The Great Hunger Part 16

What was it, this new rus.h.i.+ng in his ears; this new rhythm of his pulse?

He lay back at last in the bottom of the boat, with hands clasped behind his head, and let boat and all things drift.

And when the glare of the rising sun came slanting into the boat and beat dazzlingly in his face, he only turned his head a little and let it s.h.i.+ne full upon him.

Now she is lying asleep over there, the morning streaming red through her window--of whom is she dreaming as she sleeps?

Have you ever seen such eyebrows before? To press one's lips to them--to take her head between one's hand . . . and so it is to save your mother that you give up your own dreams, and to warm her soul that you keep that flame of gladness burning in you? Is that the sort you are?

Merle--was ever such a name? Are you called Merle?

Day spreads over the heavens, kindling all the night-clouds, great and small, to gold and scarlet. And here he lies, rocking, rocking, on no lake, but on a red stately-heaving ocean swell.

Ah! till now your mind has been so filled with cold mechanics, with calculations, with steel and fire. More and more knowledge, ever more striving to understand all things, to know all, to master all. But meanwhile, the tones of the hymn died within you, and the hunger for that which lies beyond all things grew ever fiercer and fiercer. You thought it was Norway that you needed--and now you are here. But is it enough?

Merle--is your name Merle?

There is nothing that can be likened to the first day of love. All your learning, your travel, and deeds and dreams--all has been nothing but dry firewood that you have dragged and heaped together. And now has come a spark, and the whole heap blazes up, casting its red glow over earth and heaven, and you stretch out your cold hands, and warm them, and s.h.i.+ver with joy that a new bliss has come upon the earth.

And all that you could not understand--the relation between the spark of eternity in your soul and the Power above, and the whole of endless s.p.a.ce--has all of a sudden become so clear that you lie here trembling with joy at seeing to the very bottom of the infinite enigma.

You have but to take her by the hand, and "Here are we two," you say to the powers of life and death. "Here is she and here am I--we two"--and you send the anthem rolling aloft--a strain from little Louise's fiddle-bow mingling with it--not to the vaultings of any church, but into endless s.p.a.ce itself. And Thou, Power above, now I understand Thee.

How could I ever take seriously a Power that sat on high playing with Sin and Grace--but now I see Thee, not the bloodthirsty Jehovah, but a golden-haired youth, the Light itself. We two wors.h.i.+p Thee; not with a wail of prayer, but with a great anthem, that has the World-All in it.

All our powers, our knowledge, our dreams--all are there. And each has its own instrument, its own voice in the mighty chorus. The dawn reddening over the hills is with us. The goat grazing on that northern hillside, dazzled with sun-gold when it turns its head to the east--it is with us, too. The waking birds are with us. A frog, crawling up out of a puddle and stopping to wonder at the morning--it is there. Even the little insect with diamonds on its wings--and the gra.s.s-blade with its pearl of dew, trying to mirror as much of the sky as it can--it is there, it is there, it is there. We are standing amid Love's first day, and there is no more talk of grace or doubt or faith or need of aid; only a rus.h.i.+ng sound of music rising to heaven from all the golden rivers in our hearts.

The saeters were beginning to wake. Musical cries came echoing as the saeter-girls chid on the cattle, that moved slowly up to the northern heights, with lowings and tinkling of bells. But Peer lay still where he was--and presently the dairy-maid at the saeter caught sight of what seemed an empty boat drifting on the lake, and was afraid some accident had happened.

"Merle," thought Peer, still lying motionless. "Is your name Merle?"

The dairy-maid was down by the waterside now, calling across toward the boat. And at last she saw a man sit up, rubbing his eyes.

"Mercy on us!" she cried. "Lord be thanked that you're there. And you haven't been in the whole blessed night!"

A goat with a broken leg, set in splints, had been left to stray at will about the cattle-pens and in and out of the house, while its leg-bones were setting. Peer must needs pick up the creature and carry it round for a while in his arms, though it at once began chewing at his beard.

When he sat down to the breakfast-table, he found something so touching in the look of the cream and b.u.t.ter, the bread and the coffee, that it seemed a man would need a heart of stone to be willing to eat such things. And when the old woman said he really ought to get some food into him, he sprang up and embraced her, as far as his arms would go round. "Nice carryings on!" she cried, struggling to free herself. But when he went so far as to imprint a sounding kiss on her forehead, she fetched him a mighty push. "Lord!" she said, "if the gomeril hasn't gone clean out of his wits this last night!"

Chapter IV

Ringeby lay on the sh.o.r.e of a great lake; and was one of those busy commercial towns which have sprung up in the last fifty years from a nucleus consisting of a saw-mill and a flour-mill by the side of a waterfall. Now quite a number of modern factories had spread upwards along the river, and the place was a town with some four thousand inhabitants, with a church of its own, a monster of a school building, and numbers of yellow workmen's dwellings scattered about at random in every direction. Otherwise Ringeby was much like any other little town.

There were two lawyers, who fought for sc.r.a.ps of legal business, and the editors of two local papers, who were constantly at loggerheads before the Conciliation Board. There was a temperance lodge and Workers' Union and a chapel and a picture palace. And every Sunday afternoon the good citizens of Ringeby walked out along the fjord, with their wives on their arms. On these occasions most of the men wore frock coats and grey felt hats; but Enebak, the tanner, being hunchbacked, preferred a tall silk hat, as better suited to eke out his height.

On Sat.u.r.day evenings, when twilight began to fall, the younger men would meet at the corner outside Hammer's store, to discuss the events of the week.

"Have you heard the latest news?" asked Lovli, the bank cas.h.i.+er, of his friend the telegraphist, who came up.

"News? Do you tell me that there's ever any news in this accursed hole?"

"Merle Uthoug has come back from the mountains--engaged to be married."

"The devil she is! What does the old man say to that?"

"Oh, well, the old man will want an engineer if he's to get the new timber-mills into his clutches."

"Is the man an engineer?"

"From Egypt. A Muhammadan, I daresay. Brown as a coffee-berry, and rolling in money."

"Do you hear that, Froken Bull? Stop a minute, here's some news for you."

The girl addressed turned aside and joined them. "Oh, the same piece of news that's all over the town, I suppose. Well, I can tell you, he's most tremendously nice."

"s.h.!.+" whispered the telegraphist. Peer Holm was just coming out of the Grand Hotel, dressed in a grey suit, and with a dark coat over his arm.

He was trying to get a newly-lit cigar to draw, as he walked with a light elastic step past the group at the corner. A little farther up the street he encountered Merle, and took her arm, and the two walked off together, the young people at the corner watching them as they went.

"And when is it to be?" asked the telegraphist.

"He wanted to be married immediately, I believe," said Froken Bull, "but I suppose they'll have to wait till the banns are called, like other people."

Lorentz D. Uthoug's long, yellow-painted wooden house stood facing the market square; the office and the big ironmonger's shop were on the ground floor, and the family lived in the upper storeys. "That's where he lives," people would say. Or "There he goes," as the broad, grey-bearded man pa.s.sed down the street. Was he such a big man, then?

He could hardly be called really rich, though he had a saw-mill and a machine-shop and a flour-mill, and owned a country place some way out of the town. But there was something of the chieftain, something of the prophet, about him. He hated priests. He read deep philosophical works, forbade his family to go to church, and had been visited by Bjornson himself. It was good to have him on your side; to have him against you was fatal--you might just as well clear out of the town altogether. He had a finger in everything that went on; it was as if he owned the whole town. He had been known to meet a youth he had never spoken to before in the street and accost him with a peremptory "Understand me, young man; you will marry that girl." Yet for all this, Lorentz Uthoug was not altogether content. True, he was head and shoulders above all the Ringeby folks, but what he really wanted was to be the biggest man in a place a hundred times as large.

And now that he had found a son-in-law, he seemed as it were to be walking quietly round this stranger from the great world, taking his measure, and asking in his thoughts: "Who are you at bottom? What have you seen? What have you read? Are you progressive or reactionary? Have you any proper respect for what I have accomplished here, or are you going about laughing in your sleeve and calling me a whale among the minnows?"

Every morning when Peer woke in his room at the hotel he rubbed his eyes. On the table beside his bed stood a photograph of a young girl.

What? Is it really you, Peer, that have found someone to stand close to you at last? Someone in the world who cares about you. When you have a cold, there'll be people to come round and be anxious about you, and ask how you are getting on. And this to happen to you!

He dined at the Uthougs' every day, and there were always flowers beside his plate. Often there would be some little surprise--a silver spoon or fork, or a napkin-ring with his initials on. It was like gathering the first straws to make his new nest. And the pale woman with the spectacles looked kindly at him, as if to say: "You are taking her from me, but I forgive you."

One day he was sitting in the hotel, reading, when Merle came in.

"Will you come for a walk?" she asked.

"Good idea. Where shall we go to-day?"

"Well, we haven't been to see Aunt Marit at Bruseth yet. We really ought to go, you know. I'll take you there to-day."

Peer found these ceremonial visits to his new relatives quite amusing; he went round, as it were, collecting uncles and aunts. And to-day there was a new one. Well, why not?

"But--my dear girl, have you been crying?" he asked suddenly, taking her head in his hands.

"Oh, it's nothing. Come--let's go now." And she thrust him gently away as he tried to kiss her. But the next moment she dropped into a chair, and sat looking thoughtfully at him through half-closed eyes, nodding her head very slightly. She seemed to be asking herself: "Who is this man? What is this I am taking on me? A fortnight ago he was an utter stranger--"

She pa.s.sed her hand across her brow. "It's mother--you know," she said.

"Is anything special wrong to-day?"