Dry Fish and Wet.
by Anthon Bernhard Elias Nilsen.
I
THE TOWN
The last census showed a population of 19,991 inhabitants, but if anyone asked "Holm at the Corner" how big the place was, he would say "between twenty and thirty thousand"--a figure he considered reasonable enough, counting the annual increment in the families he knew.
The town had its own traditions. Natives could speak with pride of the days, now long pa.s.sed, when the firms of C. B. Taline and Veuve Erik Strom had great cargoes of coffee coming direct from Rio, while Danish vessels by the dozen lay alongside the warehouses discharging corn, and unwieldy Dutchmen took in baulks large enough to cut up into arm-chair sections--ay, there was proper timber in those days, not like the thin weedy sticks that come down the river now!
And the place had other memories, apart from trade and commerce.
There was a whole gallery of clerics whose brilliant names cast a glow of distinction long after they themselves were dead and gone; old men remembered them, and the town could feel itself, as it were, related to episcopal sees all over the country. Great trading houses of old standing came to ruin, fortunes were shattered, and crisis after crisis came and went, but every such period merely added a fresh chapter to the history of the town, making new stories for fathers to tell their sons. In course of time, a whole collection of such stories had grown up about these merchant princes, for trade was, after all, the chief interest of the place and so remained. When the old men got together, talk would invariably turn upon such matters as Nils Berg"s grand speculations in the Crimean War, or the disastrous failure of Balle & Co.; while the younger ones, who were in the swim, enlisted further shareholders in their factories and ship-owning concerns. It was a town with plenty of grit in it, no lack of young stock to carry on the work.
True, there were times when it seemed to languish, to be dwindling away, when periods of crisis had swept away what appeared to be its chief support; but a breathing s.p.a.ce was all that was needed, and soon the old spirit was awake once more, and life went on as bravely as before.
And so it went on for generation after generation, while the river flowed, broad and smooth as ever, down the valley, pouring its ice-water into the fjord each spring. Up the hillsides on either hand the roads turned up and curved among thicket and bush, and the higher one climbed the clearer showed the town below with its rows of houses and its churches.
Those who were born in the town and had spent their youth there, but whom fate had later moved to other parts of the country, made it a practice, when they came home, to climb the hillside and look out over the town, as it lay there rich in memories. And the longer one had been away, the stronger they seemed to grow; for there is a strange power in such memories of a little, old town.
II
KNUT G. HOLM
Knut G. Holm had had his ups and downs; no one knew exactly how he stood. Failure and crisis had raged about him, and many a time public opinion had given him but a short while to keep above water himself, but he always managed to get through somehow, though there were times when he had not credit for five shillings, when the commercial travellers gave his corner premises the stealthy go-by, in the confident belief that he would put his shutters up next day. But he never did. And at last it grew to a proverb, that Knut G. Holm was like a cat; you might throw him out of a top-floor window, but he would always land on his feet in the end!
In the little office behind the shop there was always a little gathering before dinner-time, between one and two, to hear Holm holding forth; for he was a man with an unusual gift of speech, and whatever might happen in the place, he was always the first to get hold of it.
Dealer Vagle was a fool to pay 1600 for that dairy farm--Knut Holm had no hesitation in saying as much; nor was he afraid to make public his opinion that Jorgensen the hatter was not such a fool as he looked in selling the property referred to. Everyone knew Holm"s "gossip-shop," as the office was generally called, but no one took offence at his extravagant talk, for all knew he meant no harm, but was really one of the kindliest of men.
He was always terribly busy, for he had a hand in everything, from the Silicate Products Company, of which he was a director, to the machine shops, of which he was chairman, and which paid a steady 20 per cent. per annum.
Knut Holm was no longer a youth, he was nearing fifty-seven; but to judge from his fair-haired, rotund figure as one met him in the street, always with his coat unb.u.t.toned and his silk hat at a rakish angle, one would have set him down as ten years younger.
There was a peculiar briskness in his gait as he walked up the street in business hours, stopping to speak with every soul he met, and yet with such haste that the person last addressed would generally be left staring open-mouthed, without having had the chance of uttering a syllable.
Holm had long been thinking of getting in a lady clerk, a reliable person who could look after the office and keep the books up to date.
Peder Clasen and Garner had both been with him for many years, but both felt more at home outside in the shop, and never troubled about bookkeeping more than strictly necessary, and hardly that, with the result that the books were generally half a year behind. Nothing had come of the lady-clerk idea, however, until one day Dr. Blok looked in and asked if Holm could find any use for a young lady he knew, and could safely recommend, a Miss Betty Rantzau. Her mother taught singing; had come to the town some six months before; and the daughter was a willing and well-educated girl; it would be a good action to find her something to do. Clasen and Garner, not to speak of Holm himself, awaited her arrival with considerable interest. She was tall and slender, with a wealth of fair hair, and pretty teeth that showed when she smiled. She offered her hand with frank kindliness to Clasen as she came in. "So we are to work together,"
she said. "Very kind of you, I"m sure," stammered Clasen in confusion. "Mr. Holm is in the office; will you please to go in?"
Soon after, she was duly installed on the high stool in the office, with Holm himself sitting opposite, at the other side of the desk.
She managed the old daybook with surprising ease; Holm glanced at her from time to time as she worked. He found it difficult to open conversation; it was queer to have a woman about the place like this, and at such close quarters. He felt himself obliged to be a little careful of his words,--a thing he was altogether unaccustomed to in the office.
Next day, the usual meeting in the "gossip-shop" was of unusually brief duration, for as Vindt, the stockbroker, declared when he came out, "Damme, but it"s spoiled the whole thing, having a blessed woman in there listening to every word you say." Whereto Holm replied that it was "sort of comfortable to have a pleasant young face to look at, instead of a wrinkled old pumpkin like yours, Vindt!" Vindt growled, and took his departure hastily.
And it was not many days before Holm was chatting away easily to Betty, as she worked at her books, pretending to listen attentively the while to all his stories.
"I"m not disturbing you, I hope?"
"No, indeed, Mr. Holm. It"s very nice of you, I"m sure, to talk to me." She slipped down from her chair, and stroked the back of the big ledger with her slender white hands.
"I"ve walked a deuce of a way to-day"--he sat down on the sofa and wiped his forehead--"went right out to the cemetery, to lay a wreath on C. H. Pettersen and Company"s grave. You"ve heard of C. Henrik Pettersen, I dare say? Grocery and provision stores over the square there; had it for years and years. First-rate man he was; my best friend."
"Good friends are very precious, Mr. Holm."
"Why, yes, they are, mostly. And C. H. Pettersen and Co. was an uncommon firm, I must say, both for quality and weight. I know there were some mischief-making folk used to say he sold margarine as dairy b.u.t.ter, but that was just pure malice, for the quality was so good I"ll swear they couldn"t tell the difference. And when they"re both alike, what does it matter what you call them?"
"Has he been dead long?"
"Eleven years it is to-day since he handed in his final balance-sheet; I go out every year to lay a wreath on his grave, out of sheer grat.i.tude and affection for his memory."
"You don"t often meet with friendship like that."
"You"re right there. Ah, one needs to have friends; when you haven"t, it"s only too easy to get low-spirited--especially now, since I"ve had this bilious trouble."
"Oh, that must be horrid."
"Horrid, yes, it"s the very devil. Only fancy, a man like me, that used to eat and drink whatever I pleased--as far as I could get it, that is--and now that I can get whatever I"ve a fancy to, I have to live on brown bread and weak tea. You"d think Providence might have managed things better than that, now, wouldn"t you?"
"Oh, but I"m sure, if you"re careful, you"ll soon be all right again.
And as long as you"re properly looked after----"
"Ah, that"s just the trouble, I must say. I"ve been used to something very different. I dare say you know I"ve been married twice----"
"Twice? Oh yes, I fancy I did hear about it."
"So you can understand it"s a great deal to miss."
"Yes, indeed. Let me see; wasn"t your first wife English?"
"Maggie--yes; oh, a charming creature, Miss Rantzau; I wish you could have seen her. The loveliest brown eyes, and hair as black as a raven"s wing, and a complexion of milk and roses. And the sweetest disposition; good inside and out she was. Too good, I suppose, for this world as well as for me."
"Your first wife did not live very long?"
"We were only married a year: hardly enough to count, really. It"s just a beautiful memory----"
"And how did you come to meet her, Mr. Holm?"
"It was in Birmingham--I was over there on business. I dare say you"ve noticed I put in an English word now and again in talking; it"s all from the time of my first marriage."
"Yes, I have noticed you use foreign words now and again."