Part 26 (1/2)

Next morning he set off for the capital. Merle watched the carriage as it drove away, and thought to herself: ”He was right. Something new is beginning.”

Chapter IX

There came a card from Peer, with a brief message: ”Off to inspect the ground.” A fortnight later he came home, loaded with maps and plans. ”Of course I'm late for the fair, as usual,” he said. ”But wait a bit.”

He locked himself into his room. At last Merle knew what it was like to have him at work. She could hear him in the mornings, walking up and down and whistling. Then silence--he would be standing over his table, busy with notes and figures. Then steps again. Now he was singing--and this was a novelty to himself. It was as if he carried in him a store of happiness, a treasure laid by of love, and the beauty of nature, and happy hours, and now it found its way out in song. Why should he not sing over the plans for a great barrage? Mathematics are dry work enough, but at times they can be as living visions, soaring up into the light. Peer sang louder. Then silence again. Merle never knew now when he stopped work and came to bed. She would fall asleep to the sound of his singing in his own room, and when she woke he would already be tramping up and down again in there; and to her his steps seemed like the imperious tread of a great commander. He was alight with new visions, new themes, and his voice had a lordly ring. Merle looked at him through half-closed eyes with a lingering glance. Once more he was new to her: she had never seen him like this.

At last the work was finished, and he sent in his tender. And now he was more restless than ever. For a week he waited for an answer, tramping in and out of the place, going off for rides on Bijou, and coming back with his horse dripping with sweat. An impatient man cannot possibly ride at any pace but a gallop. The days pa.s.sed; Peer was sleepless, and ate nothing. More days pa.s.sed. At last he came bursting into the nursery one morning: ”Trunk call, Merle; summons to a meeting of the Company Directors. Quick's the word. Come and help me pack--sharp.” And in no time he was off again to the city.

Now it was Merle's turn to walk up and down in suspense. It mattered little to her in itself whether he got the work or not, but she was keenly anxious that he should win.

A couple of days later a telegram came: ”Hurrah, wife!” And Merle danced round the room, waving the telegram above her head.

The next day he was back home again and tramping up and down the room.

”What do you think your father will say to it, Merle--ha!”

”Father? Say to what?”

”When I ask him to be my surety for a couple of hundred thousand crowns?”

”Is father to be in it, too?” Merle looked at him open-eyed.

”Oh, if he doesn't want to, we'll let him off. But at any rate I'll ask him first. Goodbye.” And Peer drove off into town.

In Lorentz Uthoug's big house you had to pa.s.s through the hardware shop to get to his office, which lay behind. Peer knocked at the door, with a portfolio under his arm. Herr Uthoug had just lit the gas, and was on the point of sitting down at his American roll-top desk, when Peer entered. The grey-bearded head with the close thick hair turned towards him, darkened by the shadow from the green shade of the burner.

”You, is it?” said he. ”Sit down. You've been to Christiania, I hear.

And what are you busy with now?”

They sat down opposite each other. Peer explained, calmly and with confidence.

”And what does the thing amount to?” asked Uthoug, his face coming out of the shadow and looking at Peer in the full light.

”Two million four hundred thousand.”

The old man laid his hairy hands on the desk and rose to his feet, staring at the other and breathing deeply. The sum half-stunned him.

Beside it he himself and his work seemed like dust in the balance. Where were all his plans and achievements now, his greatness, his position, his authority in the town? Compared with amounts like this, what were the paltry sums he had been used to handle?

”I--I didn't quite catch--” he stammered. ”Did you say two millions?”

”Yes. I daresay it seems a trifle to you,” said Peer. ”Indeed, I've handled contracts myself that ran to fifty million francs.”

”What? How much did you say?” Uthoug began to move restlessly about the room. He clutched his hair, and gazed at Peer as if doubting whether he was quite sober.

At the same time he felt it would never do to let himself be so easily thrown off his balance. He tried to pull himself together.

”And what do you make out of it?” he asked.