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CHAPTER XV

It was a Sunday evening in midsummer; the priest had returned from church, and Margit had been sitting with him until it was nearly seven o'clock. Now she took her leave, and hastened down the steps and out into the yard, for there she had just caught sight of Eli Böen, who had been playing for some time with the priest's son and her own brother.

"Good evening!" said Margit, standing still, "and God bless you all!"

"Good evening!" replied Eli, blushing crimson, and showing a desire to stop playing, although the boys urged her to continue; but she begged to be excused, and they had to let her go for that evening.

"It seems to me I ought to know you," said Margit.

"That is quite likely," was the reply.

"This surely never can be Eli Böen?"

Yes, it was she.

"Oh, dear me! So you are Eli Böen! Yes, now I see you are like your mother."

Eli's auburn hair had become unfastened, so that it floated carelessly about her; her face was as hot and as red as a berry, her bosom heaved, she could not speak, and laughed because she was so out of breath.

"Yes, that is the way with young people."

Margit looked at Eli with satisfaction as she spoke.

"I suppose you do not know me?"

Eli had no doubt wanted to ask who she was, but could not command the courage to do so, because the other was so much older than she; now she said that she did not remember having seen her before.

"Well, to be sure, that is scarcely to be expected; old folks seldom get out. You may perhaps know my son, Arne Kampen. I am his mother." She stole a sly glance, as she spoke, at Eli, on whom these words wrought a considerable change. "I am inclined to think he worked over at Böen once, did he not?"

Yes, it was Eli's impression, too, that he had done so.

"The weather is fine this evening. We turned our hay to-day, and got it in before I left home; it is really blessed weather."

"There will surely be a good hay-harvest this year," Eli observed.

"Yes, you may well say so. I suppose everything looks splendidly over at Böen."

"They are through harvesting there."

"Oh, of course; plenty of help, stirring people. Are you going home this evening?"

No, she did not intend to do so. They talked together about one thing and another and gradually became so well acquainted that Margit felt at liberty to ask Eli to walk a short distance with her.

"Could you not keep me company a few steps?" said she. "I so seldom find any one to talk with, and I dare say it will make no difference to you."

Eli excused herself because she had not her jacket on.

"Well, I know, it is really a shame to ask such a thing the first time I meet a person; but then one has to bear with old folks."

Eli said she was quite willing to go, she only wanted to fetch her jacket.

It was a close-fitting jacket; when it was hooked, she looked as if she wore a complete dress; but now she only fastened the two lowest hooks, she was so warm. Her fine linen had a small turned down collar, and was fastened at the throat with a silver button, in the form of a bird with outspread wings. Such a one tailor Nils had worn the first time Margit Kampen had danced with him.

"What a handsome button," she remarked, looking at it.

"My mother gave it to me," said Eli.

"Yes, so I thought," and Margit helped the girl adjust it as she spoke.

Now they walked on along the road. The new-mown hay was lying about in heaps. Margit took up a handful, smelled it, and thought it was good. She asked about the live stock at the parsonage, was led thereby to inquire about that at Böen, and then told how much they had at Kampen.

"The gard has prospered finely of late years, and it can be made as much larger as we ourselves wish. It feeds twelve milch cows now, and could feed more; but Arne reads a great many books, and manages according to them, and so he must have his cows fed in a first-rate way."

Eli made no reply to all this, as was quite natural; but Margit asked her how old she was. She was nineteen.

"Have you taken any part in the house-work? You look so dainty, I suppose it has not been much."

Oh, yes, she had helped in various ways, especially of late.

"Well, it is a good thing to become accustomed to a little of everything; if one should get a large house of one's own, there might be many things to be done. But, to be sure, when one finds good help already in the house, it does not matter so very much."

Eli now thought she ought to turn back, for they had gone far beyond the parsonage lands.

"It will be some time yet before the sun sets; it would be kind if you would chat with me a little longer." And Eli went on.

Then Margit began to talk about Arne. "I do not know if you are very well acquainted with him. He can teach you something about everything. Bless me! how much that boy has read!"

Eli confessed that she was aware he had read a great deal.

"Oh, yes; that is really the least that can be said of him. Why, his conduct to his mother all his days is something far beyond that. If the old saying is true, that one who is good to his mother is sure to be good to his wife, the girl Arne chooses will not have very much to grumble about. What is it you are looking for, child?"

"I only lost a little twig I had in my hand."

They were both silent after this, and walked on without looking at each other.

"He has such strange ways," began the mother, presently; "he was so often frightened when he was a child that he got into the habit of thinking everything over to himself, and such folks never know how to put themselves forward."

Now Eli insisted on turning back, but Margit assured her that it was only a short distance now to Kampen, and see Kampen she must, as she was so near. But Eli thought it was too late that day.

"There is always some one who can go home with you," said Margit.

"No, no," promptly replied Eli, and was about to leave.

"To be sure, Arne is not at home," said Margit; "so it will not be he; but there will be sure to be some one else."

Now Eli had less objection to going; besides, she wanted very much to see Kampen. "If only it does not grow too late," said she.

"Well, if we stand here much longer talking about it, I suppose it may grow too late," and they went on.

"You have read a great deal, I dare say; you who were brought up at the priest's?"

Yes, Eli had read a good deal.

"That will be useful," Margit suggested, "when you are married to one who knows less than you."

Eli thought she would never be married to such a person.

"Ah, well, it would perhaps not be best either; but in this parish there is so little learning."

Eli asked where the smoke rising yonder in the wood came from.

"It comes from the new houseman's place belonging to Kampen. A man called Upland Knut lives there. He was alone in the world, and so Arne gave him that place to clear. He knows what it is to be lonely, my poor Arne."

Soon they reached an ascent whence the gard could be seen. The sun shone full in their faces; they held up their hands to shade their eyes and gazed down at Kampen. It lay in the midst of a plain, the houses red painted and with white window-frames; the grass in the surrounding meadows had been mown, the hay might still be seen in heaps here and there, the grain-fields lay green and rich among the pale meadows; over by the cow-house all was stir and bustle: the cows, sheep, and goats were just coming home, their bells were tinkling the dogs were barking, the milk-maids shouting, while above all rose with awful din the roar of the force in the Kamp gorge. The longer Eli looked, the more completely this grand tune filled her ears, and at last it seemed so appalling to her that her heart throbbed wildly; it roared and thundered through her head until she grew bewildered, and at the same time felt so warm and tender that involuntarily she took such short, hesitating steps, that Margit begged her to walk a little faster.

She started. "I never heard anything like that waterfall," said she; "I am almost afraid of it."

"You will soon get used to it," said the mother; "at last you would even miss it if you could not hear it."

"Dear me! do you think so?" cried Eli.

"Well, you will see," said Margit, smiling.

"Come now, let us first look at the cattle," she continued, turning off from the main road. "These trees on each side Nils planted. He wanted to have everything nice, Nils did, that is what Arne likes too; look! there you can see the garden my boy has laid out."

"Oh, how pretty!" cried Eli, running over to the garden fence. She had often seen Kampen, but only from a distance, where the garden was not visible.

"We will look at that after a while," said Margit.

Eli hastily glanced through the windows, as she went past the house; there was no one inside.

They stationed themselves on the barn-bridge and watched the cows as they passed lowing into the stable. Margit named them to Eli, told how much milk each one gave, and which of them calved in the summer, which did not. The sheep were counted and let into the fold; they were of a large, foreign breed; Arne had raised them from two lambs he got from the south. "He gives much attention to all such things, although you would not think it of him."

They now went into the barn, and examined the hay that had been housed, and Eli had to smell it – "for such hay is not to be found everywhere." Margit pointed through the barn-hatch over the fields, and told what each one yielded and how much was sown of each kind of seed.

They went out toward the house; but Eli, who had not spoken a word in reply to all that had been said, as they passed by the garden, asked if she might go into it. And when leave had been given her to go, she begged to be allowed to pluck a flower or two. There was a little bench away in one corner; she went and sat down on it, only to try it, apparently, for she rose at once.

"We must hurry now, if we would not be too late," said Margit, standing in the door. And now they went in. Margit asked Eli if she should offer her some refreshments on this her first visit; but Eli blushed and hastily declined. Then the girl's eyes wandered all around the room they had entered; it was where the family sat in the day-time, and the windows opened on the road; the room was not large but it was cozy, and there was a clock and a stove in it. On the wall hung Nils's fiddle, dingy and old, but with new strings. Near it also hung a couple of guns belonging to Arne, an English angling-rod and other rare things which the mother took down and showed to Eli, who looked at them and handled them. The room was without paint, for Arne disliked it; nor was there any painting in the room looking toward the Kamp gorge, with the fresh green mountains directly opposite and the blue ones in the background; this latter room, – which was in the new part of the building, as was the entire half of the house it was in, – was larger and prettier than the first. The two smaller rooms in the wing were painted, for there the mother was to live when she was old, and Arne had brought a wife into the house. They went into the kitchen, the store-house, the bake-house, Eli spoke not a single word; indeed, she viewed everything about her as though from afar off; only when anything was held out for her inspection she touched it, but very daintily. Margit, who had kept up an unbroken stream of chatter the whole way, now led her into the passage again; they must go and take a look up-stairs.

There also were well-arranged rooms, corresponding with those below; but they were new and had scarcely yet been occupied, except one, which looked toward the gorge. In these rooms were kept all sorts of articles which were not in daily household use. Here hung a whole lot of robes, together with other bedclothes; the mother took hold of them, lifted them up, and now and then insisted on having Eli do the same. Meanwhile, it actually seemed as though the young girl were gaining a little courage, or else her pleasure in these things increased; for to some of them she went back a second time, asked questions about them, and became more and more interested.

Finally the mother said, "Now at last we will go into Arne's own room;" and then they went into the room overlooking the Kamp gorge. Once more the awful din of the force smote upon their ears, for the window was open. They were up so high that they could see the spray rising between the mountains, but not the force itself, save in one spot farther on, where a fragment had fallen from the cliff, just where the torrent, with all its might, took its final leap into the depths below. Fresh turf covered the upward turned side of this fallen piece of rock, a few fir cones had buried themselves in it, and sent forth a growth of trees with their roots in the crevices. The wind had tugged at and shaken the trees, the force had washed them so completely that there was not a branch four ells from the roots; they were crooked in the knees, their boughs knotted and gnarled, yet they kept their footing, and shot far up between the rocky walls. This was the first thing Eli noticed from the window; the next, the dazzling white snow-capped peaks rising above the green mountains. She turned her eyes away, let them wander over the peaceful, fruitful fields, and finally about the room where she stood; the roar of the force had hitherto prevented this.

How calm and cheerful it was within, compared with the scene without. She did not look at any single article, because one blended into the other, and most of them were new to her, for Arne had centred his affections in this room, and, simple as it was, it was artistic in almost every particular. It seemed as though the sound of his songs came floating toward her, while she stood there, or as though he himself smiled at her from every object. The first thing her eyes singled out in the room, was a broad, handsomely carved book-shelf. There were so many books on it that she did not believe the priest had more. A pretty cabinet was the next thing she noticed. Here he kept many rare things, his mother said. Here, too, he had his money, she added, in a whisper. They had twice had property left to them, she told afterwards; they would have one more inheritance besides, if things went as they should. "But money is not the best thing in the world, after all. Arne may get what is far better."

There were many little trinkets in the room which were interesting to examine, and Eli looked at them all, as happy as a child.

Margit patted her on the shoulder, saying, as she looked brightly into her eyes, "I have never seen you before to-day, my child, but I am already very fond of you." Before Eli had time to feel embarrassed, Margit pulled at her dress, and said, quite softly, "You see that little red chest; there is something nice in that, I can tell you."

Eli looked at the chest: it was a small, square one, which she at once longed to call her own.

"Arne does not want me to know what is in that chest," whispered the mother, "and he always keeps the key hid." She walked up to some clothes hanging on the wall, took down a velvet waistcoat, felt in the watch-pocket, and there found the key. "Come, now, you shall see," she whispered.

Eli did not think the mother was doing quite right, but women are women, – and these two now crossed softly over to the chest and knelt in front of it. As the mother raised the lid, so pleasant a perfume rose toward them that Eli clapped her hands even before she had seen anything. Spread over the top was a kerchief which the mother took away. "Now you shall see," she whispered, as she took up a fine, black silk neckerchief, such a one as men do not wear. "It looks just as if it were for a girl," said the mother. "Here is another," she added.

Eli could not help taking hold of this; but when the mother insisted upon trying it on her, she declined, and hung her head. The mother carefully folded them up again.

"See!" she then said, taking up some pretty silk ribbons; "everything here looks as if it were meant for a girl."

Eli grew red as fire, but not a sound escaped her; her bosom heaved, her eyes had a shy look, otherwise she stood immovable.

"Here are more things still!" The mother took hold of a beautiful black dress pattern, as she spoke. "This is fine goods, I dare say," said she, as she held it up to the light.

Eli's hands trembled, when the mother asked her to take hold of the cloth, she felt the blood rushing to her head; she would gladly have turned away, but this was not easy to do.

"He has bought something every time he has been to town," said the mother.

Eli could scarcely control herself any longer; her eyes roamed about the chest from one article to another, and back again to the dress goods; she, in fact, saw nothing else. But the mother persisted, and the last thing she took up was wrapped in paper; they slowly unwrapped it; this became attractive again. Eli grew eager; it proved to be a pair of small shoes. They had never seen anything like these, either one of them; the mother wondered how they could be made. Eli said nothing, but when she went to touch the shoes, all her fingers made marks on them; she felt so ashamed that she came very near bursting into tears. She longed most of all to take her leave, but she dared not speak, nor dare she do anything to make the mother look up.

Margit was wholly occupied with her own thoughts. "Does it not look just as if he had bought them one by one for some one he had not the courage to give them to?" said she, as she put each article back in the place where she had found it; she must have had practice in so doing. "Now let us see what there is in this little box," she added, softly opening it, as though now they were going to find something really choice.

There lay a buckle, broad enough for a belt; that was the first thing she showed Eli; the next was two gold rings, tied together, and then the girl caught sight of a velvet hymn-book with silver clasps; further she could not look, for on the silver of the book was engraved, in small letters, "Eli, Baardsdatter Böen."²⁹

Margit called her attention to something, got no reply, but saw that tear after tear was trickling down on the silk kerchief, and spreading over it. Then the mother laid down the brooch she held in her hand, closed the little box, turned round and clasped Eli in her arms. The daughter wept on her shoulder, and the mother wept over her, but neither of them spoke a word.

A little while later, Eli was walking alone in the garden: the mother had gone into the kitchen to prepare something good for supper, for now Arne would soon be home. By and by, Margit came out into the garden to look for her young friend, and found her sitting writing in the sand. As the mother joined her, Eli quickly smoothed the sand over what she had written, – looked up and smiled; she had been weeping.

"There is nothing to cry about, my child," said Margit, and gave her a pat.

They saw a black object moving between the bushes on the road. Eli stole into the house, the mother followed her. Here a bounteous repast was awaiting them: cream pudding, smoked meat, and cakes; but Eli had no eyes for these things; she crossed the floor to the corner where the clock stood, sat down on a chair close to the wall, and trembled if she only heard a cat stir. The mother stood by the table. Firm steps were heard on the flag-stones, a short, light step in the passage, the door was gently opened, and Arne came in.

The first object his eyes lighted on was Eli in the clock corner; he let go of the door and stood still. This made Eli yet more embarrassed; she got up, regretted at once having done so, and turned towards the wall.

"Are you here?" said Arne, softly, blushing crimson.

Eli shaded her eyes with one hand, as one does when the sun shines too full in the face.

"How – ?" He could get no farther, but he advanced a step or two.

She put her hand down again, turned toward him, then, bowing her head, she burst into tears.

"God bless you, Eli!" said he, and drew his arm around her; she nestled close up to him. He whispered something in her ear; she made no reply, but clasped her hands about his neck.

They stood thus for a long time, and not a sound was heard save the roar of the force, sending forth its eternal song. By and by some one was heard weeping near the table. Arne looked up: it was the mother.

"Now I am sure you will not leave me, Arne," said she, approaching him. She wept freely, but it did her good, she said.

When Arne and Eli walked home together in the bright summer evening, they did not talk much about their new-born happiness. They let Nature herself take the lead in the conversation, – so quiet, bright, and grand, she seemed, as she accompanied them. But it was on his way back to Kampen from this their first summer-night's walk, with his face turned toward the rising sun, that he laid the foundations of a poem, which he was then in no frame of mind to construct, but which, later, when it was finished, became for a while his daily song. It ran thus: —

 
"I hoped to become something great one day;
I thought it would be when I got away.
Each thought that my bosom entered
On far-off journeys was centred.
A maiden then into my eyes did look;
My rovings soon lost their pleasure.
The loftiest aim my heart can brook
Is her to proclaim my treasure.
 
 
"I hoped to become something great one day;
I thought it would be when I got away.
To meet with the great in learning
Intensely my heart was yearning.
She taught me, she did, for she spoke a word:
'The best gift of God's bestowing
Is not to be called a distinguished lord,
But ever a man to be growing.
 
 
"I hoped to become something great one day;
I thought it would be when I got away.
My home seemed so cold, neglected,
I felt like a stranger suspected.
When her I discovered, then love I did see
In every glance that found me;
Wherever I turned friends waited for me,
And life became new around me."
 

There came afterwards many a summer evening walk, followed by many a song. One of these must be recorded: —

 
"The cause of this all is beyond my knowing;
No storm there has been and no floods have been flowing.
A sparkling and glittering brook, it would seem,
Has poured itself into the broader stream
Which constantly growing seeks the ocean.
 
 
"There is something we can from our lives not sever;
In need it is near and forsakes us never, —
A power that draws, a loving breast,
Which sadness, shyness, and all unrest
Can gather in peace in a bridal present.
 
 
"Could I but by spirits through life be attended,
As pure as the thought which has now me befriended!
The ordering spirit of God it was.
He ruleth the world with sacred laws.
Toward goodness eternal I am progressing."
 

But perhaps none of them better expressed his fervent gratitude than the following: —

 
"The power that gave me my little song
Has caused that as rain has been my sadness,
And that as sunshine has been my gladness,
The spring-time wants of my soul along.
Whate'er betided
It did no harm;
My song all guided
To love so warm.
 
 
"The power that gave me my little song
Has given me friendship for all that's yearning.
For freedom's blessings my blood is burning;
The foe I am of every wrong.
I sought my station,
Spite every storm,
And found salvation
In love so warm.
 
 
"The power that gave me my little song
Must make me able to sing the others,
And now and then to make glad my brothers
Whom I may meet in the worldly throng, —
For there was never
A sweeter charm
Than singing ever
In love so warm."