Part 36 (1/2)
Peer stood up straight, wiped his hands on his trousers, and came towards him. ”Good heavens! how old he has grown!” thought Uthoug to himself. But aloud he said, ”Well, you do look fit. I'd hardly have known you again.”
Merle caught sight of the pair from the kitchen window. ”Why, I do believe--” she exclaimed, and came running out. It was so long since she had seen any of her people, that she forgot her dignity and in a moment had her arms round her brother's neck, hugging him.
No, certainly Uthoug junior had not come with lamentations and condolences. He had a bottle of good wine in his bag, and at supper he filled the gla.s.ses and drank with them both, and talked about theatres and variety shows, and gave imitations of well-known actors, till he had set the two poor hara.s.sed creatures laughing. They must need a little joy and laughter--ah! well he knew how they must need it.
But he knew, too, that Merle and Peer were on tenterhooks waiting to know what the family had decided about their future. The days of their life here had been evil and sad, but they only hoped now that they might be able to stay on. If the help they had received up to now were taken from them, they could neither afford to stay here nor to go elsewhere.
What then could they do? No wonder they were anxious as they sat there.
After supper he went out for a stroll with Peer, while Merle waited at home in suspense. She understood that their fate was being settled as she waited.
At last they returned--and to her astonishment they came in laughing.
Her brother said good-night, and kissed her on the forehead, and patted her arm and was kindness itself. She took him up to his room, and would have liked to sit there a while and talk to him; but she knew Peer had waited till they were alone to tell her the news that concerned them so nearly. ”Good-night, then, Carsten,” she said to her brother, and went downstairs.
And then at last she and Peer were sitting alone together, at her work-table by the window.
”Well?” said Merle.
”The thing is this, Merle. If we have courage to live at all, we must look facts in the face as they are.”
”Yes, dear, but tell me . . .”
”And the facts are that with my health as it now is I cannot possibly get any employment. It is certain that I cannot. And as that is the case, we may as well be here as anywhere else.”
”But can we stay on here, Peer?”
”If you can bear to stay with a miserable bungler like me--that, of course, is a question.”
”Answer me--can we stay here?”
”Yes. But it may be years, Merle, before I'm fit to work again--we've got to reckon with that. And to live on charity year after year is what I cannot and will not endure.”
”But what are we to do, then, Peer? There seems to be no possible way for me to earn any money.”
”I can try, at any rate,” he answered, looking out of the window.
”You? Oh no, Peer. Even if you could get work as a draughtsman, you know quite well that your eyes would never stand . . .”
”I can do blacksmith's work,” he said.
There was a pause. Merle glanced at him involuntarily, as if she could hardly believe her ears. Could he be in earnest? Was the engineer of the Nile Barrage to sink into a country blacksmith?
She sighed. But she felt she must not dishearten him. And at last she said with an effort: ”It would help to pa.s.s the time, I daresay. And perhaps you would get into the way of sleeping better.” She looked out of the window with tightly compressed lips.
”And if I do that, Merle, we can't stay on in this house. In fact a great box of a place like this is too big for us in any case--when you haven't even a maid to help you.”
”But do you know of any smaller house we could take?”
”Yes, there's a little place for sale, with a rood or two of ground. If we had a cow and a pig, Merle--and a few fowls--and could raise a bushel or two of corn--and if I could earn a few s.h.i.+llings a week in the smithy--we wouldn't come on the parish, at any rate. I could manage the little jobs that I'd get--in fact, pottering about at them would do me good. What do you say?”