"Haven"t you put by anything?"
"Put by anything? You can look in my box it you like. I never put by anything in Bergen, and. I got more wages then."
"I"ve no money to give you," said he.
He had but little faith in her ever coming back at all, and she had plagued him so much with her humours this way and that; he had grown indifferent at last. And though he gave her money in the end, it was nothing to speak of; but he took no notice when she packed away an enormous h.o.a.rd of food to take with her, and he drove her down himself, with her box, to the village to meet the steamer.
And that was done.
He could have managed alone on the place, he had learned to do so before, but it was awkward with the cattle; if ever he had to leave home, there was none to look to them. The storekeeper in the village had urged him to get Oline to come for the winter, she had been at Sellanraa for years before; she was old now, of course, but fit and able to work. And Axel did send for Oline, but she had not come, and sent no word.
Meantime, he worked in the forest, threshed out his little crop of corn, and tended his cattle. It was a quiet and lonely life. Now and again Sivert from Sellanraa would drive past on his way to and from the village, taking down loads of wood, or hides, or farm produce, but rarely bringing anything up home; there was little they needed to buy now at Sellanraa.
Now and again, too, Brede Olsen would come trudging along, more frequently of late--whatever he might be after. It looked as if he were trying to make himself indispensable to the telegraph people in the little time that remained, so as to keep his job. He never came in to see Axel now that Barbro was gone, but went straight by--a piece of high-and-mightiness ill fitted to his state, seeing that he was still living on at Breidablik and had not moved. One day, when he was pa.s.sing without so much as a word of greeting, Axel stopped him, and asked when he had thought of getting out of the place.
"What about Barbro, and the way she left you?" asked Brede in return.
And one word led to another: "You sent her off with neither help nor means, "twas a near thing but she never got to Bergen at all."
"Ho! So she"s in Bergen, is she?"
"Ay, got there at last, so she writes, but little thanks to you."
"I"ll have you out of Breidablik, and that sharp," said Axel.
"Ay, if you"d be so kind," said the other, with a sneer. "But we"ll be going of ourselves at the new year," he said, and went on his way.
So Barbro was gone to Bergen--ay, "twas as Axel had thought. He did not take it to heart. Take it to heart? No, indeed; he was well rid of her. But for all that, he had hoped a little until then that she might come back. "Twas all unreasonable, but somehow he had come to care overmuch for the girl--ay, for that devil of a girl. She had her sweet moments, unforgettable moments, and it was on purpose to hinder her from running off to Bergen that he had given her so little money for the journey. And now she had gone there after all. A few of her clothes still hung in the house, and there was a straw hat with birds"
wings on, wrapped up in a paper, in the loft, but she did not come to fetch them. Eyah, maybe he took it to heart a little, only a little.
And as if to jeer at him, as a mighty jest in his trouble, came the paper he had ordered for her every week, and it would not stop now till the new year.
Well, well, there were other things to think about. He must be a man.
Next spring he would have to put up a shed against the north wall of the house; the timber would have to be felled that winter, and the planks cut. Axel had no timber to speak of, not growing close, but there were some heavy firs scattered about here and there on the outskirts of his land, and he marked out those on the side toward Sellanraa, to have the shortest way to cart his timber up to the sawmill.
And so one morning he gives the beasts an extra feed, to last them till the evening, shuts all doors behind him, and goes out felling trees. Besides his ax and a basket of food, he carried a rake to clear the snow away. The weather was mild, there had been a heavy snowstorm the day before, but now it had stopped. He follows the telegraph line all the way to the spot, then pulls off his jacket and falls to work.
As the trees are felled, he strips off the branches, leaving the clean trunks, and piles up the small wood in heaps.
Brede Olsen comes by on his way up--trouble on the line, no doubt, after yesterday"s storm. Or maybe Brede was out on no particular errand, but simply from pure zeal--ho, he was mighty keen on his duty of late, was Brede! The two men did not speak, did not so much as lift a hand in greeting.
The weather is changing again, the wind is getting up. Axel marks it, but goes on with his work. It is long past noon, and he has not yet eaten. Then, felling a big fir, he manages to get in the way of its fall, and is thrown to the ground. He hardly knew how it happened--but there it was. A big fir swaying from the root: a man will have it fall one way, the storm says another--and the storm it is that wins. He might have got clear after all, but the lie of the ground was hidden by snow. Axel made a false step, lost his footing, and came down in a cleft of rock, astride of a boulder, pinned down by the weight of a tree.
Well, and what then? He might still have got clear, but, as it chanced, he had fallen awkwardly as could be--no bones broken, as far as he could tell, but twisted somehow, and unable to drag himself out.
After a while he gets one hand free, supporting himself on the other, but the ax is beyond his reach. He looks round, takes thought, as any other beast in a trap would do; looks round and takes thought and tries to work his way out from under the tree. Brede must be coming by on his way down before long, he thinks to himself, and gives himself a breathing-s.p.a.ce.
He does not let it trouble him much at first, it was only annoying to lose time at his work; there is no thought in his mind of being in danger, let alone in peril of his life. True, he can feel the hand that supports him growing numbed and dead, his foot in the cleft growing cold and helpless too; but no matter, Brede must be here soon.
Brede did not come.
The storm increased, Axel felt the snow driving full in his face.
Ho, "tis coming down in earnest now, says he to himself, still never troubling much about it all--ay, "tis as if he blinks at himself through the snow, to look out, for now things are beginning in earnest! After a long while he gives a single shout. The sound would hardly carry far in the gale, but it would be upward along the line, towards Brede. Axel lies there with all sorts of vain and useless thoughts in his head: if only he could reach the ax, and perhaps cut his way out! If he could only get his hand up--it was pressing against something sharp, an edge of stone, and the stone was eating its way quietly and politely into the back of his hand. Anyhow, if only that infernal stone itself had not been there--but no one has ever yet heard tell of such a touching act of kindness on the part of a stone.
Getting late now, getting later, the snow drifting thick; Axel is getting snowed up himself. The snow packs all innocently, all unknowing, about his face, melting at first, till the flesh grows cold, and then it melts no longer. Ay, now "tis beginning in earnest!
He gives two great shouts, and listens.
His ax is getting snowed up now; he can see but a bit of the haft.
Over there is his basket of food, hung on a tree--if he could but have reached it, and had a feed--oh, huge big mouthfuls! And then he goes one step farther in his demands, and asks yet more: if he only had his coat on--it is getting cold. He gives another swinging shout....
And there is Brede. Stopped in his tracks, standing still, looking toward the man as he calls; he stands there but for a moment, glancing that way, as if to see what is amiss.
"Reach me the ax here, will you?" calls Axel, a trifle weakly.
Brede looks away hurriedly, fully aware now of what is the matter; he glances up at the telegraph wires and seems to be whistling. What can he mean by that?
"Here, reach me the ax, can"t you?" cries Axel louder. "I"m pinned here under a tree."
But Brede is strangely full of zeal in his duty now, he keeps on looking at the telegraph wires, and whistling all the time. Note, also, that he seems to be whistling gaily, as it were vengefully.
"Ho, so you"re going to murder me--won"t even reach me the ax?" cries Axel. And at that it seems as if there is trouble farther down the line, which Brede must see to without delay. He moves off, and is lost to sight in the driving snow.
Ho--well and good! But after that, well, it would just serve things generally right if Axel were to manage by himself after all, and get at the ax without help from any one. He strains all the muscles of his chest to lift the huge weight that bears him down; the tree moves, he can feel it shake, but all he gains by that is a shower of snow. And after a few more tries, he gives up.
Growing dark now. Brede is gone--but how far can he have got? Axel shouts again, and lets off a few straightforward words into the bargain. "Leave me here to die, would you, like a murderer?" he cries.
"Have ye no soul nor thought of what"s to come? And the worth of a cow, no less, to lend a helping hand. But "tis a dog you are and ever were, Brede, and leaving a man to die. Ho, but there"s more shall know of this, never fear, and true as I"m lying here. And won"t even come and reach me that ax...."
Silence. Axel strains away at the tree once more, lifts it a little, and brings down a new shower of snow. Gives it up again and sighs; he is worn out now, and getting sleepy. There"s the cattle at home, they"ll be standing in the hut and bellowing for food, not a bite nor a drop since the morning; no Barbro to look to them now--no. Barbro"s gone, run off and gone, and taken both her rings, gold and silver, taken them with her. Getting dark now, ay, evening, night; well, well.... But there"s the cold to reckon with too; his beard is freezing, soon his eyes will freeze too as well; ay, if he had but his jacket from the tree there ... and now his leg--surely, it can"t be that--but all the same one leg feels dead now up to the hip. "All in G.o.d"s hands," he says to himself--seems like he can talk all G.o.dly and pious when he will. Getting dark, ay; but a man can die without the light of a lamp. He feels all soft and good now, and of sheer humility he smiles, foolishly and kindly, at the snowstorm round; "tis G.o.d"s own snow, an innocent thing! Ay, he might even forgive Brede, and never say a word....
He is very quiet now, and growing ever more sleepy, ay, as if some poison were numbing him all over. And there is too much whiteness to look at every way; woods and lands, great wings, white veils, white sails; white, white ... what can it be? Nonsense, man! And he knows well enough it is but snow; he is lying out in the snow; "tis no fancy that he is lying there, pinned down beneath a tree.
He shouts again at hazard, throws out a roar; there in the snow a man"s great hairy chest swelling to a roar, bellowing so it could be heard right down at the hut, again and again. "Ay, and a swine and a monster," he cries after Brede again; "never a thought of how you"re leaving me to lie and be perished. And couldn"t even reach me the ax, that was all I asked; and call yourself a man, or a beast of the field? Ay, well then, go your way, and good luck to you if that"s your will and thought to go...."
He must have slept; he is all stiff and lifeless now, but his eyes are open; set in ice, but open, he cannot wing nor blink--has he been sleeping with open eyes? Dropped off for a second maybe, or for an hour, G.o.d knows, but here"s Oline standing before him. He can hear her asking: "In Jesu name, say if there"s life in you!" And asking him if it is him lying there, and if he"s lost his wits or no.
Always something of a jackal about Oline; sniffing and scenting out, always on the spot where there was trouble; ay, she would nose it out.
And how could she ever have managed through life at all if it hadn"t been that same way? Axel"s word had reached her, and for all her seventy years she had crossed the field to come. Snowed up at Sellanraa in the storm of the day before, and then on again to Maaneland; not a soul on the place; fed the cattle, stood in the doorway listening, milked the cows at milking-time, listening again; what could it be?...
And then a cry comes down, and she nods; Axel, maybe, or maybe the hill-folk, devils--anyway, something to sniff and scent and find--to worm out the meaning of it all, the wisdom of the Almighty with the dark and the forest in the hollow of His hand--and He would never harm Oline, that was not worthy to unloose the latchet of His shoes....
And there she stands.
The ax? Oline digs down and down in the snow, and finds no ax. Manage without, then--and she strains at the tree to lift it where it lies, but with no more strength than a child; she can but shake the branches here and there. Tries for the ax again--it is all dark, but she digs with hands and feet. Axel cannot move a hand to point, only tell where it lay before, but "tis not there now. "If it hadn"t been so far to Sellanraa," says Axel.
Then Oline falls to searching her own ways, and Axel calls to her that there"s no ax there. "Ay, well," says Oline, "I was but looking a bit.
And what"s this, maybe?" says she.
"You"ve found it?" says he.
"Ay, by the grace of the Lord Almighty," answers Oline, with high-sounding words.