Part 16 (1/2)
What was it, this new rus.h.i.+ng in his ears; this new rhythm of his pulse?
He lay back at last in the bottom of the boat, with hands clasped behind his head, and let boat and all things drift.
And when the glare of the rising sun came slanting into the boat and beat dazzlingly in his face, he only turned his head a little and let it s.h.i.+ne full upon him.
Now she is lying asleep over there, the morning streaming red through her window--of whom is she dreaming as she sleeps?
Have you ever seen such eyebrows before? To press one's lips to them--to take her head between one's hand . . . and so it is to save your mother that you give up your own dreams, and to warm her soul that you keep that flame of gladness burning in you? Is that the sort you are?
Merle--was ever such a name? Are you called Merle?
Day spreads over the heavens, kindling all the night-clouds, great and small, to gold and scarlet. And here he lies, rocking, rocking, on no lake, but on a red stately-heaving ocean swell.
Ah! till now your mind has been so filled with cold mechanics, with calculations, with steel and fire. More and more knowledge, ever more striving to understand all things, to know all, to master all. But meanwhile, the tones of the hymn died within you, and the hunger for that which lies beyond all things grew ever fiercer and fiercer. You thought it was Norway that you needed--and now you are here. But is it enough?
Merle--is your name Merle?
There is nothing that can be likened to the first day of love. All your learning, your travel, and deeds and dreams--all has been nothing but dry firewood that you have dragged and heaped together. And now has come a spark, and the whole heap blazes up, casting its red glow over earth and heaven, and you stretch out your cold hands, and warm them, and s.h.i.+ver with joy that a new bliss has come upon the earth.
And all that you could not understand--the relation between the spark of eternity in your soul and the Power above, and the whole of endless s.p.a.ce--has all of a sudden become so clear that you lie here trembling with joy at seeing to the very bottom of the infinite enigma.
You have but to take her by the hand, and ”Here are we two,” you say to the powers of life and death. ”Here is she and here am I--we two”--and you send the anthem rolling aloft--a strain from little Louise's fiddle-bow mingling with it--not to the vaultings of any church, but into endless s.p.a.ce itself. And Thou, Power above, now I understand Thee.
How could I ever take seriously a Power that sat on high playing with Sin and Grace--but now I see Thee, not the bloodthirsty Jehovah, but a golden-haired youth, the Light itself. We two wors.h.i.+p Thee; not with a wail of prayer, but with a great anthem, that has the World-All in it.
All our powers, our knowledge, our dreams--all are there. And each has its own instrument, its own voice in the mighty chorus. The dawn reddening over the hills is with us. The goat grazing on that northern hillside, dazzled with sun-gold when it turns its head to the east--it is with us, too. The waking birds are with us. A frog, crawling up out of a puddle and stopping to wonder at the morning--it is there. Even the little insect with diamonds on its wings--and the gra.s.s-blade with its pearl of dew, trying to mirror as much of the sky as it can--it is there, it is there, it is there. We are standing amid Love's first day, and there is no more talk of grace or doubt or faith or need of aid; only a rus.h.i.+ng sound of music rising to heaven from all the golden rivers in our hearts.
The saeters were beginning to wake. Musical cries came echoing as the saeter-girls chid on the cattle, that moved slowly up to the northern heights, with lowings and tinkling of bells. But Peer lay still where he was--and presently the dairy-maid at the saeter caught sight of what seemed an empty boat drifting on the lake, and was afraid some accident had happened.
”Merle,” thought Peer, still lying motionless. ”Is your name Merle?”
The dairy-maid was down by the waterside now, calling across toward the boat. And at last she saw a man sit up, rubbing his eyes.
”Mercy on us!” she cried. ”Lord be thanked that you're there. And you haven't been in the whole blessed night!”
A goat with a broken leg, set in splints, had been left to stray at will about the cattle-pens and in and out of the house, while its leg-bones were setting. Peer must needs pick up the creature and carry it round for a while in his arms, though it at once began chewing at his beard.
When he sat down to the breakfast-table, he found something so touching in the look of the cream and b.u.t.ter, the bread and the coffee, that it seemed a man would need a heart of stone to be willing to eat such things. And when the old woman said he really ought to get some food into him, he sprang up and embraced her, as far as his arms would go round. ”Nice carryings on!” she cried, struggling to free herself. But when he went so far as to imprint a sounding kiss on her forehead, she fetched him a mighty push. ”Lord!” she said, ”if the gomeril hasn't gone clean out of his wits this last night!”
Chapter IV
Ringeby lay on the sh.o.r.e of a great lake; and was one of those busy commercial towns which have sprung up in the last fifty years from a nucleus consisting of a saw-mill and a flour-mill by the side of a waterfall. Now quite a number of modern factories had spread upwards along the river, and the place was a town with some four thousand inhabitants, with a church of its own, a monster of a school building, and numbers of yellow workmen's dwellings scattered about at random in every direction. Otherwise Ringeby was much like any other little town.
There were two lawyers, who fought for sc.r.a.ps of legal business, and the editors of two local papers, who were constantly at loggerheads before the Conciliation Board. There was a temperance lodge and Workers' Union and a chapel and a picture palace. And every Sunday afternoon the good citizens of Ringeby walked out along the fjord, with their wives on their arms. On these occasions most of the men wore frock coats and grey felt hats; but Enebak, the tanner, being hunchbacked, preferred a tall silk hat, as better suited to eke out his height.
On Sat.u.r.day evenings, when twilight began to fall, the younger men would meet at the corner outside Hammer's store, to discuss the events of the week.
”Have you heard the latest news?” asked Lovli, the bank cas.h.i.+er, of his friend the telegraphist, who came up.
”News? Do you tell me that there's ever any news in this accursed hole?”
”Merle Uthoug has come back from the mountains--engaged to be married.”