Halfvorson was not married, but he had in his house a niece who worked in the office. She was poor and dependent on Halfvorson, but she was quite haughty towards both him and Petter Nord. She had many friends among the more important people of the town and was invited to families where Halfvorson could never come. She and Petter Nord went home from the ball together.
"Do you know, Nord," asked Edith Halfvorson, "that a suit is soon to be brought against Halfvorson for illicit trading in brandy? You might tell me how it really is."
"There is nothing worth making a fuss about," said Petter Nord.
Edith sighed. "Of course there is nothing. But there will be a lawsuit and fines and shame without end. I wish that I really knew how it is."
"Perhaps it is best not to know anything," said Petter Nord.
"I wish to rise in the world, do you see," continued Edith, "and I wish to drag Halfvorson up with me, but he always drops back again. And then he does something so that I become impossible too. He is scheming something now. Do you not know what it is? It would be good to know."
"No," said Petter Nord, and not another word would he say. It was inhuman to talk to him of such things on the way home from his first ball.
Beyond the shop there was a little dark room for the shop-boy.
There sat Petter Nord of to-day and came to an understanding with
Petter Nord of yesterday. How pale and cowardly the churl looked.
Now he heard what he really was. A thief and a miser. Did he know
the seventh commandment? By rights he ought to have forty stripes.
That was what he deserved.
God be blessed and praised for having let him go to the ball and get a new view of it all. Usch! what ugly thoughts he had had; but now it was quite changed. As if riches were worth sacrificing conscience and the soul's freedom for their sake! As if they were worth as much as a white mouse, if the heart could not be glad at the same time! He clapped his hands and cried out in joy—that he was free, free, free! There was not even a longing to possess the fifty crowns in his heart. How good it was to be happy!
When he had gone to bed, he thought that he would show Halfvorson the fifty crowns early the next morning. Then he became uneasy that the tradesman might come into the shop before him the next morning, search for the note and find it. He might easily think that Petter Nord had hidden it to keep it. The thought gave him no peace. He tried to shake it off, but he could not succeed. He could not sleep. So he rose, crept into the shop and felt about till he found the fifty crowns. Then he fell asleep with the note under his pillow.
An hour later he awoke. A light shone sharply in his eyes; a hand was fumbling under his pillow and a rumbling voice was scolding and swearing.
Before the boy was really awake, Halfvorson had the note in his hand and showed it to the two women, who stood in the doorway to his room. "You see that I was right," said Halfvorson. "You see that it was well worth while for me to drag you up to bear witness against him! You see that he is a thief!"
"No, no, no," screamed poor Petter Nord. "I did not wish to steal.
I only hid the note."
Halfvorson heard nothing. Both the women stood with their backs turned to the room, as if determined to neither hear nor see.
Petter Nord sat up in bed. He looked all of a sudden pitifully weak and small. His tears were streaming. He wailed aloud.
"Uncle," said Edith, "he is weeping."
"Let him weep," said Halfvorson, "let him weep!" And he walked forward and looked at the boy. "You can weep all you like," he said, "but that does not take me in."
"Oh, oh," cried Petter Nord, "I am no thief. I hid the note as a joke—to make you angry. I wanted to pay you back for the mice. I am not a thief. Will no one listen to me. I am not a thief."
"Uncle," said Edith, "if you have tortured him enough now, perhaps we may go back to bed?"
"I know, of course, that it sounds terrible," said Halfvorson, "but it cannot be helped." He was gay, in very high spirits. "I have had my eye on you for a long time," he said to the boy. "You have always something you are tucking away when I come into the shop. But now I have caught you. Now I leave witnesses, and now I am going for the police."
The boy gave a piercing scream. "Will no one help me, will no one help me?" he cried. Halfvorson was gone, and the old woman who managed his house came up to him.
"Get up and dress yourself, Petter Nord! Halforson has gone for the police, and while he is away you can escape. The young lady can go out into the kitchen and get you a little food. I will pack your things."
The terrible weeping instantly ceased. After a short tine of hurry the boy was ready. He kissed both the women on the hand, humbly, like a whipped dog. And then off he ran.
They stood in the door and looked after him. When he was gone, they drew a sigh of relief.
"What will Halfvorson say?" said Edith.
"He will be glad," answered the housekeeper.
"He put the money there for the boy, I think. I guess that he wanted to be rid of him."
"But why? The boy was the best one we have had in the shop for many years."
"He probably did not want him to give testimony in the affair with the brandy."
Edith stood silent and breathed quickly. "It is so base, so base," she murmured. She clenched her fist towards the office and towards the little pane in the door, through which Halfvorson could see into the shop. She would have liked, she too, to have fled out into the world, away from all this meanness. She heard a sound far in, in the shop. She listened, went nearer, followed the noise, and at last found behind a keg of herring the cage of Petter Nord's white mice.
She took it up, put it on the counter, and opened the cage door. Mouse after mouse scampered out and disappeared behind boxes and barrels.
"May you flourish and increase," said Edith. "May you do injury and revenge your master!"
II
The little town lay friendly and contented under its red hill. It was so embedded in green that the church tower only just stuck up out of it. Garden after garden crowded one another on narrow terraces up the slope, and when they could go no further in that direction, they leaped with their bushes and trees across the street and spread themselves out between the scattered farmhouses and on the narrow strips of earth about them, until they were stopped by the broad river.
Complete silence and quiet reigned in the town. Not a soul was to be seen; only trees and bushes, and now and again a house. The only sound to be heard was the rolling of balls in the bowling-alley, like distant thunder on a summer day. It belonged to the silence.
But now the uneven stones of the market-place were ground under iron-shod heels. The noise of coarse voices thundered against the walls of the town-hall and the church was thrown back from the mountain, and hastened unchecked down the long street. Four wayfarers disturbed the noonday peace.
Alas, for the sweet silence, the holiday peace of years! How terrified they were! One could almost see them betaking themselves in flight up the mountain slopes.
One of the noisy crew who broke into the village was Petter Nord, the Värmland boy, who six years before had run away, accused of theft. Those who were with him were three longshoremen from the big commercial town that lies only a few miles away.
How had little Petter Nord been getting on? He had been getting on well. He had found one of the most sensible of friends and companions.
As he ran away from the village in the dark, rainy February morning, the