“What about a doctor? Would he not be almost as important?”
That same day he returned perspiring to Lower Valley, harnessed his mouse-grey mare in his carriole and drove away northwards through the valley, his stiff, black, Sunday-best hat on his head. And that same night a man with starched linen, spectacles, and thin white hands was riding along the forest paths towards Morsæter. The moon hung in the heavens like a yellow lantern lighting his path, while the farmer’s boy from Rust followed him.
When they reached the hut they heard a deep bark from within. The doctor descended stiffly from the saddle, and it was quite ridiculous to see that from town-habit he knocked at the door before entering.
For three weeks afterwards there was smoke curling up from the Morsæter chimney every day. One day in the fourth week Gaupa and Bjönn stood at the door of Lynx Hut. Gaupa was sickly pale.
But farthest out in Ré Valley where the round head of Ré Mountain seems to bend forwards to look down into the valley, Rauten stood in a marshy place still feeling that nasty gadfly which bit his shoulder. He could not reach it with his tongue, and could only lick the hole where it had crawled under the skin. He did not get rid of that gadfly until winter gleamed on the mountain peaks and Gaupa’s lead bullet was surrounded by a covering of tissue.
§ 15
Gaupa was not his old self all that winter.
He stayed indoors making shoes, and felt cold if he went out. His body seemed to have become open so as to let in the wind and the cold.
But he recovered when spring came. He resembled a strong tree. A wound is covered with resin and the tree is whole again. The same thing happened to Gaupa. Slowly but surely weakness grew out of him. And by the next autumn any number of old footwear lay under his bed awaiting his treatment. But Gaupa had no time for work. His short, muscle-hardened legs were trotting over ridges and far horizons.