Chapter III: Part 3

Towards supper time the worst hubbub and trouble were over. Ma's hasty-pudding, as smooth as velvet, with raspberry sauce, was standing on the table, and solemnly reminded them that again there would be one less in the daily circle.

They ate in silence without any other sound than the rattling of the spoons.

"There, child, take my large cup. Take it when your father bids you."

Certainly she is beautiful, the apple of his eye. Only look at her hands when she is eating! She is as delicate and pale as a nun.

He sighed, greatly down-hearted, and shoved his plate from him.

Tears burst from Inger-Johanna's eyes.

No one would have any more.

Now he walked and whistled and gazed on the floor.

It was a pity to see how unhappy father was.

"You must write every month, child--at length and about everything--do you hear?--large and small, whatever you are thinking of, so that your father may have something to take pleasure in," Ma admonished, while they were clearing off the table. "And listen now, Inger-Johanna," she continued when they were alone in the pantry: "If it is so that the governor's wife wants to read your letters, then put a little cross by the signature. But if there is anything the matter, tell it to old Aunt Alette out in the bishop's mansion; then I shall know it when Great-Ola is in for the city load. You know your father can bear so little that is disagreeable."

"The governor's wife read what I write to you and father! That I will defy her to do."

"You must accommodate yourself to her wishes, child. You can do it easily when you try, and your aunt is extremely kind and good to those she likes, when she has things her own way. You know how much may depend on her liking you, and--you understand--getting a little fond of you. She has certainly not asked you there without thinking of keeping you in the place of a daughter."

"Any one else's daughter? Take me from you and father? No, in that case I would rather never go there."

She seated herself on the edge of the meal-chest and began to sob violently.

"Come, come, Inger-Johanna." Ma stroked her hair with her hand. "We do not wish to lose you; you know that well enough,"--her voice trembled. "It is for your own advantage, child. What do you think you three girls have to depend upon, if your father should be taken away? We must be glad if a place offers, and even take good care not to lose it; remember that, always remember that, Inger-Johanna. You have intelligence enough, if you can also learn to control your will; that is your danger, child."

Inger-Johanna looked up at her mother with an expression almost of terror. She had a bitter struggle to understand. In her, in whom she had always found aid, there was suddenly a glimpse of the helpless.

"I can hardly bear to lose the young one out of my sight to-night, and you leave me alone in there," came the captain, creaking in the door. "You haven't a thought of how desolate and lonesome it will be for me, Ma." He blew out like a whale.

"We are all coming in now, and perhaps father will sing a little this evening," Ma said encouragingly.

The captain's fine, now a little hoarse, bass was his pride and renown from his youth up.

The clavichord was cleared of its books and papers--the cover must be entirely lifted when father was to sing.

It stood there with its yellow teeth, its thin, high tone, and its four dead keys; and Ma must play the accompaniment, in which always, in some part or other, she was left lying behind, like a sack that has fallen out of a wagon, while the horse patiently trots on over the road. His impatience she bore with stoical tranquillity.

This evening he went through _Heimkringlas panna_, _du höga Nord_, and _Vikingebalken_, to

_Lo! the chase's empress cometh! Hapless Frithjof, glance away!
Like a star on spring cloud sitteth she upon her courser gray._

He sang so that the window-panes rattled.

_Chapter IV_

The year had turned. It was as long after Christmas as the middle of February.

In the evening the captain was sitting, with two candles in tin candlesticks, smoking and reading _Hermoder_. At the other end of the table the light was used by Jörgen, who was studying his lessons; he must worry out the hours that had been assigned, whether he knew the lessons or not.

The frosty panes shone almost as white as marble in the moonlight, which printed the whole of a pale window on the door panel in the lower, unlighted end of the sitting-room.

Certainly there were bells!

Jörgen raised his head, covered with coarse, yellow hair, from his book. It was the second time he had heard them, far away on the hill; but, like the sentinels of Haakon Adelstensfostre at the beacon, of whom he was just reading, he did not dare to jump up from his reading and give the alarm until he was sure.

"I think there are bells on the road," he gently remarked, "far off."

"Nonsense! attend to your lesson."

But, notwithstanding he pretended that he was deeply absorbed in the esthetic depths of _Hermoder_, the captain also sat with open ears.

"The trader's bells--they are so dull and low," Jörgen put in again.

"If you disturb me again, Jörgen, you shall hear the bells about your own ears."

The trader, Öjseth, was the last one the captain could think of wishing to see at the farm. He kept writing and writing after those paltry thirty dollars of his, as if he believed he would lose them. "Hm! hm!" He grew somewhat red in the face, and read on, determined not to see the man before he was standing in the room.

The bells plainly stopped before the door.

"Hm! hm!"

Jörgen moved uneasily.

"If you move off the spot, boy, I'll break your arms and legs in pieces!" foamed the captain, now red as copper. "Sit--sit still and read!"

He intended also to sit still himself. That scoundrel of a trader--he should fasten his horse himself at the doorsteps, and help himself as he could.

"I hear them talking--Great-Ola."

"Hold your tongue!" said the captain in a murderous deep bass, and with a pair of eyes fixed on his son as if he could eat him.

"Yes; but, father, it is really--"

A pull on his forelock and a box on the ears sent him across the floor.

"The doctor," roared Jörgen.

The truth of his martyrdom was established in the same moment, because the short, square form of the military doctor appeared in the door.

His fur coat was all unbuttoned, and the tip of his long scarf trailed behind him on the threshold. He held his watch out: "What time is it?"

"Now, then, may the devil take your body and soul to hell, where you long ago belonged, if it isn't you, Rist!"

"What time is it? I say--Look!"

"And here I go and lick Jörgen for--well, well, boy, you shall be excused from your lesson and can ask for syrup on your porridge this evening. Go out to Ma, and tell her Rist is here."

The captain opened the kitchen door: "Hullo, Marit! Siri! A girl in here to pull off the doctor's boots! All the diseases of the country are in your clothes."

"What time is it, I say--can you see?"

"Twenty-five minutes of seven."

"Twenty-one miles in two hours and a quarter--from Jölstad here, with my bay!"

The doctor had got his fur coat off. The short, muscular man, with broad face and reddish-gray whiskers, stood there in a fur cap, swallowed up in a pair of long travelling boots.

"No, no," he exclaimed to the girl, who was making an effort to pull them off. "Oh, listen, Jäger; will you go out and feel of the bay's hind leg, if there is a wind-gall? He began to stumble a little, just here on the hill, I thought, and to limp."

"He has very likely got bruised." The captain eagerly grabbed his hat from the clavichord and went with him.

Outside by the sleigh they stood, thinly clothed in the severe frost, and felt over the hamstring and lifted up the left hind foot of the bay. For a final examination, they went into the stable.

When they came out there was a veritable wild dispute.

"I tell you, you might just as well have said he had glanders in his hind legs. If you are not a better judge of curing men than you are of horses, I wouldn't give four shillings for your whole medical examination."

"That brown horse of yours, Jäger--that is a strange fodder he takes. Doesn't he content himself with crib-splinters?" retorted the doctor, slyly bantering.

"What? Did you see that, you--knacker?"

"Heard it, heard it; he gnawed like a saw there in the crib. He has cheated you unmercifully--that man from Filtvedt, you know."

"Oh, oh, in a year he will be tall enough for a cavalry horse. But this I shall concede, it was a good trade when you got the bay for sixty-five."

"Sixty and a binding dram, not a doit more. But I would not sell him, if you offered me a hundred on the spot."

Ma was waiting in her parlor.

Now, it was Aslak of Vaelta who had cut his foot last Thursday hewing timber--Ma had bandaged him--and then Anders, who lived in the cottage, was in a lung fever. The parish clerk had been there and bled him; six children up in that hut--not good if he should be taken away.

"We will put a good Spanish-fly blister on his back, and, if that does not make him better, then a good bleeding in addition."

"He came near fainting the last time," suggested Ma, doubtfully.

"Bleed--bleed--it is the blood which must be got away from the chest, or the inflammation will make an end of him. I will go and see him to-morrow morning--and for Thea's throat, camphor oil and a piece of woollen cloth, and to bed to sweat--and a good spoonful of castor-oil to-night--you can also rub the old beggar woman about the body with camphor, if she complains too much. I will give you some more."

After supper the old friend of the house sat with his pipe and his glass of punch at one end of the sofa, and the captain at the other. The red tint of the doctor's nose and cheeks was not exclusively to be attributed to the passage from the cold to the snug warmth of the room. He had the reputation of rather frequently consoling his bachelorhood with ardent spirits.

They had talked themselves tired about horses and last year's reminiscences of the camp, and had now come to more domestic affairs.

"The news, you see, is blown here both from the city and the West; old Aunt Alette wrote before Christmas that the governor's wife had found out she must drive with both snaffle and curb."

"I thought so," said the doctor, chewing his mouthpiece. "The first thing of importance in managing is to study the nature of the beast; and Inger-Johanna's is to rear; she must be treated gently."

"And that sister-in-law never believed that so much inborn stuff could grow up in the wild mountain region."

The captain began to puff impatiently. Ma would surely sometime get supper ready and come in, so he could get to his daughter's letters.

"You can believe he is a real pelican, that old judge down in Ryfylke! Orders them round and bellows--keeps them hot both in the office and in the house. I wonder if he won't sometime apply for an office somewhere else; for that is what he threatens to do every time he sees an office vacant, Thinka writes. Let us have the letters, Ma, and my spectacles," he exclaimed, when she came in. "The first is of November, so you shall hear about your goddaughter's coming to the governor's, Rist."

He hummed over a part of the beginning and then read:

When Great-Ola put my baggage inside the street door, I almost wanted to seat myself in the cariole and drive the three days home again; but then at once I thought, best to march straight on, as father says! I went past the servant and inside the hall door. It was very light there, and a great many outside garments and hats and caps were hanging on the pegs, and twice two servant-girls flew through with trays and teacups, without troubling themselves about me in the least. But I thought that the one who had fallen into the midst of things was your beloved daughter. My outside garments were off in a jiffy; I knocked once, twice, three times. I hardly knew what to do with myself, so I gently turned the knob. Thank heaven, there was no one there. There was another door with a portière, which I only needed to shove a little aside, and then--I was plunged right into the centre of it. Nay, how shall I describe it? It was a corner room that I had entered: there was only mahogany furniture and upholstered easy chairs, and pictures in gilded frames over the sofa; the other pictures were in dark frames; but I did not see a doit of all that, for I thought at first that it was dark. But it wasn't dark at all. There was just a shade over the astral lamp on the table, and neither more nor less than a whole company. There in the lion's den, with the married ladies on the corner sofa, sat a number of people drinking tea.

I stood there in the middle of the floor, and the reddish brown linsey-woolsey, I believed, could surely defend itself.

"Aunt Zittow," I ventured.

"Who is it?--What? Can it be my dear Inger-Johanna? My husband's niece!" was said from the table. "You have come just like a wild mountain rose, child, with the rain still on your face--and so cold!" as she touched me. But I saw very well that she had her eye on my dress. I am sure it is too long in the waist, I thought; that is what I said at home. But then I forgot the whole dress, for it was indeed my aunt, and she embraced me and said, "You are heartily welcome, my dear child! I think now a cup of good hot tea will do her good, Miss Jörgensen,--and will you ask Mina to put her room in order upstairs!" And then she seated me on a soft cushioned chair by the side of the wall.

There I sat in the twilight, with a teacup in my lap, and biscuits--how I got them I cannot remember--and thought, is it I or not I?

At first it was not easy to see those who sat about in the soft stuffed chairs; what I saw nearest to me was a piece of a foot, with spurs and a broad red stripe along the side, which rocked up and down the whole time. Now and then a head with a fine lace cap bobbed up into the light to put down a cup or to replenish it. The lamp-shade made just a round ring in the room, not a foot from the table.

Oh, how warm and delicate it was!

In the light under the astral lamp-shade, aunt was sitting, bowed down over a little black contrivance with the image of a negro on it, and was burning pastilles; her hair, on both sides of her forehead, was made into stiff, grayish curls.

The bright, shining tea-kettle stood singing over the beautiful blue cups of that old Copenhagen porcelain, of which you have four pairs in the cabinet, which came from grandmother's. I could not help looking all the time on aunt's face, with the great earrings showing through the lace. I thought the antique tea-kettle, which is like a vase or urn, resembled her so much, with the haughty stiff curve of her chin! It was just as if they belonged together from--I don't know from what time, it could not be from the time of the creation, I suppose. And then when the conversation among them came to a stop and it was still as if there were not a human being there, the machine puffed and snorted as it were with aunt's fine Danish twist to the R: _Arvet! Arvet!_ (inherited)--and in between it bubbled Zittow, von Zittow. It was what you told me, mother, about the Danish Zittow, who was diplomatist in Brussels, that was buzzing in me.

"The young one! She has got it in her blood," whinnied the doctor.

But it really did not look as if aunt thought there was any hurry about seeing uncle. And then when aunt sent Miss Jörgensen with some tea into the next room, where they were playing cards, I at once asked if I could be allowed to go with her.

"With all my heart, my child, it would be a shame to tax your patience any longer. And then, Miss Jörgensen, take our little traveller up to her room, and see that she has something to eat, and let her go to bed." But I saw very plainly that she pulled the lamp-shade down on the side I was going; that I thought of afterwards.

"What? what? what?" said my uncle. You should have seen him gaze at me. He looked so much like you, mother, about the forehead and eyes that I threw my arms around his neck.

He held me before him with his arms stretched out. "But really I think it is Aunt Eleonore all over! Well, well, now don't fancy you are such a beauty!"

That was the reception.

Shortly after I was lying in bed in my elegant little blue room, with curtains with long fringes. There were pastilles on the stove, and Miss Jörgensen--just think, she called me Miss!--almost undressed me and put me between all the soft down quilts.

There I lay and thought it all over, and became hotter and hotter in my head and face, till at last it seemed as if I was thumping in the cariole with Svarten and Ola.

"No, the cariole came home again empty," said the captain with a sigh.

"Look out if you don't get her back to Gilje again in a carriage," added the doctor.

"She was so handsome, Rist," exclaimed the captain, quite moved. "It seems as if I see her, standing there in the middle of the floor at brother-in-law's, with her heavy black hair dressed upon her neck. From the time when she used to run about here, with the three long braids down her back, it was as if she developed into a swan all at once, when she came to dress in the clothes of a full-grown person--You remember her on confirmation day, Rist?"

"But, dear Jäger," said Ma, trying to subdue him.

The captain cautiously unfolded a letter, closely written on a large sheet of letter paper.

"And now you shall hear; this is dated January 23d."

The money which I brought with me--

"Well, well--"

The bill of Larsen for--

"You can certainly skip over to the next page," remarked Ma with a certain emphasis.

"Well, yes, hm, hm,--mere trifles--here it is."

To think that father, and you also, mother, cannot see my two new dresses! Aunt is inconceivably good. It is impossible to walk any other way than beautifully in this kind of shoes; and that aunt says I do; it is just as if you always felt a dancing-floor under your feet. And yesterday aunt gave me a pair of patent leather sandals with buckles on the ankles. Did you ever hear of such! Yes--I kissed her for that, too, this time; she could say what she liked. For you must know, she says that the first rule of life for a lady is a kind of confident, reserved repose, which, however, may be cordial! I have it naturally, aunt says, and only need to cultivate it. I am going to learn to play on the piano and go through a regular course of lessons in dancing.

Aunt is so extremely good to me, only she will have the windows shut when I want them open. Of course I don't mean in the sitting-room, where they have pasted themselves in with double panes, but up in my own room. Just fancy, first double windows and then stuffy curtains, and then all the houses, which are near us across the street; you can't breathe, and much use it is to air out the rooms by the two upper panes twice a day!

Aunt says that I shall gradually get accustomed to the city air. But I don't see how I can, when I never get acquainted with it. Not once during the whole winter have I frozen my fingers! We go out for a short drive in the forenoon, and then I go with aunt in the shops in the afternoon, and that is the whole of it. And you can believe it is quite another thing to go out here than at home; when I only jumped over a little pile of shovelled-up snow, in order to get into the sleigh more quickly, aunt said that every one could instantly see manners from my state of nature, as she always says. For all the movements I make, I might just as well have chains on both legs, like the prisoners we see some days in the fort.

And now aunt wants me not to go bare-footed on the floor of my chamber. Nay, you should have seen her horror when I told her how Thinka and I, at the time of the breaking up of the ice last year, waded across the mill stream in order to avoid the roundabout way by the bridge! At last I got her to laughing with me. But I certainly believe that the pair of elegant slippers with swansdown on them, which stuck out of a package this morning, are for me! You see now, it is into them, nevertheless, that my sweet little will must be put.

"She is on her guard lest they should want to put a halter about her neck," mumbled the doctor.

Ma sighed deeply. "Such sweet small wills are so apt to grow into big ones, and"--again a sigh--"women don't get on in the world with that."

The doctor looked meditatively down into his glass: "One of woman's graces is flexibility, they say; but on the other hand, she is called 'proud maiden' in the ballad. There is something like a contradiction in that."

"Oh, the devil! Divide them into two platoons! It is mostly the ugly who have to be pliable," said the captain.

"Beauty does not last so very long, and so it is best to think of the years when one has to be accommodating," remarked Ma, down in her knitting-work.

The captain continued reading the letter.

The French is done in a twinkling. I am always ready with that before breakfast, and aunt is so contented with my pronunciation; but then the piano comes from nine to eleven. Ugh! only exercises; and then aunt receives calls. Guess who came day before yesterday? No one else than Student Grip. It was just as if I must have known him ever so well, and liked him even better, so glad was I at last to see any one who knew about us at home. But just think, I am not entirely sure that he did not try to dictate to aunt; and then he had the boldness to look at me as if I should agree with him. Aunt helped him to a place in uncle's office, because she heard that he had passed such an excellent examination and was so gifted, but had almost nothing from home to study on.

"I ventured my three dollars on him--But how the fellow could manage to take such high honors passes my comprehension," threw out the captain.

"But he repaid them all right, Jäger, with postage and everything."

The captain held the letter up to the light again.

And then aunt thought he would be the better for a little polish in his ways, and enjoined him to come to her fortnightly receptions; she likes to have young people about her; but he let aunt see that he regarded that as a command and compulsion. And now he came in fact to make a sort of excuse. But how they talked!

"Well, then, we shall see you again at some of our Thursday evenings?" said aunt.

"Your ladyship no doubt remembers the occasion of my remaining away. It was my ill-bred objections to the seven unanimous teacups which gave supreme judgment in your celebrated small tea-fights."

"See, see, see," aunt smiled. "I can't be wrong when I say that you are really made for social life; there is need just there for all one's best sides."

"All one's smoothest, your ladyship means."

"Well, well, no falling back, Mr. Grip, I beg you."

"I did my best, your ladyship; for I really thought all one's most mendacious."

"Now you are in the humor of contradiction again; and there one gets entangled so easily, you know."

"I only think that when one does not agree with what is said, and keeps silent, one lies."

"Then people offer up to good form, without which no social intercourse can exist."

"Yes, what do they offer up? Truth!"

"Perhaps more correctly a little of their vanity, an opportunity of exhibiting some bright and shining talent; that tempts young men greatly, I believe."

"Possible, not impossible at any rate," he admitted.

"Do you see?" But then aunt said, for she never abandons her text: "A little good manners is not out of place; and when I see a bright young student stand talking with his hands in his pockets, or riding backwards on a chair, then, whether the one concerned takes my motherly candor ill or not, I always try by a little hint to adjust the defects in his education."

You should have seen him! Hands out of his pockets, and at once he sat up before her, as straight as a candle.

"If all were like your ladyship, I would recommend making calls," said he, "for you are an honest woman."

"Woman! We say, lady."

"I mean an honest governor's lady; besides, I don't at all say a good-natured!" and then he shook that great brown lock of hair down over his forehead.

I do not need to wish for any portrait of you, for I lie thinking, in the evenings, that I am at home. I see father so plainly, walking up and down the room whistling, and then starting off up the office stairs; and I pull your hair, Jörgen! and poke your head down into the geography, so that I get you after me, and we run round, in one door and out another, up and down in the house. Nay, I long horribly at times. But I must not let aunt see that; it would be ungrateful. She does not believe that one can exist anywhere but in a city.

And then there are a lot of things which I have been obliged to draw a black mark through, because I don't at all understand them. Only think, mother! Aunt says, that it may at most be allowable to say that we have cows at home; but I must not presume to say that any one of them has a calf! I should like to know how they think we get new cows, when we kill the old ones for Christmas?

Here the captain interpolated some inarticulate noises. But an expression of anxiety came over Ma's face, and she said faintly:

"That is because, unfortunately, we have not been able to keep the children sufficiently away from the servants' room, and from everything they hear there."

"You see, madam," declared the doctor, "in the city people are so proper that a hen hardly dares to lay eggs--It is only the products of the efforts of the land that they are willing to recognize, I can tell you."

"No," the captain put in, "it is not advisable for a poor mare to be so indiscreet as to have a foal there."

His wife coughed gently and made an errand to her sewing-table.

Ma had been gone upstairs for more than an hour, and the clock was getting on towards twelve.

The captain and the doctor were now sitting somewhat stupidly over the heeltaps in their mugs, a little like the dying tallow candles, which stood with neglected wicks, almost burned down into the sockets and running down.

"Keep your bay, Rist. Depend on me--he has got to get up early who takes me in on a horse--with my experience, you see. All the cavalry horses I have picked out in my time!"

The doctor sat looking down into his glass.

"You are thinking of the cribber," said the captain, getting into a passion; "but that was the most rascally villainy--pure cheating. He might have been taken into court for that--But, as I tell you, keep your bay."

"I have become a little tired of him, you see."

"See there, see there,--but that is your own fault and not the bay's, my boy. You are always tired of the beast you have. If you should count all the horses you have swapped, it would be a rare stable."

"They spoiled him for driving when he was a colt; he is one-sided, he is."

"That's all bosh. I should cure him of that in a fortnight, with a little breaking to harness."

"Oh, I am tired of sitting and pulling and hauling on one rein to keep him out of the side of the ditch; if it were not for that, the beast should never go out of my hand. No, had it been only that he made a few splinters in the crib."

The captain assumed a thoughtful expression; he leaned against the back of the sofa, and gave two or three deep, strong pulls on his pipe.

"But my Brunen is nothing at all to talk about--a little gnawing only--with the one eye-tooth."

"Nay, my bay also gives way only on one side of the road."

Again two or three sounding puffs. The captain gave his wig a poke.

"If there is any one who could cure him of that, it is certainly I."

Dense smoke poured out of his pipe.

Over in his corner of the sofa the doctor began to clean his out.

"Besides, my Brunen is a remarkably kind animal--thunders a little on the crib down in the stall--a horse can hardly have less of a fault, and then so thoroughly easy on the rein--knows if one only touches it--so extremely sensitive in his mouth--a regular beauty to drive on the country road."

"Ye-s, ye-s; have nothing against that--fine animal!"

"Look here, Rist! All things considered, that was a driving horse for you--stands so obediently, if one just lays the rein over his back."

"Swap off the bay, do you mean?" pondered the doctor, in a doubting tone,--"hadn't really thought of that." He shook his head--"Only I can't understand why he is so stiff on one rein."

"No, my boy; but I can understand it."

"If you are only not cheated in that, Jäger--trade is trade, you know."

"I cheated? Ha, ha, ha!" The captain shook with laughter and with quiet consciousness. "Done, boy! We will swap."

"You are rather quick on the rein, Jäger."

"Always my nature, you see--to get the thing closed up at once, on the nail. And so we will take a drink to close the bargain," shouted the captain eagerly; he pulled his wig awry, and sprang up.

"Let us see if Ma has some cognac in the closet."

What sort of a trick was it the horse had?

The captain was wholly absorbed in breaking the bay to harness. The horse turned his head to the right, and kept over on the side of the road just as far as he could for the rein. It was impossible to find any reason for it.

This morning he had broken off one of the trace-pins by driving against the gate-post. Was it possible that he was afraid of a shadow? That was an idea!--and the captain determined to try him in the moonlight that evening.

When he came down to the stable after dinner, he saw a wonderful sight.

Great-Ola had taken the bay out of his stall, and was standing shaking his fist against the horse's forehead.

"Well, I have tried him every way, Captain, but he wouldn't wink, not even if I broke his skull with the back of an axe--he doesn't move! And now see how he jumps!" He raised his hand towards the other side of the horse's head. "But in his left eye he is as blind as a shut cellar door."

The captain stood awhile without saying a word; the veins on his forehead swelled up blue, and his face became as red as the collar on his uniform coat.

"Well, then." In a rage he gave Ola a box on his ears. "Are you standing there threatening the horse, you dog?"

When Ola was feeding the horse at night, the captain went into the stall. He took the lantern and let it shine on the bay. "No use to cure you of going into the ditch--See there, Ola, take that shilling, so that you at all events may profit by it."

Ola's broad face lighted up with cunning. "The doctor must provide himself with planks, for the one he got ate up three two-inch boards while we had him."

"Look here, Ola," nodded the captain, "it is not worth while to let him hear anything but that the bay can see with both eyes here with us."

When Great-Ola, in breaking-up time in spring, was driving a load of wood home from the Gilje ridge, he was obliged to turn out on a snow-drift for Dr. Rist, who was coming in a sleigh from the north.

"Driving with the bay, I see. Has the captain got him so that he's all right? Does he cling just as hard to the side of the road?"

"No, of course not. The captain was the man to make that all right. He is no more one-sided now than I am."

"As if I was going to believe that, you liar," mumbled the doctor, while he whipped his horse and drove on.

_Chapter V_

The captain was in a dreadful humor; the doors were banging the whole forenoon.

At dinner time there was a sultry breathing spell, during which Jörgen and Thea sat with their eyes on their plates, extremely cautious not to give any occasion for an explosion.

The fruit of Jörgen's best exertions to keep himself unnoticed was nevertheless, as usual, less happy. During the soup he accidentally made a loud noise in eating with his spoon which led to a thundering "Don't slobber like a hog, boy."

After dinner the captain all at once felt the necessity of completing certain computations on a chart and surveying matter that had been left since the autumn.

And now it was not advisable to come too near the office! He had an almost Indian quickness of hearing for the least noise, and was absolutely wild when he was disturbed.

It became quiet, a dead calm over the whole house. The spinning-wheel alone could be heard humming in the sitting-room, and they went gently through the doors below, in genuine terror when in spite of all they creaked or some one happened to let the trap-door into the cellar fall or make the porch door rattle.

How could that foolish Torbjörg hit upon scouring the stairs now? When she hurriedly retreated with her sand and pail, her open mouth and staring eyes showed plainly that she did not comprehend the peculiar inward connection between her scouring and the captain who was sitting safely up there in his office: it was enough that he would fall at once like a tempest down from the upper story.

Now there was a call from up there.

He came out from the office with his drawing-pen in his mouth:

What had become of the old blue portfolio of drawings? It had been lying on the table in the hall upstairs--

Ma must go up, and Thea and Jörgen with her, to be questioned.

There--there on the table--there! it had been lying for five months! Was it the intention to make him entirely miserable with all this putting in order and cleaning?

"But dear, dear Jäger, we shall find it, if you will only have a little patience--if we only look for it."

And there was a search round about everywhere; even in the garret, under old window-panes, and among tables, reels, chests, and old trumpery they ransacked. In his anxious zeal, Jörgen stood on his head, digging deep down into a barrel, when Ma at length sagaciously turned the investigation into the office again. "On top of the cabinet in the office there is a large blue portfolio, but you have looked there, of course."

"There? I--I should like to know who has presumed to--"

He vanished into the office again.

Yes, there it lay.

He flung down his ruling-pen; he really was not in a mood to work any longer! He sat looking gloomily out before him with his elbows leaning against his writing-desk. "It is your fault I say, Ma!--or was it possibly I who had the smart idea of sending her to Ryfylke?" He struck the desk. "It is blood money--blood money, I say! If it is to go on in this way, what shall we have to get Jörgen on with?--Huf, it goes to my head so--eighteen dollars actually thrown into the brook."

"She must have a Sunday dress; Thinka has now worn the clothes she brought from home over a year and a half."

"Even new laced cloth shoes from Stavanger. Yes, indeed, not less than from Stavanger--it is put down so--" he snatched the bill from the desk--"and a patent leather belt, and for half-soling and mending shoes two dollars and a quarter--and then sewing things! I never heard that a young girl in a house bought sewing things--and postage a dollar and a half--it is wholly incredible."

"For the year and a half, you must remember, Jäger, fifteen cents for each letter."

"A miserly judge, I say, who does not even pay for the letters which go from the office! Now, why did she write last when she had just before sent messages in the letter from your sister-in-law? But there it comes with a vengeance--four and a half yards of silk ribbon! Why didn't she make it ten, twenty yards--as long as from here to Ryfylke? Then she might have broken her father at once; for I see what it leads to."

"Remember they go on visits and to parties at the sheriffs, the minister's, and the solicitor's, very often; we must let her go decently dressed."

"Oh, I never heard before that daughters must cost money. It is a brand-new rule you have hit upon; and what is it coming to?"

"He who will not sow, Jäger, shall not reap."

"Yes, don't you think it looks like a fine harvest--this country Adonis there in the office, who casts sheep's eyes at her--a poor clerk who does not have to pass an examination! But he is so quick at the partition of inheritances, ha, ha."

Ma seemed to be a little overcome, and gazed before her hopelessly.

"Ye-es, Thinka wrote that; he is so quick in the partition of inheritances, he is! Don't you think that was rather a nice introduction by her for him?" He hummed. "It is clear as mud that she is taken with him; otherwise your sister-in-law would not have written about it as she did."

"Thinka has a gentle nature," came the answer somewhat slowly and thoughtfully, "and is certainly so easily hoodwinked, poor thing, warm and susceptible as she is; but still she has now seen enough of the world about her!"

"Yes, the world does not move in verse! As Lieutenant Bausback said when he paid his debts with old Mother Stenberg; she was exactly three and a half times as old as he when they were married."

"She has always been pliable--we may hope that she is amenable to a word from her parents. I will write and represent to her the prospects."

"The prospects! Don't meddle with that, Ma! Marriages don't grow on trees. Or what kind of a match do you think Thinka can make up here? When I am old and retired on a pension, it is a nice lookout with all our daughters on our hands! Don't let us be mad with pride, Ma, stark mad! That runs in your blood and that of all the Zittows."

Ma's lips stiffened a little and her eyes looked keenly black; but it was over in a moment. "I think that after all we might economize on pork and butter here in the house; it is not half so salt as it is used in many places for servants, and then, when the pigs--only the hams, I mean--can go with the load to the city, then we can very likely find some way to get the money in again. Otherwise, I should be entirely disheartened. But if we are to send the money, I think you ought to send it to the post-office at once, Jäger. They ought not to see anything but that you pay cash down."

The captain rose and puffed. "Ten and five are fifteen--and three are eighteen." He counted the money out of a drawer in his desk. "We shall never see the money again. Where are the scissors, the scissors, I say?"

He began to cut the envelope for the money letter out of an old gray wrapper of an official letter, which he turned.

"Your coat and comforter are lying here, by the stove," said Ma, when she came in again.

"There. Put the sealing-wax and seal in the inside pocket, so that I shall not forget them; otherwise I must pay for sealing."

It was as if the captain's bad humor had been swept away when he came back hastily from the post-office. He had found a letter from Inger-Johanna, and immediately began to peep into it; but it became too dark.

His coat was off in a trice, and, with his hat still on, he began eagerly to read by the newly lighted candle.

"Ma! Ma! Tell Ma to come in at once--and another candle!"

He could not see any more, as the candle made a halo of obscurity, and they had to wait till the wick burned up again.

Ma came in, turning down her sleeves after the baking.

"Now you shall hear," he said.

That such a ball cannot last longer! Aunt would like to be one of the first to leave, so during the cotillion I sit in constant anxiety lest she shall order the sleigh. Then I am examined; but then, it is now no longer as it was the first two or three times we drove home, when I chattered and blabbed out every possible thing, turned my soul and all my feelings inside out as a pocket into aunt's bosom.

Yesterday I was at my seventh, and am already engaged way into the ninth; which still will not be my last, I hope, this winter (I led five times). Yesterday, also, I happily escaped Lieutenant Mein, the one with Jörgen's bridle in his mouth, who has begun to want to make sure of me for the cotillion, as he says. He sits and stands in the companies at home at aunt's (which is all he does, as there is not a word in his mouth), and only looks and glowers at me.

Well, you should see my dancing cards! I think I have led a third part of all the dances this winter. Aunt has made me a present of a sash buckle which is beautiful, and, with all the dark yellow stones, improves the dress wonderfully. Aunt has taste; still we never agree when I dress. Old Aunt Alette was up here yesterday, and I got her on my side. So I was relieved from having earrings dangling about my ears; they felt as if two bits of a bridle rein were hanging behind me, and then I must be allowed to have sleeves wide enough to move my arm if I am not to feel like a wooden doll.

You must know that I have grown three inches since I left home. But never in my life have I really known what it is to exist, I believe, till this winter. When I shut my eyes, it is as if I can see in a dream a whole series of balls, with chandeliers under which music is floating, and I am dancing, and am led through the throng, which seems to make way for me.

I understand how Aunt Eleonore must have felt, she who was so beautiful, and whom they say I resemble so; she died after a ball, Aunt Alette says; it must have been of joy. There is nothing like dancing; nothing like seeing them competing for engagements, kneeling, as it were, with their eyes, and then becoming confused when I answer them in the way they don't expect.

And how many times do you really think now I have heard that I have such wonderful black hair, such wonderful firm eyes, such a superb bearing; how many times do you think it has been said in the most delicate manner and in the crudest? Aunt has also begun to admire; I could wish that the whole winter, my whole life (so long as I am beautiful, no longer), were one single ball, like the Polish count who drove over sugar.

And then I have always such a desire to die after every time, when I am lying and thinking of it, and, as it were, hear the music in my ears, until I come to think of the next one.

For that I am going to have a new dress, light yellow with black; that and white are most becoming to me, aunt says, and then again, new yellow silk shoes, buttoned up to the ankles; aunt says that my high instep betrays race, and that I feel I have; truly, I don't mind speaking right out what I think; and it is so amusing to see people open their eyes and wonder what sort of a person I am.

I really begin to suspect that several of our gentlemen have never seen a living pig, or a duck, or a colt (which is the prettiest thing I know). They become so stupid as soon as I merely name something from the country; it might be understood if I said it in French--_un canard_, _un cheval_, _un cochon_, _une vache_.

Student Grip contends that of those who have been born in the city not one in ten has ever seen a cow milked. He also provokes aunt by saying that everything which happens in French is so much finer, and thinks that we like to read and cry over two lovers who jump into the water from _Pont Neuf_; but only let the same thing happen here at home, from Vaterland's bridge, then it is vulgar; and indeed I think he is often right. Aunt has to smile. And however much she still says he lacks in polished manners and inborn culture, she is amused at him. And so they are everywhere, for he is invited out every single day in the week.

He generally comes Sunday afternoons and for coffee, for then he is sure that both aunt and I are bored, he says (yes, horribly; now, how can he know that?), and that he is not obliged to walk on stilts, and tell lies among the blue teacups.

And then he and aunt are amusing with a vengeance, when he speaks freely, and aunt opposes him and takes him down. For he thinks for himself always; that I can see when he is sitting with his head on one side and gently stirring his spoon in his cup. It makes one smile, for if he means No, you can see it from the top of his head long before he says it.

He is not a little talked about in the city as one of the worst of the Student Society in being zealous for all their wild ideas. But aunt finds him piquant, and thinks that youth must be suffered to sow its wild oats. On the contrary, uncle says that this kind is more ruinous for a young man's future than the worst transgressions, since it destroys his capacity for discipline.

What he thinks of me I should like to know. Sometimes he asks, impertinently, "You are going to the ball this evening, I suppose, Miss Jäger?"

But I have it out with him to the best of my ability, ask aunt for advice about some fancy work, and yawn so comfortably, and look out of the window just when he is most excited. I see very well it provokes him, and the last time he asked if Miss Jäger would not abstract her thoughts from the next ball for a moment.

Uncle is often cross at his perverseness, and contends that he is a disagreeable person; but I don't believe he would readily let him go from the office, since he is so capable.

Uncle lives only in his work; he is so tremendously noble. You should hear how he can go and worry for the least fault or want of punctuality in his office.

"I think the devil is in the fellow--now he _is_ governor," the captain declared. "He has reached the highest grade and can't be removed, and has no need to worry."

"Poor Josiah," sighed Ma, "he was always the most sensitive of my brothers; but the best head."

"Yes, the judge at Ryfylke took both force and will for his part."

* * * * *

A fortnight later they were surprised by a letter from the governor's wife, with one from Inger-Johanna enclosed.

The governor's lady must, in any event, be allowed to keep her dear Inger-Johanna at least a year longer; she had become indispensable both to her and the governor, so that it was even difficult for them to realize that she could have another home.

She has spoiled her uncle by the young life she has brought into the house. My dear Zittow with his scrupulous conscientiousness is overburdened with anxieties and responsibilities in his great office, and is sadly in need of amusements and recreation after so many wakeful nights. Nay, so egotistical are we, that I will propose that we divide her in the most unjust manner--that she shall make a visit home this summer, but only to come down to us again. Anything else would be a great disappointment.

But do not let us bring a possibly unnecessary apple of discord upon the carpet too easily; it might turn out like the treaty between the great powers about the beautiful island in the Mediterranean; during the diplomatic negotiations it vanished. And indeed I lack very little of being ready to guarantee that our dear subject of dispute will in a short time herself rule over a home, which will be in proportion to what she with her nature and beauty can lay claim to.

That I, as her aunt, should be somewhat blindly partial to her, I can hardly believe; at least I can cite an experienced, well-informed person of the same mind in our common friend, Captain Rönnow, who last week came here with the royal family from Stockholm, and, in parenthesis be it said--it must be between us--is on the point of having an extraordinary career. He was thoroughly enthusiastic at seeing Inger-Johanna again, and declared that she was a perfect beauty and a born lady, who was sure to excite attention in circles which were even above the common, and much more which we ought not to let our dear child hear. I can only add that on leaving he warmly, and with a certain anxiety, recommended me to keep and still further develop her.

If not just in his first youth, he is at least perhaps _the_, or at any rate one of the, most elegant and most distinguished men in the army, and it would not be difficult for him to win even the most pretentious.

"No, I should say that, by George. Well, Ma," said he, winking, "what do you say now? Now, I think it is all going on well."

The captain took a swinging march over the floor, and then fell upon Inger-Johanna's letter.