The Heritage of the Kurts, Volume 1 (of 2)

by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson

CHAPTER I

[LONELINESS]

At fifteen Konrad Kurt had left his home; he could no longer bear to witness the cruelty with which his mother was treated; for domestic tyranny was an heirloom in the Kurt family. He crossed over to Hull, and made his home for some time with an uncle, but was eventually sent, at his expense, to live in the country. The boy's nervous system had been pronounced by a doctor to be far from strong, and if he were to be made any thing of, he must live as much as possible in the open air; it was therefore suggested that he might be brought up as a gardener. Now gardening chanced to be a perfect gourmandise in the Kurt family, so that the lad eventually adopted it as his profession.

When, on his father's death, he returned home to see after his own interests, and to take care of his poor mother, he found but little else to take care of, his worthy father having sold all the clearing rights of his last woods, his remaining shares in some ships, and finally the tile works, sinking the whole of the proceeds in an annuity. In a word, he had the houses, the gardens, and a field or two; all the rest Kurt had, as they say, "eaten bare" all round him. His son, he considered, must follow his example. He might easily begin by selling the field nearest to the town; with the lower garden, it presented a splendid site for building. Konrad Kurt, on the other hand, was quite of opinion that enough of "The Estate" had been sold already. He therefore instead raised a loan, drained the gardens and fields, put the houses so far into repair, that they would not actually fall to ruin, and enlarged the forcing-house, adding another to it at a later time. In short, he showed that it was possible to live on his inheritance, and manage a garden, in such a way as to make it pay, an idea which was then new in that part of the world.

At first he expended almost all he earned, but by-and-by things improved. A single room served him for sleeping, eating, and writing; the first room on the left side of the hall, which had been occupied by the first Kurt, and by all the different possessors of "The Estate." The room within it, which had been formerly used as a bedroom, was given by Kurt to his mother, who, poor woman, was now happier than she had ever been her in life before. All household work was done in the kitchen, on the other side of the wide hall, which, running through the whole house, divided it in two. The rest of the main building remained empty. In the autumn Kurt covered the floors of the different rooms with such portions of his produce as needed drying.

He was an impetuous man, taciturn at times, and stormy at others, but a good man at the bottom. His servants and workmen stood by him, and he stood by them. The sailors and fisher men living up on the mountain also received a great deal of kindness from him; he gave them seeds, and taught them how to cultivate their gardens, and utilise the produce. In the course of many years, the refuse from their houses had caused so great an accumulation round them, that enough soil had been formed to enable any one to have a strip of garden who chose to give the labour to it, besides which, they could carry away as much mould as they wished for from "The Estate" to mix with it. Never had the folk on the hill imagined that they would come to carrying earth from down below, that they would ever get time for, or find any fun in, such an occupation. Every Sunday throughout the spring and summer, Kurt went up to the mountain and helped them, a custom which he kept up through his whole life, but these were almost the only occasions on which he was ever seen beyond his gardens, house, and cellars.

He was up and out every morning in spring and summer by four o'clock, and as soon as it was light during the autumn and winter months. His summer costume consisted of a pair of fustian trousers, a whitey-grey linen coat, a green apron reaching down to his feet, and a cap with a wide peak. The same trousers and long apron were worn during the winter, with the addition of a tightly buttoned seaman's pea-jacket, and a fur cap with a wide brim always turned down in such a way that the loose flaps were constantly brushing against his face. He had never been seen dressed in any other way, excepting on Sundays, when he shaved, wore a starched shirt, and laid aside his apron. He had not inherited the broad defiant forehead of the Kurts. His was a fairly high one, and noticeable for its excessive whiteness; all the more so, perhaps, from the rest of his face being very weather-beaten. He had the eager, wild eyes of his ancestors; his face was somewhat longer, thin, and with rather a wide nose.

Housewives and children soon learned that it was better to go up to "The Estate" and deal with Kurt himself, stern and even passionate though he was, than to go to the shop on the market-place, for he was in reality very easy to manage, and excessively fond of children; they had to be careful, however, not to be too long in making a choice, and never to attempt to bargain.

He often seemed, when he was standing there, to be pondering some serious matter in an absent-minded way, and would then collect himself with a hasty "Ta, ta, ta, ta," ending with a long, deep "Ta-a-a!"

Everything prospered with him, his cows and garden paying him better and better. But after a few years a rumour began to spread that, since his mother's death, he spent every evening by himself getting drunk on whisky toddy. As he went regularly to bed at half-past nine, any one who wished to ascertain if this were the case, must go up there before that time. One or two people did so, and found that it was but too true; by half-past eight he was thoroughly drunk, crying, and unable to speak distinctly.

At last this came to the ears of "old" Pastor Green. He was always, as a young man, called "old," a frightful accident having completely bleached his hair.

Pastor Green was one of the first men in Norway who came forward to combat intemperance, and who gave up their lives to the work. It was his axiom that it is useless to preach against drunkenness otherwise than by facts and actions, and that it is quite hopeless to expect to convert the individual drunkard, without knowing what cause has driven him to drink. There always is one, and if drinking is not hereditary, or become a long-established habit, it is to the removal of the cause that you must look for its cure.

Green paid a visit to Konrad Kurt, and chatted with him, until he drew from him, that while he was living in England, he had had an intrigue with the wife of the gardener, to whom he had been apprenticed, and that she had had a child by him. She had died just at the same time as his mother.

He had been madly in love with her, he said; yes, it had been a terrible thing to deceive her husband. "But--there really was no help for it"--and he began to cry. Then their boy, "Ah! there never was such a merry child born before." And, in his yearning for him, the tipsy man cried, and upbraided himself with wild oaths.

Green endeavoured to induce him to ask pardon from the gardener, and bring the boy home, but Kurt had not the courage for the effort, so that there was nothing for it but for Green to use what other means he could.

Accordingly, one summer evening, he walked up to "The Estate," accompanied by a tall, dark haired boy of twelve, and asked for Kurt, who was still at work in the garden. It was a sight to see how Kurt, as he got up out of the hot-bed where he had been digging, rubbing the earth from his hands, suddenly stopped short, and stared at Green from under the wide peak of his cap; then turned his gaze to the dark-haired boy, and back again to Green.

At last he recognised the eager, wild eyes, larger than his by-the-way, the long, rather wide nose, and the thin face, so like his own. Unconsciously he exclaimed in English: "I beg pardon--but this lad----" He could go no further, and Green was obliged to finish for him: "Yes, this was indeed his son."

That evening Kurt forgot to get out the whisky bottle, and when he did next produce it, the boy seized hold of it and flung it out of the window against a stone--a really capital shot. Glass, sugar-basin, and spoon went the same way; capitally thrown they certainly were. Pastor Green had begged the boy to watch when his father took out the bottle, and try to get it away from him, and it was in this fashion that the youngster carried out his instructions. His father stood for a few minutes staring at him, till at last he broke out into an irresistible peal of laughter.

CHAPTER II

[A GENIUS]

Never had any one felt surer that he had a genius for a son than did Konrad Kurt. Not only that the lad was a thorough botanist, and knew every secret of gardening, but there was not a piece of work on all the farmstead, from the cow-house to the kitchen, which he had not soon learned to know all about. It was easy to see that he had been brought up in some back premises, among gardeners, cooks, and dairy people, and had been well taught into the bargain.

Nothing would serve him but to go on board the ships, and boats, and learn how to manage them, for he had never lived in a seaport town before.

And then how he learned Norse, in only a week or two! First and foremost the art of swearing. His father convulsed himself with laughter over all the oaths which the lad began to make use of with the funniest accent. Then, what stories he would tell! Even before he had properly learned the language, he could interest the work-people in a way which was really extraordinary, and he was therefore allowed to play any tricks he liked; it was all looked upon as fun.

When he spoke Norse easily, how he would gammon them! It was his father's delight to steal behind one of the high hedges and listen to him. The boy would tell them what the English Court was like, where he had been as page; it was he who, with some of his companions, used to walk before the lovely young Queen, while behind came all the bigwigs. Probably he had seen something of the sort at the theatre, or in some picture. Then the tremendous warlike achievements he had seen in India, when he was over there or a little tour with the Queen of England. The father stood hidden, and admired the vivid colours in which the boy painted it all, although he still knew so little Norse. The father enticed his son to go on telling him adventures. He drank no more whisky toddy; the boy himself inebriated him. What a genius! ah! what a genius!

There was a continual chasing away of cats from the garden; they came up from the town after the birds; and John, as this last Master Kurt was called, having one day captured one of the most determined of the depredators, ordained that the murderer should be crucified. As not one, even of the youngest of the labourers, would help him in this, he temporarily fastened up the cat, giving her plenty to eat, while he himself went to fetch some rough boys from the harbour.

Such extraordinary sounds of glee soon afterwards reached his father's ear, that he hastened to see what it might portend, especially as some more dubious notes were mingled with the cries of delight. He found the executioners performing an Indian dance before the victim, a poor bleeding cat, fastened to the storehouse door. The boy's inordinate delight hindered him from seeing his father, whose first thought on this occasion was not that his son John was a genius; although, when he came to think it over, he must confess that it was a very remarkable invention, and decidedly well done into the bargain. It is no easy thing to crucify a cat.

However, another occasion came when he thought differently.

As the weather was excessively bad, his father had forbidden John to go down to the garden, and the boy took his revenge by attacking his father's finest apple-tree, a young one, which was in fruit for the first time. He set to work to saw it right through at the roots, and covered it up again with earth. His father was by no means so struck this time, nor did he say much about the invention. He entirely forgot to think of his son as a genius, to such an extent indeed that he talked to him in his room, with a new well-twisted birch rod in his hand. The boy never guessed, could not grasp, that his father was going to flog him, and when this utterly incredible, this impossible thing did happen, he rushed towards the door, with a look of mad terror in his face. His father was as supple and active as he, and sprang on him like a tiger, flung the boy on to the floor, and began beating him with an absolutely wild pleasure. John screamed, prayed, promised, begged for mercy. He got up on his knees, sprang up, and threw himself down again, his eyes seemed to start out of his head, and his cries became nothing more than a continuous, meaningless sound, his face turning almost black. The maids, servants, and workmen came rushing in from the passage, and tore open the doors. Kurt became frantic at this interruption. He rushed first to one door, then to another, shutting them in the faces of those who stood there. He had become almost as crazed as his son, who, in the meantime, had contrived to make his escape.

Only an hour later the boy was out among the gardeners, and there could not have been anywhere, a more good-natured, more submissive, brighter, livelier lad than John Kurt.

He lent a hand first to one, then to another, with flattering coaxing words. Then he began to tell them stories about the apes at Gibraltar--why, it swarms with apes! they stand there looking across to Africa.

And then he mimicked them, snarling and making himself as inquisitive, frolicsome, timid, wild, and nasty as they. Likely enough he had seen monkeys somewhere, though not precisely at Gibraltar. As his father was passing by, he heard the fun, and concealed himself as usual, stooping down, and peeping.

That evening, he and his son had a talk together, in the very same room, the old "Kurt room." There the two last of the Kurts wept in each other's arms; the son promised to be always, always, always good, and the father never to beat him again--never!

It was but a short time after this, that a lad who used to run errands for Konrad Kurt, had got a new Sunday jacket. His brother, who was a mate, had bought it at an English seaport, for next to nothing, from a woman in the street, and every one concurred in the boy's belief that there had never been such a fine one seen in the town before. Alas! as he prepared to put it on the next Sunday, he found that it had been cut to pieces. The cuts were small, but so carefully executed, that though as long as it hung up it appeared to be whole, it was in reality nothing but a useless rag. Of course all thoughts turned at once to John, who happened at that moment to be out rowing. Owing to the cruel way in which his father had punished his last fault, and the affection which they had for him, every one hesitated to speak. But the gardener's boy, Andreas Berg, as he was named, had only this one jacket, and it was the delight of his heart: he could not restrain his tears; and old Kurt, at last observing that something was amiss, the whole truth had to come out.

It really seemed impossible that John should not have known what was sure to happen, and have realised that after his performances with the cat, and with the fruit-tree, suspicion must inevitably fall upon him. It may be that he imagined that it would never go further than between the little fellow and himself, or that he might rely on his father's promise never to beat him again. Be that as it may, he came calmly up from the water, bragging before he was well inside the garden gate, of all the exploits that he had performed during the day. His father called him from the open window of his room. The boy answered him with a ringing "Yes," and was up the steps in a moment.

The instant he saw the jacket lying on the table, and a well-twisted whip by the side of it, he became as white as a sheet, and seemed entirely to lose the control of his senses. He turned round and round in a circle as he stood there, and hurriedly exclaimed, in a voice hoarse from holding back his breath, "It was not I. It was not I. It was not I. It was not I." Then, seeing his father lift the whip, he instantly changed to his own voice, crying, "Yes, it was I, it was I, it was I, it was I." "Will you ask pardon?" "Yes, yes." He was on his knees in a moment, and with his hands crossed above his head, he cried, "Pardon, pardon, pardon, pardon!" "And will you beg the boy's pardon?" "Oh! yes, where is the boy? Let us go to him." He was up and by the door in a moment, casting terrified glances at his father, who followed, with the whip in his hand, though he did not go so far as to strike him.

John fell down once more on his knees before the little boy, tearing off his own jacket and waistcoat to give to him, although no one had suggested to him to do so. An English gold coin, and two Norwegian silver ones, which were in the waistcoat pocket, fell out, and these he gave to the lad at once, an act which so touched the father that he was obliged to turn away. But a very short time afterwards, while the workmen were at dinner, John made his appearance, and went through the performance of the Gibraltar monkeys for their benefit. Then, returning to his father, he asked him confidentially, if part of what had been taken up in the garden that day, might be given to the men to take home, and, on permission being granted, he went off with them to help to carry the things away. His father stood and watched him from the window.

John's next exploit was on the sea. He had probably found that such performances were dangerous on land, and it remained to be seen if there were more freedom on the water. One day he set off in a boat, with a little boy as his companion, having formed the plan of throwing the child overboard, in order that he might rescue him. The idea may have arisen from something he had read, or he may only have wished to see the boy's terror; at all events he obtained this gratification. The little fellow could not swim a stroke, and thought that if he could make his companion understand this, he would give up his plan; but in vain. The boy's terror increased every moment, he screamed with all his small strength, and John might have recognised a fear so like his own. But no. The child clung to John's clothes with all his little fingers. He was shaken off again. He seized hold of the boat, and then, utterly bewildered, tried to grasp the empty air; but overboard he went. John sprang after him, caught the boy just as he was sinking, and held him up, but it was only with the greatest difficulty that he got him back into the boat, the child having been seized with cramp. A number of people rowed out from all quarters, believing that a murder had been committed.

John did not return home that evening, and during three days search was made for him. First by every one on "The Estate," later by the police, and by a number of the townspeople who felt for his father's distress. He was at length discovered up a sœter. He flung himself down at once, and screamed at the top of his voice, absolutely refusing to return home until he had received a promise that no one would beat him.

This last adventure made him known all over the town. Whether it were good for him or not, that every one came to the conclusion that he was not like the other children, not quite right, the fact remains that even at school the masters were rather too forbearing, of course not his schoolfellows--they excuse nothing.

He did the most horrible things; for instance as he was approaching manhood he committed an act of such frightful indecency that it is impossible to write it, but on this occasion, his father came to the school to beg that he might be pardoned, and, as all the teachers pitied the father, who worked so honestly, it was looked over that time.

CHAPTER III

[MAN'S BREAST IS LIKE THE OCEAN]

John passed an excellent matriculation, whereupon he took a fancy to become a cadet, to which his father at once gave his consent, considering that at the Military Academy he would learn order and discipline, though, as a matter of fact, if what is meant by discipline, is obedience to orders, he had no need to learn it, and he had never been disorderly in his habits. Other faults, however, he did possess, and he was twice nearly expelled from the Academy. The only thing which saved him was his behaviour to his teachers, which was always ingratiating. From the Academy he again passed a creditable examination, and became absolutely enthusiastic for his profession. He showed himself particularly good in drill. All was life, movement, and story-telling where he was, and swearing into the bargain, for by degrees he had brought swearing to a fine art. All the officers in the brigade put together, did not swear as much in the course of a year, as he did in a week. He could begin a string of oaths at one flank of the company, as they stood on parade, and keep it up till he arrived at the other. If he had used all the powers of imagination which he squandered on swearing, in painting, he could have stocked a museum; or if he had been a poet or composer, his shelves would have been full. But unfortunately his oaths will not bear repeating, for they were generally used when only men were present.

For common every-day use he was content with ordinary oaths, though, even then, his way of using them was that of a master. As an indication of the first-named description--those, namely, of his own invention--I will give one example a little toned down. On one occasion, when the company was assembled for prayers, the chaplain had wearied them by preaching an excessively long discourse, which John Kurt declared he had once read in an old book of sermons. He therefore asked for a blessing on the chaplain in the following terms: "May Satan inwardly illuminate all through his inside with burning sermon books."

He had an unending supply of stories, which were served up in a seething sauce of imagery and cursing. His stories had this advantage in them, that everybody did not believe them.

John Kurt was tall, thin, bony, and as supple as a willow. He wore beard and moustache, but they did not grow well. The hair was ragged, and there were patches where none grew. This gave his face a look of being torn in two. When his wild eyes flashed out he was actually ugly. But his brow was clear, with the fair skin which was hereditary in his family; and sometimes, when he was at his best, a gleam would pass over it which quite redeemed his plainness. His feelings were extremely strong, and he could make others feel with him.

The finest thing in the world for a grown man, he considered, was without doubt to be a soldier and officer. He thundered out his assurances to the whole world, that no one could be a man who had not gone through his drill. "Drill and discipline," he would exclaim, using by preference the commonest expressions, for book language was not strong enough; "drill and discipline. That was women-folks' greatest loss that they never had discipline or tact in their commonplace lives--the swine!" The whole country ought to be arranged as one vast "Drill-hall." There would be no more cranky bodies then: "No, there would be--devil take me--order and sense; the whole Storting--devil plague them--ought to go to the parade ground and be drilled." Till that day came there would be ne'er a bit of sense in the whole crew. "The king--devil stare at me--ought to be drilled, if not the whole place would be like a pigstye, where the strongest snout shoves t'other one's out of the trough. Some one must stand over them with a whip."

How then can one possibly paint the astonishment of his comrades, his friends, and, above all, of his father, when one fine day it was announced that First Lieutenant John Kurt had applied for a discharge, which had been granted him. He came storming home again, and whenever he was asked why he had left, he replied that the whole military system was--"devil pickle him--the most miserable buffoonery. No honourable man ought to lend himself to it. The officers were nothing but dressed-up, well-trained monkeys, who trained strong lusty lads to be monkeys as well. The generals were big monkeys with feathers in their caps, and the king was the chief monkey of all."

What was he going to do? "Why, dig the ground like his father. The earth--that was the only solid thing there was in creation, and so it was the only thing worth a rush, or that produced anything worth having. To get out of it all that tasted best, and smelt best, that was--may the devil quarter him--the finest thing an independent lad could turn his hand to." He dressed himself in the most slovenly way, and worked among the other labourers for his living.

That was all very well during the summer, but the harvest was hardly over before he discovered that--may the devil fly off with him--gardening was simply muck. It consisted in using this sort of muck, and then so much muck, and muck in that fashion. It seemed to him at last that "all the world was naught but a great muck-heap. They were the luckiest who owned the biggest. What--devil butcher him--was war other than that each one killed t'other for his own muck-heap? Poets and poetry were the flies in spring when the muck began to work."

He went off in a ship, bound for the South Sea, and was absent for several years, nor, when one beautiful spring day he returned home, could any one gain a clue as to where he had been. If he were to be believed, he had traversed the whole globe, for from that time no country or nation could be mentioned, nor anything remarkable in natural history, no ocean, no well-known building, which he had not seen, nor a single famous person with whom he was not on terms of the greatest intimacy, or, at the very least, well known to. It was evident that they were not all inventions. He had a great deal of information which could only have been acquired on the spot. He had undoubtedly some notable acquaintance, for his correspondence proved it. Later on in the summer an English nobleman and his friends sought him out to accompany them on a mountain hunting expedition.

Why had he come home? "To see his father before he died," he said; though, to confess the truth, his father was in the best of health, and not more pleased to welcome his son home, than he had been to see him depart.

John, however, declared all the same, that for his part, Heaven help him, he could not bear any longer to think that his father might be dying, and he not by his side.

From the time he returned he was all solicitude and affection for his father. He was now an old man, and allowed his son to do anything with him that he chose, and strange fancies he took at times. Such as, when he suddenly determined that his father should not eat anything. Or when he, all at once, hit on the plan of putting him into a warm bath, while he turned the cold douche on to him. Another idea was to lay him under a number of large eider-down coverlids, in order to make him sweat, although his father had not the slightest need for such treatment. He would give a side glance at his son, and a very speaking one it was; there was neither confidence, nor fear in it, still less any good-humour, but a certain cold inquisitiveness, as though he just wished to know what next; and sometimes he seemed to ask, "Is this John, or is it not John?"

CHAPTER IV

[SAILS IN SIGHT]

In the autumn of the same year, a girl came home, who became the subject of conversation in the whole town, and for two reasons.

Her name was Tomasine Rendalen, and she was the daughter of the head-master, Rendalen. His name was derived from the mountain district of Rendalen, from which his father had originally come.

Rendalen was a big, strong man, who quietly, if rather ponderously, performed his scholastic duties in the town, and who, since his wife's death, had taken interest in nothing but his school, and the town reading society.

The management of his house he entirely left in the hands of old Mariane and his children. Tomasine, who was his eldest child, possessed a more than ordinary talent for languages, together with all her mother's determination. When she was only sixteen she borrowed a little money, entered a school in England, and, while there, thoroughly mastered the English language. From thence she went to a school in France, where she taught the pupils English and acquired French; and finally to one in Germany, where she gave instruction in both English and French, and learned German. She had been away nearly five years, and had become a practised, and unusually clever teacher. She had no sooner returned home than she began to give lessons both to men and women, and thereby to pay off her debts. This aroused great admiration in the town, and procured her a very large circle of friends. Her figure excited an equally unanimous admiration, and it must be admitted that it requires something special in a girl's figure before this can happen. A beautiful face is always admired, for there can be no delusion about it. A fine figure, on the contrary, is hardly sufficient in itself to command attention. She was young, and well-made, and always dressed in the latest fashion. Like other vigorous and healthy girls, she had from her childhood longed to exercise her strength, and had taken every opportunity of doing so. In England she had set to work to practise gymnastics, and had continued them ever since. It had become a passion with her; the result was, that there was not a single girl in the town who held herself like Tomasine.

It did not in the least lessen the admiration for her figure that she had a somewhat flat nose, and that her very light hair gave her the appearance, at a distance, of being bald; as for her eyebrows, they were really not worth mentioning. Her eyes were grey, and, when without her spectacles, she screwed them up. Her mouth was much too large, but the teeth within it were as sound and regular as though her family had remained in Rendalen and lived upon hard bread. When any one saw her from behind for the first time, and she then suddenly turned round, it caused a certain disappointment. People even thought of calling her "The Disappointment," but the name did not take. Her figure carried her over all criticism. Being near-sighted she wore spectacles, the only girl in the town who did so. In those days the fashion of using pince-nez had not come in, so this gave something rather unusual to her appearance. She literally shone with strength and intelligence.

Through that winter she was the most popular partner at all the balls. Her delight in being at home again, free from all restraint, and among a number of merry young people of both sexes, her happiness in feeling that every one was kind to her and liked her, were plainly visible. She often expressed her feelings in simple and natural terms; she aroused no jealousy, though it may be that this was a little strengthened by the fact that she was well aware that she was not pretty. That winter was a great dance winter, and at every dance she was present, for dancing was the most delightful thing she knew. During that winter John Kurt became for the first time a dancing man, and it was entirely for her sake that he did so. She soon heard him say this, but she knew that he could not be gauged by the rules of ordinary life, for he was always allowed to say what he liked. She looked upon him as something quite fresh, and very peculiar, but she acted as every one else did, and neither ran away from him, nor fainted, because he said that he would be d----d, pickled, boiled, and roasted if, when she danced, she were not like a young, lively, whinnying Arabian mare, or like a flock of birds in the woods in spring-time; her arms and her neck were just like a dainty, warm, little Turkish pigling, one o' them with a pink skin. She moved through the dance, Heaven help him, like a great man-of-war through the water. When he danced with her--by his honour, life, and salvation--it was like being up on the mountains of a clear autumn day, with a gun in his hand, and the tykes ranging the hillside in full cry. This, shouted in trumpet tones into her ear during every dance, only added to her amusement. The others laughed and she laughed with them. She did not possess the slightest knowledge of human nature. That cannot be learnt by going from one school to another, even though they be in foreign countries.

Kurt very soon began to visit her home; he knew the hours when she would be free, and speedily learnt her times for walking, following her about everywhere. She tried as much as possible not to be alone with him; otherwise she was pleased enough that he should come. He told her and her friends amusing stories, and touching ones sometimes. Such, for instance, was the history of a deserted brood of ptarmigan, which he had once picked up, one by one, out of the heather, where they were running about, all downy and unfledged; he had brought them all home, he said, in his cap. This story seemed to bring with it such a fresh breath of mountain air, full of the scent of the heather, and he related it with such genuine feeling, that it brought the tears into their eyes. Such things as these seemed to inspire him; even in the midst of the wildest stories, he would often throw in some delicate, telling touch. The way in which he invariably spoke of his father attracted the girl to him. There was a mixture of drollness and tenderness in it, midway between laughter and tears. They got used to his rough descriptions, his coarse language; it could not well have been dispensed with; it gave a special colouring which charmed, while it startled them. Tomasine and her friends did not try to have it otherwise, so that at last there was no one who appeared to them to be able to relate stories except himself. Tomasine more than any one else. She felt that it was all done for her amusement.

One day, when by chance they were alone, he began to tell her about the widow of a pilot, for whom he was just then most assiduously making a collection. He saw that she liked him for doing so, and, without further preface, he declared that Fröken Tomasine Holm Rendalen was to him what a town was to a desert caravan; nay, if she laughed, it was because she did not know what it was to trudge along through endless sand, under a burning sun, exhausted, hungry, and thirsty. "It is something to see a town then, I can tell you." Well, she was the minaret tower, the plane-trees, and the springs of water, the wine which awaited them, and white tents, and dancing, the sound of the guitars, and the smell of roasting meat. Suppose they two were to make a match of it! If that could be, he would sell the whole garden, and they would wander away to all the most delightful places on the face of the earth. They would lie on their backs under the awnings, while their servants came and put food and drink into their mouths. Or why not stay here and carry "The Estate" gardens right up on to the mountains? What would not grow with such shelter, on such sunny hillsides, fanned by such warm sea breezes. There they would dig away into the hillside, like a couple of badgers, and become rich people. But he saw what a fright he had put her into; so, without any pause, he turned the conversation into a wild panegyric on his father. The fact was that the whole thing was his father's invention. He was determined to have his son married. His father was a man who would get up of a winter's night, when it suddenly turned cold, and go out to wrap bast mats and woollen rags round the frozen fruit-trees, as if they were naked children. If he wanted to cut down a bush he took the birds'-nests down first, and carried them away to some place near, or to some other bush, and stuck 'em fast there. What wonder then if his father gave a thought for him too; but, as for him, he could wait, he was quite happy as he was. And he started off with a story about some cows who would not eat the grass because it looked black, but he put them on large green spectacles, so that the grass looked quite nice and fresh--"then they munched it up, I can promise you."

She could gather in the meantime that John Kurt was disappointed. She herself had felt startled, she hardly knew why, and yet, on second thoughts, she did, for she had heard, that very day, some stories of the terribly licentious life he led.

It so happened, strangely enough, that a friend of her late mother came in to see her, and after a short preamble, began warmly to advocate Kurt's cause. Only an hour afterwards another one arrived, another after that, all bent on the same errand. He was certainly not like other people, that must be confessed, but that he would make a famous husband, each one was as certain as the other. As to his immoral conduct, that was bad, it must be admitted; but it was most likely not worse than other people's. Why, there were married men living in the town who were by no means all that they should be. The great difference was that he did everything openly. Each one of the three ladies spoke as strongly on the subject as the others, and Tomasine began to be somewhat of the same opinion.

John Kurt himself held aloof for a time, excepting so far as that whatever walk he took to or from the town, and they were not few, he always contrived to pass the Rendalens' house, notwithstanding that they lived quite on one side, to the left of the market-place, up towards the field. Every time he passed up and down, he took off his hat, if there were only a cat to be seen at the window. Beside this, he sent a bouquet there every morning. The dawn was not more certain to come than it was. Old Mariane, who received it, had always some little thing to say about Tomasine, and he, on his part, generally let fall some special remark, such as, for instance, "God bless your throats."

A very short time after her mother's especial friends had called upon Tomasine to advocate John's cause, her own followed their example. Some of them had in past days taken quite an opposite view of him. They had spoken of him almost with horror. They could not bear his mendacious stories, or put up with his coarse language; or indeed with him, himself. He was "disgusting." Now, however, they began to admit that there was something interesting in him all the same: a kind of demoniacal overwhelming power.

The fact was that he had called upon them all, choosing first the one whom he knew was most set against him. He told her that he was well aware of this fact, and that he respected her for it. It was quite true that he was a wretched, contemptible fellow. But it was just for that very reason that he had come to her, for she really was the most honest and clear-sighted conscience in the town; there was but one opinion on that point. She really must help him. She did not know the whole history of his life, that was the fact. She did not know how it was from his boyhood upward he had been misunderstood, and indeed continued to be so still. And for that very reason would always remain an oddity. But really it was hardly necessary for him to say anything. She saw right through every one.

He told another that her hands were so plump, so dainty, and round and soft, that one longed to nibble them with one's coffee.

He swayed and turned them with his stream of talk, he douched them cold, he blew them warm, he startled them, and touched them. They did not completely lose their heads. They knew perfectly well that it was not all honest truth, spontaneous nature, but even that very fact worked as an apology for him; he did not think about sheltering himself, and most people are flattering when they wish to obtain anything.

A little time afterwards the whole town from one end to the other was convulsed with laughter, for when, in the course of the spring, a little sempstress declared Kurt to be the father of her child, he acknowledged it before every one, and had it brought with great state to church to be baptised, giving it the name of Tomasine.

The amusement was renewed when he declared, on being asked how he could possibly have done such an extraordinary thing, that if he had any voice in the matter, Lord help him, every child in the town should be called either Tomas, or Tomasine. It was quite touching.

Just about that time his father died under somewhat strange circumstances. The old man had sent a message to Tomasine, asking her the next time she went for an evening walk, to be so kind as to come in to see him, as he was far from well. Those two had been friends of old. Many times, when she was a little girl, he had filled her pocket with cherries. She always looked so fresh and healthy, and an old gardener has an eye for such things.

When she went up there, she found him sitting in his room on the left. It was the first time she had ever been in it. The walls were hung with some stiff, and rather dark material, apparently leather, which had at one time been painted and gilded. In the corner by the window stood a large press, a splendid piece of furniture, at least two hundred years old, and most artistically carved. Quite in front of the window was a clumsy unpainted table, littered over with papers, samples of seeds, newspapers, and scraps of food. The old man sat there, in an ancient arm-chair, with a short, broad leather back. He got up, and insisted that she should take it. He was dressed in his grey linen coat, his long apron, and wore slippers down at heel. On his head he had his wide-peaked cap, and a thick neckcloth wound round his neck. He was rather hoarse, and he seemed ill as well. "The spring was so sharp this year," he said. The tall, gaunt man began to pace up and down between the table near the window, and the bed beside the wall next the wide hall, which divides the house in two. Up and down he walked along the wall, past the great stove, with the two "Oldenborgs" on it, both in enormous wigs, his steps keeping time to the ticking of an old eight-day clock which hung on the wall near the stove. Just then it struck seven, with a noisy chime.

The old man's bed was of freshly polished birch, contrasting with the old decrepid chairs set along the wall, with a new leg or two, or half the back put in fresh. The wall itself was hung with pictures, in which a reddish yellow arm, or a brownish red dress, showed themselves, but which otherwise were absolutely black.

Konrad Kurt's blustering talk, as he walked up and down, somewhat resembled the room, for it was a mixture of old and new, most of the former; and not without a touch of boasting about his family. About modern days he had less to say, and it was more in the humbler style of his present circumstances. He talked without his son's oaths and imagery, but with no little skill. He romanced at one moment, and sneered the next, as his son often did. Summa summarum was, then, that the race was worn out, the stock could no longer spread. If it were to be saved, it, and the last of the inheritance, it must needs receive a graft; a strong, new tree must be found.

Tomasine sat there for nearly two hours, and listened to him. She let her supper hour, and the time for her evening classes, go by. He would not let her leave. A maid-servant opened a door from the inner passage to ask if she should lay the table, but was sent away.

As Tomasine returned along the avenue, where the road was guttered by the rain, and the storm whistled through the old trees, she felt as though she had just come from a mausoleum. In it she had met one single living man, wandering round and gazing on his dead. She had not the slightest desire to join him there. She turned and looked back at the great, dirty, plastered building, with its small windows. "No," she said aloud.

Next morning, when she came into the parlour, John Kurt's bouquet had not arrived. It gave her a pang, she hardly knew why, for that was after all exactly what she wished. But was it? She was trying to make this clear to herself, when her father came in from his morning walk. He was very pale--he told her that old Kurt had died in the night. They had found him in the morning, lifeless, in his chair before the table.

John Kurt came in a few minutes later; he did not speak, but flung himself down, crying. He cried so violently that both she and her father were frightened. Then--the self-accusation that followed!

He came again every day and poured out his heart with affecting vehemence. He went nowhere else, spoke to no one but to them. Just to them and his own people. With these he worked day and night to build a temple of flowers on the great flight of steps before the house, down which the old man would be carried. This erection of flowers was wonderfully lovely; it was talked of far and near, and the evening before the funeral, numbers came up to see it, Tomasine and her father among them. The dead man's friend, Dean Green, was one of the first to come up the avenue, and after him, half the inhabitants of the mountain, both grown people and children, to look, to show their gratitude, and to say "Good-bye." They had been to see the clergyman first. Old Green stood on the steps, and spoke of him who had loved flowers so dearly, who had gone from our spring to the eternal one. Every one was moved, and the son was obliged to go away.

The next day John went straight from the funeral to the Rendalens'. But he did not find Tomasine at home. He was so disappointed at this, so honestly distressed, that he stood silent for a long time, and at last let fall that he had no one now--no, not one single being. He only wished with all his heart that he could be laid in his grave too. He was nothing but a trouble even to those he cared for most. He saw that now. And he turned away. This quite touched old Mariane, to whom it had all been said, and when Tomasine came in at last, she related it so feelingly that her mistress was touched as well. The fact was that Tomasine had not wished to be at home. She feared him. She had not the courage to face his emotion, which might perhaps lead him in a special direction.

She repented it now. She hastily took off her spectacles and wiped them, put them on again, and looked at herself in the glass. Was not she big and strong enough to hazard it? She stood there and weighed the question.

The fashion of that day was to wear a bodice drawn in at the waist with a belt, and crinoline.

She pushed her belt down with both her strong hands; she had taken off her loose, white sleeves, as soon as she came in. Those belonging to her dress were wide and open, so that her wrist and the lower part of her arm, contrasted very prettily with her black dress. She delighted in their strength, as those do who are much given to gymnastic exercises. But her eyes turned involuntarily to her face, her weak point. It was incredibly ugly. That flat nose, those thick lips, and that hair which was the colour of her forehead--you could hardly see it--and those eyebrows, light, short bristles, so thin that they were quite invisible. Ah! no, it would never do to make herself of importance. John Kurt loved her so heartily, and was unhappy!.... absolutely alone, and so unhappy!.... And his father had made her sit down in his own chair!

Shortly afterwards old Mariane walked up the avenue as fast as she could. She halted once though, and took out of a newspaper a dainty, ah! such a dainty letter. She must look at it.

When it was put into John Kurt's hand, he tore it hastily open, and took out a sheet of thick English note-paper--with a dove on it--the paper was very good, and the dove well designed. He read the following words, hastily written in a practised hand:

"I will do it.

"Tomasine."

John turned to Mariane. "Now, what a man father was," he said; "if he had not died just now, small chance if I had ever got her."

He would have married the next day. To his immense astonishment, Tomasine would not hear of it. Nor even that the marriage should be the next week. She now gave up her pupils to begin to prepare herself for her new position. She was completely ignorant of domestic matters, except so far as to be able to keep her own things in order. From a child she had only cared for her book. John Kurt was delighted when he heard of her deficiencies; he could do everything. Did any one doubt it? He could wash up and clean, were it parlour or kitchen, better than any housemaid or cook in Norway. He pushed old Mariane suddenly on one side, and showed them, bit by bit. He did everything as quickly, nicely, and carefully as the handiest girl--that was a fact. Besides this, he could cook all sorts of food; dishes which they did not know by name. He could roast and boil, knit, sew, and darn: he could wash clothes; starch and iron. He, and no one else, would teach Tomasine. Why should they not begin at once? And so it was settled. He himself made purchases, and invited friends to the Rendalens'. The days which followed were the most amusing the family had ever spent. The whole town was filled with rumours. Friends and friends' friends came to look on. And to listen! What noise and fun! What tales of where he learnt it all! Sometimes among the gold-diggers in Australia, in constant peril of his life. Then on a Nile boat, with a party of English, where the cook directed the whole expedition. Sometimes in Brazil, at an hotel among the niggers; or in the mines in South America. Then suddenly he was at Hayti on board a large steamer! Then deserting from her. He did not spare local colouring, or indeed any colouring; coarseness and vituperation rained down like fire from heaven on the different places and people.

But the work went on. Tomasine was assistant cook, scullery maid, ironer, and darner. Even in the last he was her superior. He worked just as quickly as he talked, and just as eagerly. He interrupted himself with the most perfect good temper whenever she made a mistake, for she was really very clumsy. He captivated them all now, without exception. But surely this teaching and fun could go on as well or better up at "The Estate." By degrees every one agreed to this, and Tomasine gave in.