Part 19 (1/2)

It was no less a person than the master of Loreng himself whose proceedings struck them as so comic.

Peer it was, wandering about in the great neglected garden, with his hands in the pockets of his knickerbockers and his cap on the back of his head, stopping here and there, and moving on again as the fancy took him. Sometimes he would hum a s.n.a.t.c.h of a song, and again fall to whistling; here he would pick up a twig and look at it, or again it might be a bird, or perhaps an old neglected apple-tree that seemed worth stopping to talk to. The best of it was that these were his own lands and his own woods that lay there in the rusty October suns.h.i.+ne.

Was all that nothing? And the hill over on the farther sh.o.r.e, standing on its head in the dark lake-mirror, clothed in a whole world of colour--yellow leaves and green leaves, and light red and dark red, and golden and blood-red patches, with the dark green of the pines between.

His eyes had all this to rest on. Did he really live here? What abundant fruitfulness all around him! What a sky, so wide, so golden that it seemed to ring again. The potato-stalks lay uprooted, scattered on the fields; the corn was safely housed. And here he stood. He seemed again to be drawing in nourishment from all he saw, drinking it greedily.

The empty places in his mind were filled; the sight of the rich soft landscape worked on his being, giving it something of its own abundant fruitfulness, its own wide repose.

And--what next?

”What next?” he mimicked in his thoughts, and started again tramping up and down the garden paths. What next--what next? Could he not afford now to take his time--to rest a little? Every man must have an end in view--must strive to reach this goal or that. And what was his object now? What was it he had so toiled for, from those hard years in the loft above the stable even until now? What was it? Often it seemed as if everything were going smoothly, going of itself; as if one day, surely, he would find his part in a great, happy world-harmony. But had he not already found it? What more would he have? Of course he had found it.

But is this all, then? What is there behind and beyond? Hus.h.!.+ have done with questioning. Look at the beauty around you. Here is peace, peace and rest.

He hurried up to the house, and in--it might help matters if he could take his wife in his arms; perhaps get her to come out with him a while.

Merle was in the pantry, with a big ap.r.o.n on, ranging jars of preserves on the shelves.

”Here, dearest little wife,” cried Peer, throwing his arms about her, ”what do you say to a little run?”

”Now? Do you suppose a housewife has nothing better to do than gad about? Uf! my hair! you'll make it come down.”

Peer took her arm and led her over to a window looking out on the lake.

”There, dearest! Isn't it lovely here?”

”Peer, you've asked me that twenty times a day ever since we came.”

”Yes, and you never answer. And you've never once yet run and thrown your arms round my neck and said how happy you were. And it's never yet come to pa.s.s that you've given me a single kiss of your own accord.”

”I should think not, when you steal such a lot.” And she pushed him aside, and slipped under his arm, and ran out of the room. ”I must go in and see mother again to-day,” she said as she went.

”Huit! Of course!” He paced up and down the room, his step growing more and more impatient. ”In to mother--in to mother! Always and everlastingly mother and mother and nothing else. Huit!” and he began to whistle.

Merle put her head in at the door. ”Peer--have you such a terrible lot of spare time?”

”Well, yes and no. I'm busy enough looking about in every corner here for something or another. But I can't find it, and I don't even know exactly what it is. Oh well, yes--I have plenty of time to spare.”

”But what about the farm?”

”Well, there's the dairy-woman in the cow-house, and the groom in the stables, and the bailiff to worry the tenants and workpeople. What am I to do--poke around making improvements?”

”But what about the machine-shop?”

”Don't I go in twice a day--cycle over to see how things are going? But with Rode for manager--that excellent and high-principled engineer--”

”Surely you could help him in some way?”

”He's got to go on running along the line of rails he's used to--nothing else for it, my darling. And four or five thousand crowns a year, net profit--why, it's magnificent!”

”But couldn't you extend the business?”