“But isn’t it—isn’t that wicked?”
“Wicked! Hahaha! Wicked, did you say? So that’s the way they look at things here, is it? Well, well—well, well! Hahaha! Hand me that matchbox, my boy. H’m!” He puffed away for a while in silence. Then, suddenly:
“See here, boy. Did you know you’d a little sister?”
“Yes, I know.”
“Half-sister, that is to say. I didn’t quite know how it was myself. But I may as well tell you, my boy, that I paid the same for you all along, the same as now. Only I sent the money by your mother, and she—well, she, poor girl, had another one to look after, and no father to pay for it. So she made my money do for both. Hahaha! Well, poor girl, we can’t blame her for that. Anyhow, we’ll have to look after that little half-sister of yours now, I suppose, till she grows up. Don’t you think so yourself?”
Peer felt the tears coming. Think so!—indeed he did.
Next day Peer’s father went away. He stood there, ready to start, in the living-room at Troen, stiff felt hat and overcoat and all, and said, in a tone like the sheriff’s when he gives out a public notice at the church door:
“And, by the way, you’re to have the boy confirmed this year.”
“Yes, to be sure we will,” the old mother hastened to say.
“Then I wish him to be properly dressed, like the best of the other youngsters. And there’s fifty crowns for him to give the school-teacher and the parson as a parting gift.” He handed over some more notes.
“Afterwards,” he went on, “I mean, of course, to look after him until he can make his own way in a respectable position. But first we must see what he has a turn for, and what he’d like to be himself. He’d better come to town and talk it over with me—but I’ll write and arrange all that after he’s confirmed. Then in case anything unexpected should happen to me, there’s some money laid by for him in a savings bank account; he can apply to a friend of mine, who knows all about it. Well, good-bye, and very many thanks!”
And the great man smiled to right and left, and shook them all by the hand, and waved his hat and was gone.
For the next few days Peer walked on air, and found it hard to keep his footing at all on the common earth. People were for ever filling his head with talk about that savings bank account—it might be only a few thousands of crowns—but then again, it might run up to a million. A million! and here he was, eating herrings for dinner, and talking to Tom, Dick, and Harry just like any one else. A million crowns!
Late in the autumn came the confirmation, and the old wooden church, with its tarred walls, nestled among its mighty tree-tops, sent its chimes ringing and ringing out into the blue autumn air. It seemed to Peer like some kindly old grandmother, calling so lovingly: “Come, come—old and young—old and young—from fjord and valley—northways and southways; come, come—this day of all days—this day of all days—come, come, come!” So it had stood, ringing out the chimes for one generation after another through hundreds of years, and now it is calling to us. And the young folks are there, looking at one another in their new clothes, and blowing their noses on clean white handkerchiefs, so carefully folded. There comes Peter Ronningen, passed by good luck this year, but forced to turn out in a jacket borrowed from Peer, as the tailor wasn’t ready with his own new things. The boys say “how-do-you-do” and try to smile like grown-up folks. One or two of them may have some little account dating from old school-fights waiting to be settled—but, never mind—just as well to forget old scores now. Peer caught sight of Johan Koja, who stole a pencil from him last summer, but, after all, even that didn’t seem worth making a fuss about. “Well, how’ve you been getting on since last summer?” they ask each other, as they move together up the stone steps to the big church door, through which the peal of the organ comes rolling out to meet them.
How good it seems, and how kind, the little church, where all you see bids you welcome! Through the stained-glass windows with their tiny leaded panes falls a light so soft that even poor ugly faces seem beautiful. The organ tones are the very light itself turned into sweet sound. On one side of the nave you can see all the boys’ heads, sleek with water; on the other the little mothers to be, in grown-up dress to-day for the first time, kerchief on head and hymn-book in hand, and with careful faces. And now they all sing. The elder folks have taken their places farther back to-day, but they join in, looking up now and again from the book to those young heads in front, and wondering how they will fare in life. And the young folk themselves are thinking as they sing, “To-day is the beginning of new things. Play and frolic are over and done with; from today we’re grown-up.” But the church and all in it seemed to say: “If ever you are in heavy trouble, come hither to me.” Just look at that altar-piece there—the wood-carvings are a whole Bible in themselves—but Moses with the Tables of the Law is gentle of face to-day; you can see he means no harm after all. St. Peter, with the keys, pointing upwards, looks like a kind old uncle, bringing something good home from market. And then the angels on the walls, pictured or carved in wood, have borrowed the voice of the organ and the tones of the hymn, and they widen out the vaulted roof into the dome of heaven; while light and song and worshippers melt together and soar upwards toward the infinite spaces.
Peer was thinking all the time: I don’t care if I’m rich as rich, I WILL be a priest. And then perhaps with all my money I can build a church that no one ever saw the like of. And the first couple I’ll marry there shall be Martin Bruvold and little sister Louise—if only he’ll have her. Just wait and see!
A few days later he wrote to his father, asking if he might come into town now and go to school. A long time passed, and then at last a letter came in a strange hand-writing, and all the grown folks at Troen came together again to read it. But what was their amazement when they read:
“You will possibly have learned by now from the newspapers that your benefactor, Colonel Holm, has met his death by a fall from a horse. I must therefore request you to call on me personally at your earliest convenience, as I have several matters to settle with you. Yours faithfully, J. Grundt, Senior Master.”
They stood and looked at one another.
Peer was crying—chiefly, it must be admitted, at the thought of having to bid good-bye to all the Troen folks and the two cows, and the calf, and the grey cat. He might have to go right on to Christiania, no later than to-morrow—to go to school there; and when he came back—why, very likely the old mother might not be there any more.
So all three of them were heavy-hearted, when the pock-marked good-wife, and the bow-legged old man, came down with him to the pier. And soon he was standing on the deck of the fjord steamer, gazing at the two figures growing smaller and smaller on the shore. And then one hut after another in the little hamlet disappeared behind the ness—Troen itself was gone now—and the hills and the woods where he had cut ring staves and searched for stray cattle—swiftly all known things drew away and vanished, until at last the whole parish was gone, and his childhood over.
Chapter III
As evening fell, he saw a multitude of lights spread out on every side far ahead in the darkness. And next, with his little wooden chest on his shoulder, he was finding his way up through the streets by the quay to a lodging-house for country folk, which he knew from former visits, when he had come to the town with the Lofoten boats.
Next morning, clad in his country homespun, he marched up along River Street, over the bridge, and up the hill to the villa quarter, where he had to ask the way. At last he arrived outside a white-painted wooden house standing back in a garden. Here was the place—the place where his fate was to be decided. After the country fashion he walked in at the kitchen door.
A stout servant maid in a big white apron was rattling the rings of the