At the end of February the old gardener fell on the very slippery ground when he was carrying water from the well, and broke his leg above the knee. Fortunately the ice bore just then, so they were able to get him into hospital. They could not tempt another servant out to the eagle’s nest, so now they had to shift for themselves. Tord was not able to climb the hill with water and wood, so they had to move into Mattson’s humble cottage for the winter. In the spring Tord had soundings made but they found no water up on the hill: so he had to bring out more workmen to construct a proper road up. All this cost money—so much that even Tord realized he could not go on for ever. Then he bought fishing and shooting implements and a few goats in order to help him out, and he took to cattle breeding. But now for the first time he really missed Mattson’s experience.... He did not know where to try for the cod. He did not know how to deal with a tangled net. The ducks flew past when he lay out in the skerries. And the goats soon dried up; and besides, they became so wild that he could not catch them. So during the course of the summer these means of support failed him, and he had to turn to expensive preserved food again.
Dagmar had not much time to run about naked in the sunshine this summer. There was not so much left that was “beautiful and wonderful and lovely.” But she had not quite lost her gypsy-like boisterousness and freedom from care, though when there was no alcohol left and the bad weather really set in, it might happen that she grew sulky and quarrelsome. Once towards the autumn when she had had special cause for anxiety she mentioned town, but Tord flew into such a rage that she was frightened and flew out into the kitchen with her cards and her pipe. And Tord strolled about the shores for weeks cogitating in dull anger on the shameless weakness and faithlessness of women.
The whole of this winter Tord went about plaguing himself with his money worries, so that he had no energy left for anything else. The great book that he was to write, his masterpiece, his hymn to nature, weighed him down like a dead weight. It was like loose ballast which only increased the lurch, when he inclined to melancholy. Nature swayed around him like a helpless chaos. He had moments of hatred of the frequent gales that would never yield a song. He grew furious with the eternal, rolling, breaking seas whose rhythm he could not catch.
“Money,” he thought, “that cursed money. I am never free!”
Towards the spring he at last wrote the letter to Peter. It had cost him weeks of effort and disgust, such a terror had he of everything in the nature of business. His haughty insolence was only an armour to shield him against his lack of confidence, his fear, and his suspicions.
Peter had not expected such news so soon. He rubbed his hands. And he took good care not to show the letter to his brother and sisters. This time he meant to settle the business alone. Peter delayed his reply for a whole fortnight in order to humble Tord. Then he came sailing out himself to Järnö, not in his own cutter, but in a humble little fisherman’s boat. It was in the twilight of an April day. Nobody seemed to have noticed him up in the big, grey, log house. The island looked completely deserted. Peter took the opportunity of looking round a little. Neglect and waste struck him like a cold blast. Broken down fences, unploughed fields, empty cattle sheds, plundered outhouses with half open doors hanging on a single hinge. Not a cow or a pig or a hen. He scratched his chin thoughtfully, but his expression was not of discontent, on the contrary! “I see, that’s how things are,” he thought, “I shall escape cheaper than I had thought. Why give a lot of money to people who can’t look after anything?” And he mentally lowered his bid for the remainder of Tord’s shares in Selambshof by several tens of thousand crowns.
That neglect cost Tord Selamb dear.
At last Peter struggled up the hill panting, and knocked at the door; he was greeted by an infernal barking from the brutes inside.
Tord had been watching Peter the whole time from the window, but had not cared to go and meet him. Such is the custom of the skerries! And then, he did not want to appear too eager, poor fellow!
The first evening they did not talk business, but they drank the whiskey Peter had brought. But he broke up early. He wanted to get up early to shoot duck.