II.
["SOME OTHER BOYS."]
The many lovely gardens of the town were fragrant after the rain in their second and third flowering. The sun had gone down behind the everlasting snow-capped mountains, the whole heavens there away were fire and light, and the snow gave a subdued reflection. The nearer mountains stood in shade, but were lightened by the forests in their many coloured tints of autumn. The rocky islands, that in the midst of the fiord followed one after another, just as though rowing to land, gave in their dense forests a yet more marked display of colours, because they lay nearer. The sea was perfectly calm, a large vessel was heaving landward. The people sat upon their wooden doorsteps, half covered with rose bushes on either side; they spoke to each other from porch to porch, or stepped across, or they exchanged greetings with those who were passing towards the long avenue. The tones of a piano might fall from an open window, otherwise there was scarcely a sound to be heard between the conversations; the feeling of stillness was increased by the last ray of sunlight over the sea.
All at once there rose up such a tumult from the midst of the town as though it were being stormed. Boys shouted, girls screamed, other boys hurrahed, old women scolded and ordered, the policeman's great dog howled, and all the curs of the town replied; they who were in-doors must go out, out; the noise became so frightful that even the magistrate himself turned on his door-step, and let fall these words: "There must be something up."
"Whatever is that?" assailed the ears of those who stood on the doorsteps from others who came from the avenue.--"Yes, what can it be!" they replied.--"Whatever can that be?" they now all of them asked anyone who was passing from the centre of the town. But as this town lies in a crescent shape in an easy curve round the bay, it was long before all at both ends had heard the reply: "It is only the Fisher Girl."
This adventurous soul, protected by a mother of whom all stood in awe, and certain of every sailor's defence, (for, for such they got always a free dram from the mother,) had, at the head of her army of boys, attacked a great apple tree in Pedro Ohlsen's orchard. The plan of attack was as follows: some of the boys should attract Pedro's attention to the front of the house by clashing the rose bushes against the window; one should shake the tree, and the others toss the apples in all directions over the hedge, not to steal them--far from it--but only to have some fun. This ingenious plan had been laid that same afternoon behind Pedro's garden; but as fortune would have it, Pedro was sitting just at the other side of the hedge, and heard every word. A little before the appointed time, therefore, he got the drunken policeman of the town and his great dog into the back room, where both were treated. When the Fisher Girl's curly pate was seen over the plank fencing, and at the same time a number of small fry tittered from every corner, Pedro suffered the scamps in front of the house to clash his rose bushes at their pleasure,--he waited quietly in the back room. And just as they were all standing round the tree in great stillness, and the Fisher Girl barefooted, torn, and scratched, was up to shake it, the side door suddenly flew open and Pedro and the Police rushed out with sticks, the great dog following. A cry of terror arose from the lads, while a number of little girls, who in all innocence were playing at "Last Bat," outside the plank fencing, thinking some one was being murdered within, began to shriek at the top of their voices; the boys who had escaped shouted hurrah! those who were yet hanging on the fence screamed under the play of the sticks, and to make the whole perfect, some old women rose up out of the depths, as always when lads are screaming, and screamed with them. Pedro and the policeman, getting frightened themselves, tried to silence the women; but in the meantime the boys ran off, the dog, of whom they were most afraid, after them over the hedge,--for this was something for him--and now they flew like wild ducks, boys, girls, the dog and screams all over the town.
All this time the Fisher Girl sat quite still in the tree, thinking that no one had observed her. Crouched up in the topmost branch, through the leaves she followed the course of the fray. But when the policeman had gone out in a rage to the women, and Pedro Ohlsen was left alone in the garden, he went straight under the tree, looked up and cried: "Come down with you this minute, you rascal!"--Not a sound from the tree.--"Will you come down with you, I say! I know you are there!"--The most perfect stillness.--"I must go in for my gun, and shoot up, must I?" He made pretence to go.--"Hu-hu-hu-hu!" it answered in owlish tones, "I am so frightened!"--"Oh to be sure you are! You are the worst young scamp in the whole lot, but now I have you!"--"Oh dear! good kind sir, I won't do it any more," at the same time she flung a rotten apple right on to his nose, and a rich peal of laughter followed after. The apple caked all over, and while he was wiping it off, she scrambled down; she was already hanging on the plank fence before he could come after her, and she could have got over if she had not been so terrified that he was behind, that she let go instead. But when he caught her she began to shriek; the shrill and piercing yell she gave frightened him so that he let go his hold. At her signal of alarm, the people came flocking outside, and hearing them she gained courage. "Let me go, or I'll tell mother!" she threatened, her whole face flashing fire. Then he recognised the face, and cried: "Your mother? Who is your mother?"--"Gunlaug on the Bank, Fisher Gunlaug," replied the youngster triumphantly; she saw he was afraid. Being near sighted, Pedro had never seen the girl before now; he was the only one in the place who did not know who she was, and he was not even aware that Gunlaug was in the town. As though possessed, he cried: "What do they call you?"--"Petra," cried the other still louder.--"Petra!" howled Pedro, turned and ran into the house as if he had been talking to the devil. But as the palest fear and the palest wrath resemble each other, she thought he was rushing in for his gun. She was terror-stricken, and already she felt the shot in her back, but as, just at this moment, they had broken the door open from outside, she made her escape; her dark hair flew behind her like a terror, her eyes shot fire, the dog which she just met, followed howling, and thus she fell on her mother, who was coming from the kitchen with a tureen of soup, the girl into the soup, the soup on the floor, and a "Go to the dogs!" after them both. But as she laid there in the soup, she cried: "He'll shoot me, mother, shoot me!"--"Who'll shoot you, you rascal?"--"He, Pedro Ohlsen?"--"Who?" roared the mother.--"Pedro Ohlsen, we took apples from him," she never dare say anything but the truth.--"Who are you talking about, child?"--"About Pedro Ohlsen, he is after me with a great gun, and he'll shoot me!"--"Pedro Ohlsen!" fumed the mother, and with an enraged laugh she drew herself up.--The child began to cry and tried to escape, but the mother sprang over her, her white teeth glistening, and catching her by the shoulder, she pulled her up.--"Did you tell him who you were?"--"Yes!" cried the child, but the mother heard not, saw not, she only asked again twice, three times:--"Did you tell him who you were?"--"Yes, yes, yes, yes!" and the child held up her hands entreatingly. Then the mother rose up to her full height:--"So he got to know!--What did he say?"--"He ran in after a gun to shoot me."--"He shoot you!" she laughed in the utmost scorn. The child, scared and bespattered with soup had crept into the chimney corner, she was drying herself and crying, when the mother came to her again:--"If you go to him," she said, and took and shook her, "or speak to him, or listen to him. Heaven have mercy upon both him and you! Tell him so from me! Tell him so from me!" she repeated threateningly, as the child did not answer directly, "Yes, yes, yes, yes!" "Tell him so from me!" she repeated yet once more, but slowly, and nodding at every word as she went.
The child washed herself, changed her dress, and sat out on the steps in her Sunday clothes. But at the thought of the terror she had been in, she began to sob again.--"What are you crying for, child?" asked a voice more kindly than any she had heard before. She looked up; before her stood a fine looking man, with high forehead and spectacles. She stood up quickly, for it was Hans Odegaard, a young man whom the whole town revered. "What are you crying for, my child?" She looked at him and said that she had been going to take some apples from Pedro Ohlsen's garden, together with "several other boys;" but then Pedro and the policeman had come, and then--; she remembered that the mother had made her uncertain about the shooting, so she durst not tell it; but she gave a deep sigh instead.
"Is it possible," said he, "that a child of your age could think of committing so great a sin?" Petra looked at him; she had known well enough that it was sin, but she had always heard it denounced thus: "You child of the devil, you black haired wretch!" Now, she felt ashamed. "That you do not go to school and learn God's commandment to us of what is good and evil!" She stood stroking her frock and answered, that mother did not wish her to go to school.--"Perhaps you cannot even read?" Yes, she could read. He took up a little book and gave her. She looked in it, then turned it round to look at the outside: "I cannot read such small print," she said. But she was obliged to try, and she felt herself utterly stupid; her eyes and mouth hung, all her limbs collapsed: "G-o-d, God the L-o-r-d, God the Lord s-a-i-d, God the Lord said to M-M-M--"--"Dear me! Why you cannot even read this! And a child of ten or twelve years? Would you not like to learn to read?" By degrees she drawled out, that she would like it. "Then come with me, we must begin at once." She rose, but only to look in the house. "Yes, tell your mother," he said. The mother was just passing, and seeing the child talking to a stranger, she came out upon the doorstep. "He will teach me to read," said the child doubtfully, with eyes fixed on the mother, who did not answer, but stood with her arms on her side looking at Odegaard.--"Your child is an ignorant one," he said, "you cannot answer to God or man, to let her go as she does."--"Who are you?" asked Gunlaug sharply.--"Hans Odegaard, your pastor's son." Her brow lightened a little, she had heard him highly spoken of. He began again: "During the time I have been at home, I have noticed this child, and to-day I have been again reminded of her. She must not any longer be brought up only to that which is useless."--What's that to you? the mother's face distinctly expressed. Then he asked her quietly: "But you mean her to learn something?"--"No."--He blushed slightly. "Why not?"--"People who have learning are perhaps the better for it?" She had had but one experience and this she held fast.--"I am astonished that any one can ask such a thing!"--"Ah, but, I know they are not;" she went down the steps to put an end to this nonsense. But he stepped in front of her: "Here is a duty which you SHALL NOT pass by. You are a thoughtless mother."--Gunlaug measured him from top to toe: "Who told you what I am?" she said as she passed by him.--"You have just now done it yourself, for otherwise you must have seen that the child is on the way to be ruined."--Gunlaug turned, and her eye met his; she saw he meant what he had said and she grew afraid. She had only had to do with seamen and tradespeople; such language she had never heard before. "What will you do with my child?" she asked.--"Teach her the things belonging to her soul's salvation, and then see what she must be."--"My child shall not be other than that I will she shall be."--"Yes she shall; she shall be what God wills."--Gunlaug was silenced: "What is that to say?" she said and came nearer.--"It is, that she must learn what she is capable of by her natural abilities, for therefore has God given them."--Gunlaug now drew quite near. "Then must not I direct her, I, who am her mother?" she asked, as if she really wished to learn.--"That you must, but you must respect the advice of those who know better; you must listen to the will of God."--Gunlaug stood still a moment. "But if she learnt too much," she said; "a poor man's child!" she added and looked tenderly at her daughter.--"If she learns too much for her station, she has thereby reached a higher one."--She quickly saw his meaning, and said as if to herself, while she looked more and more anxiously at the child: "But this is dangerous."--"The question is not about that, he said mildly, but about what is right."--Her deep eyes took a strange expression; she looked again piercingly at him; but there lay so much of truth in his voice, words, countenance, that Gunlaug felt herself defeated. She went across to the child, laid her hand on her head, and could not speak.
"I shall read with her until she is confirmed," he said as if to help her; "I wish to take this child in hand."--"And you will take her away from me?"--He hesitated and looked at her inquiringly.--"You must understand it better than I," she struggled to say; "but if it was not that you named our Lord,"--she stopped; she had smoothed her daughter's hair, and now she took a handkerchief and tied round her neck. She did not say in any other way that the child should go with him, and she hastened back into the house as if she wished not to see it.
This behaviour made him feel suddenly anxious at that which in his youthful ardour he had taken upon himself. The child, too, was afraid of the one who for the first time had overcome her mother, and so with this natural fear they went to their first lesson.
From day to day, however, it seemed to him that she grew in wisdom and knowledge, and at times his conversation with her, assumed of themselves quite a peculiar tone. He often drew her attention to characters in sacred and profane history in pointing out the CALLING that God had given them. He would dwell upon Saul who was leading a wild roving life, and upon a lad like David who was tending his father's sheep, until Samuel came and laid the hand of the Lord upon them. But the greatest calling of all, was when the Lord himself was upon earth, when he stopped at the fishing village, and called, and the poor fishermen arose and went--to poverty, as to death, but always joyfully; for the feeling of a call carries through all adversities.
These thoughts followed her so, that at last she could bear these things no longer, and asked him about her own calling. He looked at her till she blushed, then answered her that we must reach our calling through work; it may be modest and simple, but it is there for all. Then she was seized with an eager zeal; it made her work with the power of a grown person, it upset her play, she grew quite thin. She got romantic longings; she would cut her hair, clothe herself like a boy, and go out to battle. But as her teacher said one day that her hair was beautiful if only it was nicely kept, she began to think much of it, and for the sake of her long hair she sacrificed the name of a hero.
Afterwards it was more to her than before to be a girl, and her studies went quietly on, canopied by changing dreams.