neither to the right nor to the left; half-asleep he limped through the town, ragged, bespattered, and torn about the face. Down at the hithe he found a waterman to take him off to his ship.

The others had come home the evening before. They seemed to be glad when Olav came aboard. He told them he had been surrounded by some men who tried to rob him, in the forest, but he had cut his way out in the darkness, and after that he had lost himself. Not much more was said about it. But when Galfrid was helping him and washing away the clotted blood, and Leif came with a bucket of water, the lad could not contain himself.

“So it was you, Olav, not I, that came home at last with a hole in his skin,” he said with a sly smile.

“Ay, one never knows—” Olav shrugged his shoulders.

Galfrid bound up his hand and bandaged his thigh. The other scratches were nothing.

Olav stayed on board for the most part, during the week they lay by Thames-side. Then they sailed home.

O
LAV
sailed home down the Oslo Fiord one morning with a fresh northerly breeze; it was a day of blue sky and sparkling sunshine, and the fiord lay dark, flecked with white foam. Every tree on the wooded slopes of the shore was bright and glorious; the wind tore the first yellow leaves from the tops of the birches. The surf creamed white over every skerry and around every islet with its yellow, sun-scorched grass among grey rocks—Olav thought the very spray that sprinkled him felt good and homely, different from the empty sea. Once more he sat steering his own boat; long enough had he been away from all that was his. All was well at Hestviken, said Arnketil.

Olav called to Eirik forward, who had stood up and was about to fall over the thwart as the boat dipped into the trough of a wave.

It was marvellous how the boy had grown. Eirik had come up to the town with Arnketil to fetch the master home, but Olav had had little leisure to talk to them, the few days he had to stay in Oslo, and moreover Eirik worried him with all the questions he asked about his voyage to England. Olav himself was not very well pleased with the way it had turned out; the profits were wellnigh swallowed up by the expenses, and he would rather have had no more talk of it. With some surprise Olav had remarked that Eirik offered to answer back, with sullen disrespect—evidently it had not been good for the lad to pass the whole summer with no one over him to keep him in order. But now, as he sailed home by the familiar channel, with Haa Isle and Hougsvik Sound ahead, he was more inclined to forget the boy’s ill manners and to be friendly with him. So when Eirik came straddling aft and took his seat on the thwart facing his father, Olav nodded. Eirik burst into the story of a murder that had been done in the parish on the eve of St. James
⁵
—and he himself had had leave to ride with Baard of Skikkjustad to the Thing. Olav nodded unconcernedly—he knew neither the slain man nor the slayer; they were strangers who had served on one of the farms in the forest tract to the north.

And Beauty had had two calves, Eirik went on.

“That was news!” Olav gave a little laugh.

And Ragna had two sons on the eve of St. Cnut
⁶
—

“That was not so well,” Olav commented with a smile. “ ’Tis many children—and she is left alone with them.” Ragna, the dairy-woman, had been left a widow at the new year, and she had a daughter already.

But Cecilia had done her best to make them fewer, said Eirik mirthfully, Cecilia was so fond of the little twins. And one day when Ragna was out, Cecilia had gone in to them, and then she had stuffed the mouth of one of them full of ferns to quiet him. It had almost cost the babe his life.

Olav shook his head with a little laugh.

His dogs rushed hither and thither along the quay, barking and whining with delight as the boat came alongside. Then he stood
on his own wharf, shook hands with his own people, while the dogs jumped noisily about him, snapping their teeth and licking him in the face.

Liv pushed Cecilia forward. The child was dressed in a faded and outgrown red kirtle, but it shone in the sunlight, and her hair surrounded the white little face like a floating, radiant cloud. She looked healthy, though her skin was so white—it seemed but cold as grass and flowers are cold—and her immense eyes were a very pale blue-grey, or greenish like sea-water. She looked up at her father’s face rather like a stranger, when he bent over her and spoke to her. Then Olav took his daughter’s hand and led her as he walked toward the manor with the dogs around him and his household in the rear.

He took the path up the hill by the side of the “good acre.” The corn was ripe, it made a good show, and Olav felt strangely relieved: there were not many weeds among it this year. It was as though his life were connected in a mysterious way with the crop of this field. But it ought to have been cut ere now, the gales had damaged it somewhat.

“They say you have brought great gifts for me, Father,” whispered Cecilia, and these were the first words the child had spoken.

“Ah, if they say that, it must be so,” replied her father with a smile.

In the evening he sat in his high seat, with hands resting on the smooth-worn heads carved on its posts, and neck leaning against the old tapestry that covered the logs of the wall. In his thoughts he went over all the things he had seen to and arranged in the course of the day, while his glances idly followed the flickering light of the hearthfire on the smoke-stained walls of the hall.

He was filled with a vague well-being and something like a hope of the future. It did not shape itself as a thought—but for the first time the husband realized without pain that
she
was gone. The very emptiness felt like the physical peace that sets in, when the wound is healed, after the amputation of a diseased and aching limb. Olav was himself scarcely aware of it, but he had lost the desire of thinking of Ingunn since that evening in the strange woman’s garden. The shameful memory of that adventure had in a way infected those memories that lay beneath it.

Liv came in, swung aside the pot and its hanger, and made up
the fire. Inconceivably ugly, thought Olav; inconceivable that the men cared to touch her—and yet they
had
done so, it seemed—

“You are late with supper for us tonight, Liv,” he said, and the maid giggled with pleasure, as she always did if her master but addressed a word to her.

The door stood wide open for the sake of the draught; from outside came the sound of iron-shod heels on the rock. Then Cecilia’s fair head appeared in the shadow of the anteroom door. Olav kept his eyes fixed on her as she climbed over the threshold. She went up to the hearth—the glow lighted up her red frock and fair hair, as she picked up a few grains that had fallen on the hearthstone and put them in her mouth.

“Come hither, Cecilia,” Olav called quietly.

The child came and stood by his side.

“Have you put away my rosary, Father?”

“I have so.” Olav reached out for her, trying to take her on his knee. But she slipped away from him, back to the fire.

The groats were bubbling and popping in the steaming pot. Olav looked forward to a meal of porridge and ale—hot food he had not tasted since he left home.

He took a turn in the yard before going to bed. The wind had dropped toward night, the fiord sighed back and forth in the shoal water under the hill. It was dark outside and the stars twinkled brightly; not unlikely there would be rime-frost toward morning. Olav walked up to the cattle-sheds. There was a muffled beating against the stable wall—he waited outside for a moment, then opened the door and went in. He went up to Ran, the mare, and spoke a few words to her—taking deep breaths of the warm, acrid smell of the stable.

Up behind the barn he paused again, listening to the faint autumnal murmur of the stream down in the valley and looking at the stars that blazed over the top of the black wooded ridge. To the westward he made out a faint whiteness along the beach where the sea broke against the rocks. Up the valley the ripening cornfields showed under the shroud of darkness.

God! he thought for an instant, looking at a great star that blazed just above the tops of the firs opposite. He recalled that starry night in England when he had been held fast and addressed by a Voice that no man can remember if he has chosen not to
hear. He had chosen, and now it was as though he had fled and hidden himself, creeping beneath the corn that stood pale and ripe in the darkness; he stole down to the raw, cold fields and hid himself there.

It was true enough what they said of Hestviken, that it was a strangely dead place. Old folk said it was Olav Half-priest who had driven away all the elves and underground beings—save one—and that one he could not cope with. No one knew exactly what kind of being it was; its usual haunt was by the bridge over the mouth of the stream, and it appeared in the likeness of an immense badger with only three legs; it did neither good nor harm. Olav vaguely wished now that there had been more life about the manor.

Then he walked slowly down to the house again and went to bed.

Just as he was falling asleep a thought occurred to him—Liv. What if the people of the parish should take it into their heads that it was
he?
The thought made him wide awake and burning hot—he had always had such a violent loathing of the stumpy, toad-like, loose-living wench, and now he felt he would give he knew not what rather than that any soul should believe he had resorted to her foul couch. This time he would have to see to getting her married and away from the manor—Arnketil might be the likeliest to take her. Olav lay awake a long time, tormented by this sickening uneasiness.

Next day he spoke to Liv. The maid wriggled this way and that and tittered foolishly, but at last she agreed that the child was most likely Arnketil’s. At first she seemed but middling glad when Olav said he would help them to marry. But then she changed her tone, was full of thanks and promises—he guessed she thought that now she and Arnketil were to be set over the servants of the manor. He told her curtly that such was not his intention; he would help them to set up house for themselves.

But how he was to manage this, Olav himself did not know; he could not turn out any of his tenants. Only Rundmyr stood empty.

Olav had carried on the farm there for Torhild Björnsdatter and her brothers and sisters ever since the maid came to Hestviken. One after another most of the fields had been left fallow,
for he saw no means of manuring them; Olav used the land for hay, and the houses stood empty. Now and then the elder sons of Björn and Gudrid stayed there for a few weeks—they took after their mother, were unsteady and reputed untrustworthy. Egil, the eldest, was now over twenty; ever since Olav had abused his half-sister he had hung about Hestviken when he was in need of help—demanded this and that as though it were his due. He hinted that he was the son of a good man and therefore it would cost Olav dear to atone for the shame he had brought upon the family. Olav put up with it, though at the time he had paid fines in full to the brothers and made good provision for Torhild and the child—but Egil was certainly never under his half-sister’s roof. Olav saw here another advantage in buying Rundmyr: he would no more have Egil idling about the neighbourhood.

But when Olav was alone with Arnketil, he somehow did not bring himself to speak of the matter. The man was a picture of poverty and simplicity: tall and scraggy, with loose-hung limbs, and his head, far too small, was set upon a long, thin, sinewy neck with a huge and prominent Adam’s apple. It was impossible to tell his age from his begrimed and sallow face, but he could not be more than five or six years above a score, for he had not been fully grown when he first took service with Olav. So stupid was Arnketil that he must have lacked something of his full wits; nevertheless he was in his way a useful workman, and he had always served Olav faithfully—until he had taken up with this Liv, for she taught him both lying and pilfering; though the girl was scarcely more than half-witted herself, she was remarkably cunning in such things. So Olav thought it was a pity of the poor body and said nothing to him about his marriage.

But a day or two later Olav came in to supper tired and wet, and Liv was bearing round the bowls of food—since she had taken on herself the duties of mistress the table was seldom set up. Eirik had seated himself a long way down the bench by the side of Arnketil. There was some joke that amused those two so that they had to keep their eyes fixed on the cups they held in their laps; even then they spirted with sudden laughter now and again. Olav glanced angrily at them once or twice. At last the fun was too much for Eirik; he fell forward and the porridge spirted from nose and mouth with his bursts of laughter. Then Arnketil could not contain himself either; he laughed, swallowed a mouthful the
wrong way, coughed and laughed, and coughed again so that the tears ran down his cheeks, and then Eirik laughed quite uncontrollably.

Olav turned round sharply. At that Eirik jumped up and darted from the room, roaring with laughter, while Arnketil dropped his porridge-bowl on the floor and let himself go, and Liv stood sniggering foolishly without even knowing what this unseemly merriment was about.

After supper Olav took Arnketil outside and told him his intentions about the marriage with Liv. Arnketil answered compliantly and seemed well pleased. Again Olav felt pity for him—God alone knew what sort of house this pair would keep at Rundmyr. But they would have to make the best of it now—help they could be given, if they needed it.

At night Olav lay pondering—whether he should let them stay at the manor after all. But then he thought—no. Liv had managed the house wretchedly enough while she was alone; if these two were to stay here, with their children, a cow or two, goats, and sheep, it would make far too much trouble. For he could not send away Ragna and her three children; she was an honest woman, widow of an upright man. And she brought luck with the cattle, so it seemed.