Axel is slow of mind, and slow to act. He stands there still. "Where is it, then?" he asks.
"You"ve no call to know," says she. "Help me back home. Twas dead. I can walk if you hold my arm a bit."
Axel carries her back home and sets her in a chair, the water dripping off her. "Was it dead?" he asks.
"I told you "twas so," she answers.
"What have you done with it, then?"
"D"you want to smell it? D"you get anything to eat while I was away?"
"But what did you want down by the water?"
"By the water? I was looking for juniper twigs."
"Juniper twigs? What for?"
"For cleaning the buckets."
"There"s none that way," says he.
"You get on with your work," says she hoa.r.s.ely, and all impatient.
"What was I doing by the water? I wanted twigs for a broom. Have you had anything to eat, d"you hear?"
"Eat?" says he. "How d"you feel now?"
"Tis well enough."
"I doubt I"d better fetch the doctor up."
"You"d better try!" says she, getting up and looking about for dry clothes to put on. "As if you"d no better to do with your money!"
Axel goes back to his work, and "tis but little he gets done, but makes a bit of noise with planing and hammering, so she can hear. At last he gets the window wedged in, and stops the frame all round with moss.
That evening Barbro seems not to care for her food, but goes about, all the same, busy with this and that--goes to the cowshed at milking-time, only stepping a thought more carefully over the door-sill. She went to bed in the hayshed as usual. Axel went in twice to look at her, and she was sleeping soundly. She had a good night.
Next morning she was almost as usual, only so hoa.r.s.e she could hardly speak at all, and with a long stocking wound round her throat. They could not talk together. Days pa.s.sed, and the matter was no longer new; other things cropped up, and it slipped aside. The new house ought by rights to have been left a while for the timber to work together and make it tight and sound, but there was no time for that now; they had to get it into use at once, and the new cowshed ready.
When it was done, and they had moved in, they took up the potatoes, and after that there was the corn to get in. Life was the same as ever.
But there were signs enough, great or small, that things were different now at Maaneland. Barbro felt herself no more at home there now than any other serving-maid; no more bound to the place. Axel could see that his hold on her had loosened with the death of the child. He had thought to himself so confidently: wait till the child comes! But the child had come and gone. And at last Barbro even took off the rings from her fingers, and wore neither.
"What"s that mean?" he asked.
"What"s it mean?" she said, tossing her head.
But it could hardly mean anything else than faithlessness and desertion on her part.
And he had found the little body by the stream. Not that he had made any search for it, to speak of; he knew pretty closely where it must be, but he had left the matter idly as it was. Then chance willed it so that he should not forget it altogether; birds began to hover above the spot, shrieking grouse and crows, and then, later on, a pair of eagles at a giddy height above. To begin with, only a single bird had seen something buried there, and, being unable to keep a secret like a human being, had shouted it abroad. Then Axel roused himself from his apathy, and waited for an opportunity to steal out to the spot. He found the thing under a heap of moss and twigs, kept down by flat stones, and wrapped in a cloth, in a piece of rag. With a feeling of curiosity and horror he drew the cloth a little aside--eyes closed, dark hair, a boy, and the legs crossed--that was all he saw. The cloth had been wet, but was drying now; the whole thing looked like a half-wrung bundle of washing.
He could not leave it there in the light of day, and in his heart, perhaps, he feared some ill to himself or to the place. He ran home for a spade and dug the grave deeper; but, being so near the stream, the water came in, and he had to shift it farther up the bank. As he worked, his fear lest Barbro should come and find him disappeared; he grew defiant and thoroughly bitter. Let her come, and he would make her wrap up the body neatly and decently after her, stillborn or no!
He saw well enough all he had lost by the death of the child; how he was faced now with the prospect of being left without help again on the place--and that, moreover, with three times the stock to care for he had had at first. Let her come--he did not care! But Barbro--it might be she had some inkling of what he was at; anyway, she did not come, and Axel had to wrap up the body himself as best he could and move it to the new grave. He laid down the turf again on top, just as before, hiding it all. When he had done, there was nothing to be seen but a little green mound among the bushes.
He found Barbro outside the house as he came home.
"Where you been?" she asked.
The bitterness must have left him, for he only said: "Nowhere.
Where"ve you been?"
Oh, but the look on his face must have warned her; she said no more, but went into the house.
He followed her.
"Look here," he said, and asked her straight out, "What d"you mean by taking off those rings?"
Barbro, maybe, found it best to give way a little; she laughed, and answered: "Well, you are serious today--I can"t help laughing! But if you want me to put on the rings and wear them out weekdays, why, I will!" And she got out the rings and put them on.
But seeing him look all foolish and content at that, she grew bolder.
"Is there anything else I"ve done, I"d like to know?"
"I"m not complaining," answered he. "And you"ve only to be as you were before, all the time before, when you first came. That"s all I mean."
"Tis not so easy to be always together and always agree.
Axel went on: "When I bought that place after your father, "twas thinking maybe you"d like better to be there, and so we could shift.
What d"you think?"
Ho, there he gave himself away; he was afraid of losing her and being left without help, with none to look to the place and the animals again--she knew! "Ay, you"ve said that before," she answered coldly.
"Ay, so I have; but I"ve got no answer."
"Answer?" said she. "Oh, I"m sick of hearing it."
Axel might fairly consider he had been lenient; he had let Brede and his family stay on at Breidablik, and for all that he had bought the good crop with the place, he had carted home no more than a few loads of hay, and left the potatoes to them. It was all unreasonable of Barbro to be contrary now; but she paid no heed to that, and asked indignantly: "So you"d have us move down to Breidablik now, and turn out a whole family to be homeless?"
Had he heard aright? He sat for a moment staring and gaping, cleared his throat as if to answer thoroughly, but it came to nothing; he only asked: "Aren"t they going to the village, then?"
"Don"t ask me," said Barbro. "Or perhaps you"ve got a place for them to be there?"
Axel was still loth to quarrel with her, but he could not help letting her see he was surprised at her, just a little surprised. "You"re getting more and more cross and hard," said he, "though you don"t mean any harm, belike."
"I mean every word I say," she answered. "And why couldn"t you have let my folks come up here?--answer me that! Then I"d have had mother to help me a bit. But you think, perhaps, I"ve so little to do, I"ve no need of help?"
There was some sense in this, of course, but also much that was unreasonable altogether. If Bredes had come, they would have had to live in the hut, and Axel would have had no place for his beasts--as badly off as before. What was the woman getting at?--had she neither sense nor wit in her head?
"Look here," said he, "you"d better have a servant-girl to help."
"Now--with the winter coming on and less to do than ever? No, you should have thought of that when I needed it."