So the father and daughter parted, and Sigrid went home to bear as best she could her day of suspense. Herr Falck returned later on, looking very ill, and complaining of headache. She persuaded him to lie down in his study, and would not ask him the question which was trembling on her lips. But in the evening he spoke to her.
“You are a good child, Sigrid, a good child,” he said, caressing her hand. “And now you must hear all, though I would give much to keep it from you. The Iceland expedition has failed, dear; the vessels have come back empty.”
“Does it mean such a very great loss to you, father?” she asked.
“I will explain to you,” he said, more eagerly; “I should like you to understand how it has come about. For some time trade has been very bad; and last year and the year before I had some heavy losses connected with the Lofoten part of the business.”
He seemed to take almost a pleasure in giving her all sorts of details which she could not half-understand; she heard in a confused way of the three steamers sent to Nordland in the summer with empty barrels and salt for the herrings; she heard about buying at the Bourse of Bergen large quantities, so that Herr Falck had ten thousand barrels at a time, and had been obliged to realize them at ruinous prices.
“You do not understand all this, my Sigrid,” he said, smiling at her puzzled face. “Well, I’ll tell you the rest more simply. Things were looking as bad as possible, and when in the summer I heard that Haugesund had caught thousands of barrels of herrings in the fjords of Iceland, I made up my mind to try the same plan, and to stake all on that last throw. I chartered sailing vessels, hired hands, bought nets, and the expedition set off—I knew that if it came back with full barrels I should be a rich man, and that if it failed, there was no help for it—my business must go to pieces.”
Sigrid gave a little cry. “You will be bankrupt?” she exclaimed. “Oh, surely not that, father—not that!”
She remembered all too vividly the bankruptcy of a well-known timber merchant some years before; she knew that he had raised money by borrowing on the Bank of Norway and on the Savings Bank of Bergen, and she knew that it was the custom of the land that the banks, avoiding risk in that way, demanded two sureties for the loan, and that the failure of a large firm caused distress far and wide to an extent hardly conceivable to foreigners.
“There is yet one hope,” said Herr Falck. “If the rumor I heard in the summer is false, and if I can still keep the connection with Morgans, that guarantees me seven thousand two hundred kroner a year, and in that case I have no doubt we could avoid open bankruptcy.”
“But how?” said Sigrid. “I don’t understand.”