He did not seem to bear much resemblance to other people. He was bareheaded and wearing a brown shirt and armless pullover; sunburnt, slim, newly shaved, slight stoop, fine features and judicious eyes like a foreigner, good evening.
“Good evening,” replied the others warily.
“Summerhouses people?” inquired the visitor as he came up.
“It all depends on how you look at it,” replied Bjartur rather testily, advancing a pace or two on the visitor with his scythe at the ready. I’ve always understood it was my land anyway, whoever you may be. And I can’t say that I see what the idea is of prospecting on other people’s land.”
The visitor did not offer his hand in the customary greeting, but halted a few paces away and looked about him in the dusk, then thoughtfully produced a pipe and tobacco. “A pretty valley,” he remarked. “As pretty as any I’ve ever seen.”
“Pretty,” said Bjartur; “hm, that depends on whether the hay goes to hogwash or not. You don’t happen to have been sent here by anyone, do you?”
Sent? No, the visitor hadn’t been sent by anyone, he had just felt that since the place was so nice, he might ask leave to pitch a tent there, on the other side of the lake.
“This land,” said Bjartur, “this land reaches south to the heath there and up to the mountain peaks in the north, west to the middle of the ridge, and east as far as Moldbrekkur. All the lowland belongs to me.”
The visitor made some rather incomprehensible observation about all this lowland making one park.
“Whether it would make one park or not,” replied Bjartur, “it’s still my property, and I can’t say that I care to see strangers nosing about on it. It’s thirteen years and more since I raised this farm from the ruins, and as for the Rauthsmyri crew, I owe them not a penny. I was told when I started that there was a ghost here, but I fear neither ghosts nor men. I own good sheep.”
The visitor understood and nodded his head: “Private enterprise.”
I don’t know,” said Bjartur, “and I’m not praising myself up either. I only know that I’m no worse off than most private individuals hereabouts, and, if anything, maybe a trifle better for never having made it a habit of mine to get into debt, which I’ve managed quite easily by always endeavouring to keep parasites away from my hay, until last winter, when I had cattle forced on me from a certain quarter. But naturally I never consider myself the equal of the big men, except that I feel I’m a big enough man for myself, and therefore I refuse to allow any meddling with my affairs and have no desire to be in partnership with anyone.”
But the visitor was quick to explain that by private enterprise, naturally, he hadn’t meant that they should all become landed farmers or rich men; and in any case he wasn’t too fond of dealing with the big farmers, he preferred to see his coppers passed on to the smallholders—
Bjartur, leaping at once to the conclusion that it must be somebody with some new business methods in his head, declared that he had determined to deal with no one but his own merchant; “the old fellow has kept body and soul together for more than a few in his time, and though Jon of Myri founds his co-operative societies and promises a bonus when times are good, I expect the bonus he talks about will be thickest where he bites it off, with his three hundred and fifty lambs every autumn, and thinner for us men with only thirty or forty for sale. And what about the bad years? If the whole thing crashes, it will be we who will have to pay the losses, I expect; and not only ours, but theirs as well, damn them. So, as far as business deals are concerned, my friend—”
The visitor hastened to assure Bjartur that he had never even dreamed of trying to undermine the good relations that existed between the crofter and his dealer; he was just a chap that liked to try a gun or a hook and line when he was out in the country in the summertime, “and as I had heard that you didn’t bother much about your game, I wondered whether you wouldn’t allow me to try a line—for a consideration, of course.”
There’s nothing worth fishing for,” said Bjartur. “Sensible people haven’t the time to waste on the rubbish you’ll find in the lake, and in any case whatever was caught in the marshes here, fish or fowl, wouldn’t do my sheep much good. It may possibly do the big proprietors’ sheep some good, or the big proprietors’ sons even; there’s that son of the Bailiff at Utirauthsmyri, for instance, the one they call the secretary now, who’s bred on the Persian religion and has been made manager of that society he and his father started—he could never see anything draw the breath of life without wanting to blow the brains out of it, blast him.”
Old Fritha, imprudent and spiteful as ever, bawled out from the meadow: “Listen to them running down their betters, these flaming bog-trotters that grind everybody down, relations and strangers, dead and alive; and everything but the lice that crawl over their own mouldy hides.”
The visitor exhaled smoke in her direction without being quite clear what attitude he ought to take in this affair.
“Oh, don’t bother your head about what spews up out of that over there. It’s only one of those bloody old paupers, and it’s not the first time her tongue’s run away with her,” said Bjartur in order to prevent any misunderstanding, and in such a fashion that the stranger now considered himself free to renew his petition.
“Well,” replied the crofter at length, “if you aren’t speculating and you aren’t sent by any company either, I don’t see why you shouldn’t pitch a tent for a night or two, provided you don’t trample the grass down too much for me. But I won’t tolerate speculators on my land. And no members of any company or society either, because I consider societies the ruination of the individual. And my land isn’t for sale, anyway, and least of all for money. I and my folk live here for our sheep in peace and quiet, and we have enough of everything as long as our sheep have enough of everything. If only this damned rain would piss itself dry some time.”
The ground was cleared for negotiation when the stranger had at last managed to convince Bjartur that he was neither a speculator nor a member of any sociey. He was only an ordinary southerner, the sort of fellow you often see in the summer, a holiday-maker, in innocent exile. Someone had told him that there was good sport here, the name of his informant he had forgotten. He would like to hang around for a few days, lacked nothing, was provided with everything. As proof of this he produced a notecase bulging with banknotes, real money in a bundle; they and the banks see eye to eye, these southerners; some folk say they use this stuff in the backhouse. In spite of Bjartur’s disdain for money, the sight of it did not now fan to produce a certain impression. He offered even to help the man with his tent, but the visitor declined with thanks, he could manage everything himself. He took leave of them with a farewell as perfunctory as his greeting, leaving behind him a cloud of blue smoke that dissolved over the meadow in the calm of the evening, and a fabulous fragrance. He had said so little, been so offhanded in his greeting, and displayed so much money that there was no end to what the imagination could spin around such a man, a great man, an elegant man, distance itself in one man, the prince of the fairy tale; and now he had become neighbour to the Summerhouses people. His proximity was like the flavour of Sunday in mid-week, like an interval in the downpour, colour in drabness, material for thought in apathy, stimulation in the midst of life’s cheerlessness. That night Asta Sollilja dreamed repeatedly that the apple started from her throat
Then on the following day the cow calved, and thus inside twenty-four hours there befell two great events on the moors.
She had been terribly heavy, poor thing, these last few weeks, and Finna, who knew what it was like, would trust no one but herself to bring her out in the morning or home at night. No one else was slow enough with her, no one had the patience to wait while she persuaded herself out of the narrow cow-shed door with her flanks grazing the doorpost on either side. To Finna it would never have occurred to beat this creature as she laboured up to the hocks through the mud in front of the croft. Bukolla would halt after every step,
snorting and grumbling, but looking round occasionally at the woman, twitching her ears, and mooing. They parted company usually up in the hollow by the brook, and the woman would stroke her dewlap, and soon we’ll be having a little calf with a round forehead and feeble legs, long and clumsy, and I hope everything will go all right for us, and you’ll see me tonight; and well take things easy and think of each other. Then Finna would go off home and the cow would begin cropping noisily at the grass, her nostrils wrinkling with the pleasure of luxury, for the grass along the brooks was strong and juicy.
But that evening Finna did not find the cow in her usual pastures, and she thought it rather strange, for the cow had shown little desire to wander of late now that she was expecting, and had long given up her attempts to run away. She wandered along from hillock to hillock, farther and farther along by the mountain’s side, calling: “Bukolla, Bukolla dear.” At last the cow answered her from a grassy little hollow by a ravine; she lowed once only in reply and was found. She had calved. The woman understood at once.
Finna found her unusually difficult to handle; she would not behave and had to be driven along, circling continually about the calf, sniffing at it and licking it and mooing softly at every step, not a thought to spare for anything else. But Finna understood. When one has had a calf, the calf comes between the mother and tie object she had been fondest of before. The busy aggressiveness of happy motherhood had mastered her behaviour and wiped out its more civilized features. It was as if this creature’s dreams had all come true in one day, and as if she needed nothing more; the sympathy of others had become a superstition. It was a long, long time before the woman managed to coax her home to the croft.
Everyone except Bjartur was waiting outside to welcome the cow and her new-born calf. The children left the home-field to meet them and examine the grey-spotted calf. The sea-cow breed was obvious. It was a little bull, and Asta Sollilja greeted him with a kiss, and the cow watched the kiss, mooing low in her throat. The dog did not try to snap at the cow’s hocks tonight; she didn’t even bark at the cow that night, silly as she was, but with her tail between her legs retreated politely to a distance whenever the cow showed any signs of attacking her, and regarded the new relations with great respect from some yards away. The old grandmother dragged herself along by the wall with the aid of a broken rake-shaft to fondle the calf and the cow. Even old Fritha was warmer-hearted than usual. “God bless the poor creature,” she said, “Jesuspeter.”
Then Bjartur came out of the house.
“So-ho,” he said. “We’d better get the knife ready.”
“Just what I thought, the bloody murderer.” cried old Fritha.
But Bjartur’s wife only looked at him appealingly and said half in a whisper as she passed him on the paving: “Bjartur dear.” So the cow was tied up in her stall with the calf by her side.
It was later in the evening, when they were all going to bed and the womenfolk were with blissful unction discussing the birth and the calf, when everyone was so happy because of this new personality on the farm and thankful that everything had gone so well with the cow, when everyone was sharing so intimately in the cow’s happiness, that Bjartur continued from where he had left off before: “The worst of it is that I haven’t time to take the carcass down to Fjord before the end of the week.”
The next day there were curds of the cow’s first milk since calving.
The days that followed, they were great days. One had only to look at the creature that once had been so lonely and see how light was her step now as she trotted away out of the home-field with the calf prancing giddily at her side—she had no longer any need of consolation or caresses. She would try to leave the children behind as soon as she could, for they had fallen in love with the little bull and were never done fondling him. Care-free in her new life, she would wander off with her son far along the mountain and would almost lose herself, so independent of mankind did she consider herself, she who before had had her refuge in the woman’s protection; no more dealings with mankind! When Finna came to bring her home in the evenings she would look at her as if wondering what concern it was of hers, but Finna was not at all hurt by such behaviour, for she understood the joy of motherhood and how it exalts one proudly above mankind and makes everything else seem of such little value. Yes, so well did she understand her joy that though the cow gave far too little milk in the evenings, she did not dare tell anyone about it for fear that Bjartur would order the calf to be shut up in the daytime; she could not bear to think of the cow losing the joy of having her son with her in the pasture these days, she who had been lonely for so long.
Sunday morning; they usually stayed late in bed on the Sunday, sometimes even as late as nine, all except Bjartur, for whom all days were alike and who was usually to be heard pottering about with something or other on a Sunday morning, mending implements and suchlike, poor soul. On this particular morning he stuck his head up through the trapdoor and asked if everybody was dead here, or what? “Is the tyranny to be spread over on to the Sunday as well now?” asked Fritha sourly.
“The calf’s tripes are lying on the paving,” he announced. “I leave you to decide whether you’re going to let them be washed into the muck in this damned rain. I’m off down to Fjord with the carcass.”
That day the wife of Summerhouses did not trust herself to leave her bed; she lay there facing the wall, she was not feeling very well. Old Hallbera got up, and old Fritha, and the children. The calf’s steaming entrails were lying in a trough on the paving when they got downstairs, but Bjartur was well on his way, riding over the marshes on old Blesi with veal for the merchant’s oven.
“In this way he’ll kill you all,” said Fritha, then gave vent to a stream of horrible abuse as she took charge of the offals; and the children stood on the paving with their fingers in their mouths and watched; and listened.
Bukolla’s little calf, they all remembered the look in his eyes; for he too had had a look in his eyes the same as other babies. He had looked at Nonni, he had looked at Helgi, he had looked at them all. Only yesterday he had been hopping about in the home-field, here, lifting his front feet in the air both at once, then his hind feet both at once, in a little game all of his own. And the crown of his head was as round as a ball; little calves are like that always. Asta Sollilja had said that he was very near being three-coloured. He had roamed about the slopes along by the mountain, too, and had sniffed at the wild thyme of the world; when it rained he had sheltered behind his mother. That was a dark Sunday. The cow bellowed unceasingly from her shed, and when they tried to drive her to pasture she was back again at once, bellowing in the home-field; she stood on the doorstep and bellowed in. The mountain echoed her cries, from her great eyes there ran great tears, cows weep.
For a whole week Finna dared not look at the cow, old Fritha had to milk her. There is nothing so merciless as mankind. How can we justify ourselves, especially to the dumb animals around us? But the first days are always the worst, and there is much comfort in the thought that time effaces everything, crime and sorrow no less than love.
THE VISITOR
CONTINUAL rain.
Asta Sollilja, busy cooking, had taken off her wet things and laid them to dry on the hot range. The steam was rising from them, and she was cutting the fish ready for the pan, barefooted, in a tattered old slip, and the bubbles were just beginning to rise when suddenly she heard something on the move down below: the door opened, a footstep sounded in the stalls, the ladder creaked, the hatch was lifted, and a man stepped up on to the floor and looked about him. He was wearing a sou’wester. His coat was long and strong, fitted with collars, flaps, tabs, and buttons; the rain that could penetrate such a garment was non-existent. He wore high waterproof boots, his blue eyes were clear and kind. He said good-morning. She did not dare to say good-morning; she said nothing. She usually gave her hand in silence when anyone greeted her, but this man did not offer to shake hands. She had thought that he had looked so very slim and
youthful the first time that she had seen him, but in this tiny room he and his huge coat assumed such bulky proportions that she was afraid that he would bump his head on the roof. The old woman did not reply to his greeting either, but she stopped knitting and tried to focus her peering eyes on him. With him he had a string of trout and string of barnacle geese.
“Fresh meat,” he said. “A change.”
The white teeth gleamed like trinkets in the brown manly face; there was an unfamiliar ring in his voice.
“Sola,” said the grandmother in her dim, hoarse voice, “aren’t you going to offer the man a seat?”
But Asta Sollilja hadn’t the courage to offer the man a seat, her slip was so terrible, her arms so long, her hands so big; there was mud on her feet. She didn’t dare look at him, not even at the pleasing colour of the trout he was carrying. The rags she wore for underwear were lying there on the range staring him in the face and steaming with damp. He thought of course that they hadn’t enough to eat. What ought she to say? What would Father have said?
“Let’s sling a few trout into the pan,” said the visitor, picking up the knife. He had slim brown hands free of dirt, free of calluses and scratches, hands that played deftly with the knife. Quickly he gutted the fish, placing the offals in a dish and the fish itself in the pan. “First-rate fish,” he said, holding them aloft for the grandmother’s inspection, “three-pounders at least, fine fish.”
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