Once, the toe of her shoe caught a stone and sent it skimming down the road, and she started violently in fear. At that she defied the silence and burst into song at the top of her voice. But no matter how loud she sang, the stillness drained her voice away and made it as thin as the pale blue of the sky.
Then, as they came around a bend in the road, there lay Rossan’s house out on the heath. Light-gray smoke was curling up from the chimney in neat spirals.
Eidi began to run hard, but she couldn’t keep going at that pace, so Ravnar overtook her, and together they turned onto the path that led to the house.
Rossan’s black wire-haired dog, who was lying on the stone step, uttered a single bark, then rose and came to meet them. When she caught Eidi’s scent, she started wagging her whole back end. Eidi patted old Glennie’s graying head very gently.
Another dog stuck its head through the doorway. This one looked exactly like Myna’s dog, except for the little white fan that Myna’s young Glennie had on her chest. They were sisters, and the old dog was their mother. As soon as the young dog saw why the old one had barked, she shot down the path like an arrow. When she reached them, she didn’t wag her tail but kept a wary distance. She didn’t remember Eidi, and she had never met Ravnar.
Then a boy stuck his head out the door. He was a bit taller than Eidi, and his hair was so fair it was white, and it stuck straight out all over.
“Hey!” he shouted. “Who are you?”
By this time they were almost at the house, and now Rossan appeared in the doorway.
“Why, if it isn’t Eidi and Ravnar! Welcome, welcome!”
Rossan came down the steps, smiling widely. He clapped Ravnar on the shoulder and gave Eidi a hug.
His gray hair was as trim and smooth as ever under his knitted cap, but his bearded face was as wrinkled as willow bark, and Eidi saw suddenly how the passing time had made him older and made her bigger. Her head reached nearly to his chin.
“And this is Kotka, my sister’s boy.”
Kotka stepped forward and shook hands politely. Eidi noticed that his eyes were bright and blue, and his hand warm and dry.
“What’s this?” said Rossan, looking at her shawl. “Are you out to try your luck, Eidi?”
Eidi nodded and said, “Yes. I thought I might try it with you.”
Rossan laughed. “Why, you don’t need a shawl for that. I know how good your work is. But I like your way of going about it. You do the thing properly while you’re at it. You’re hired.”
So Rossan hadn’t forgotten the fine yarn Eidi and Foula had spun for him that winter when they, along with Myna and Doup, had stayed with him.
“But come in! Kotka, put the soup back over the fire. You two must be tired of journey rations and cold food.”
The house was very small. It consisted of only one room, with a steep stair up to the attic. Eidi looked around the cozy room where she had sat day after day carding wool while Foula spun it on the spinning wheel in the corner.
Rossan had slept up in the attic then, and the others below in the living room. But this time it would be different.
“I’ll sleep in the attic,” said Eidi.
“Aha, so you’ve decided that already.”
Eidi nodded.
“Well then, we’ll have to let you have your way. And what about you, Ravnar? Are you looking for a place as well?”
Ravnar shook his head.
“No, I just came along to keep Eidi company on the way. I’ll be heading back tomorrow. We’ll start butchering as soon as I get home.”
In a short while they were sitting at the little table. The soup was hot and chock-full of herbs and pieces of meat. The surface was delicately pearled with fat, and the aroma of it made Eidi’s stomach growl. They hadn’t had anything to eat yesterday. The journey had taken longer than they had reckoned on.
4
Eidi took a deep breath as Ravnar’s dark head disappeared from sight around the bend of the road. Now at last she was all alone in the big world, without anyone from home in Crow Cove. And before long she would be even farther away. Kotka had come to tend the sheep while Rossan took his wool to the autumn market.
Rossan had so much wool that Eidi wouldn’t be able to spin it all into yarn even if she worked the entire winter. So although she was here now, Rossan still intended to make the trip and sell some of the wool, and she was to go with him.
They would follow the little track that ran by Rossan’s house, across the heath and up over the gray range of hills that could just be glimpsed far away. Beyond that lay Eastern Harbor, a big seaport town, where you could get a good price for your wares. Trading ships put in there from faraway places, eager to buy and sell.
That was where Kotka lived with his mother, Rossan’s sister Lesna, and they could stay with her during the market season.
Fortunately they had Lesna’s horse, which Kotka had ridden over. It couldn’t carry them both, but at least it could carry the wool, so they wouldn’t have to lug it on their own backs.
Big bales of wool were brought down from the loft and tied to the horse’s back, together with a blanket for each of them, because the nights could be cold in the hills. Finally they strapped their haversack on top and started on their journey.
The track wound in and out between willow scrub and bogholes. These were almost indiscernible, their surfaces green with moss and tussocks.
“Mind you, don’t step off the path,” warned Rossan.
So Eidi trudged carefully along behind him and the horse.
“Once you fall in there,” he went on, “no one can get you out again. You just get sucked down, like Myna’s sheep did.”
“And Doup and Ravnar’s mother,” Eidi added.
“Oh yes,” said Rossan over his shoulder. “That was a sad thing, to die like that.”
Rossan sighed again. After a little while he went on: “But Frid and your mother have each other now, and they’ve even got a new little boy. So everyone’s happy, aren’t they?”
“Not me,” said Eidi.
“Goodness me,” said Rossan mildly. “So you reckon there were too many chicks in the nest, do you?”
Eidi nodded.
“I think you’d better make up your mind to love him. Otherwise he’ll get to be like a stone in your shoe that you can’t shake out, just a constant annoyance.”
Eidi didn’t answer. She didn’t want to hear any more.
Day by day they climbed higher. Now the bogs were few and far between. Heather, gorse and bog myrtle, scrub oak and willow flanked the path on either side. Shallow creeks trickled among the stones and formed small, clear pools, where black bugs skimmed across the surface on long, thin legs.
At last they reached the top of the ridge. Here the wind from the west, north, and east had worn away all the vegetation, so the rock face lay scrubbed and bare. Only a few tufts of grass survived in south-facing crevices and dells. Boulders jutted up like the backs of big gray animals resting on little green paws.
They’d had good weather so far, but up here a cold wind was on the prowl. It made Eidi dig out her head scarf and wrap her shawl tighter around her. Rossan’s breathing grew labored.
“It’s a good thing it’ll soon be downhill the rest of the way,” he said after a while, as they rested and warmed themselves in a south-facing stony dell.
The sun was going down. It would be a cold night.
“Maybe we should camp here,” said Rossan. “There’s a lot of heat from the sun in this rock. It won’t turn cold in one night.”
Eidi looked at him. “Yes, let’s do that,” she said. He seemed tired.
The country was spread out at their feet, an erratic pattern of brown and gray, green and blue, with here and there a little white block of a house, to remind them that there were still other people in the world.
They unloaded the wool, blankets, and haversacks from the horse. The wind was too strong to let them light a fire, so they made do with a supper of cold mutton and a co
uple of onions that they had roasted in their skins in the embers of last night’s fire.
Mountain ranges of clouds formed on the horizon. The sun sank behind them. Darkness fell, and the wind rose. It found a crack to howl in and, as if egged on by the sound of its own voice, blew more and more wildly.
“Better tether the horse,” said Rossan.
They usually let the horse go free, so he could graze in the early mornings before they set out.
As Eidi got to her feet, a raindrop struck her face, and in the next breath the rain came beating down. With the rain came darkness. She couldn’t see a thing. The wind blew in sudden gusts from all quarters, and she could hardly keep her balance. Then came a flash of lightning that lit up the terrain near and far, and she caught a glimpse of the horse, standing on the rocky overhang right above their heads.
A clap of thunder rent the air, and the horse’s hooves scrambled across the stony ground. Then came an alarming scraping sound and the clatter of falling rocks. The next flash of lightning showed her Rossan stretched out on the ground with a bleeding wound over one eye. She reached him just as the thunder crashed over them.
“Rossan!” she called, but he didn’t answer.
She fumbled for the water flask to wash the wound, but the next lightning flash showed her there was no need for that. The rain was washing the blood from his forehead in a steady trickle onto the ground.
A blanket, she thought, and groped along the rock face for their belongings. She found a blanket, brought it back, and covered him with it, but before long she realized that it wouldn’t be enough to keep him warm in this ice-cold rain. It was already soaking wet.
Then she thought of the wool. The raw, oily wool that could keep a sheep warm and safe through the rainiest winter. She got hold of a bale and dragged it over to Rossan’s unconscious form. But there was still the wind. How could she keep the wind from tearing the wool away?
Then she had an idea. She spread the blanket out as far as it would go, weighting down the edges with heavy stones as she went. She left a loose corner at the top and began to stuff wool in under the blanket. She used the whole bale, and when she was through, Rossan’s little potbelly swelled the blanket like an enormous paunch. He was packed in wool from his toes right up to his ears. She even stuffed wool in his knitted cap and pulled it down over his forehead, right to the edge of the wound.
At last she crept in between the packed-in wool and the blanket, wrapped in her scarf, her shawl, and the other blanket, and fell into an exhausted sleep next to Rossan while the rain lashed the bare rocks and the thunder drew away into the distance.
5
Someone was moving. Someone or other was making mumbling noises. Eidi opened her eyes.
For a moment she didn’t know who or where she was. All she knew was that something had woken her. Then she recalled what had happened last night. Next it dawned on her that the storm was over. She sat up with a start and looked at Rossan.
He was the one who had moved. He had lifted his hand to his forehead in his sleep, and when he touched the sore place he mumbled to himself. His eyes flew open, and he looked around dazedly.
“What happened?” he asked faintly.
“You got hit on the head with a stone. The horse started a little rockslide when he was scared by the lightning. He ran off.”
Just then they heard a soft whicker above their heads. Eidi glanced up. There stood Lesna’s horse looking down at them.
“See there, he’s come back!” she cried.
“That’s a lucky thing,” mumbled Rossan, as though he was still not entirely sure what was going on.
“Look here, what have you done to me?” he asked, peering bemusedly down the length of his enormous body.
He stuck his hand in under the blanket and began pulling out wool in big tufts. Then he started to laugh.
“Well, I never!” He chuckled. “Where did you get that idea?”
“From the sheep,” answered Eidi. “That’s how they keep warm, after all.”
And Rossan laughed again.
“Yes indeed, an old sheep, that’s me . . . all over!” he declared.
He struggled out of the blanket and got to his feet, but he was dizzy and almost fell over.
“I guess it was a bad bump,” he said, and sat back down hurriedly.
Eidi packed the wool into a bale again, fetched the horse, and loaded their things on his back. Then she sat down beside Rossan.
“How far do we still have to go?” she asked.
“We should be able to see the town from here, maybe from just over the ridge.”
“Do you think you can make it?”
Rossan nodded. “If we rest every now and then,” he said.
So they set off again.
Eidi had never seen a big town. The rocky cliffs formed a natural harbor, a bay that widened out once you were past the harbor mouth. The houses were clustered along the steep surrounding slopes. What she couldn’t get over was the noise of the gulls. The air was thick with them. Their screams drowned out every other sound. They hurt Eidi’s ears.
Rossan leaned heavily on her shoulder as they made their way through the narrow streets.
“We have to get up there,” he panted, pointing to a white house at the top of the steepest slope along the right side of the bay.
Step by step they labored up the street. The horse had taken the lead. He knew the way, and Eidi felt that the only thing that kept her on her feet and moving was that she could cling to his bridle.
She had tears of exertion in her eyes, and her legs were trembling under her. Just as they reached the gate of the house, Rossan collapsed, and Eidi couldn’t get him to his feet. She had let go of the bridle, and the horse immediately deserted them and made for the back of the house.
Then the front door opened, and a woman came running down the garden path and straight to Rossan. She bent over him but couldn’t rouse him.
“What’s happened to him?” she asked.
“He got hit on the head by a rockslide. He could hardly walk the last bit up here.”
“Come!” said the woman. “We must get him to bed.”
She got a grip under his armpits, and Eidi took hold of his legs, but they couldn’t lift him. So they each took a grip under an armpit and dragged him all the way into the house and over the threshold of the big room at the end. Together they managed to bundle him onto the bed there. The woman undressed him and tucked him up under the covers. Then she sat down on a chair to get her breath.
Her hair was just as white as Kotka’s, though whether that was from age or because she was so fair, Eidi couldn’t tell.
The woman was younger than Rossan, leaner and more sharp-featured. She was wearing a handsome lavender-blue dress with a big white apron over it.
She sat looking at Eidi for a little while, as if to determine what sort of person she was, before giving a hand in greeting. Eidi told her who she was, why she had come along with Rossan, and what had happened.
Just then the bedclothes rustled. Rossan was coming to.
“Here’s a pretty state of things,” Lesna said to him. “A good thing the horse came back. I don’t know what I’d have done without him. Now you’d better stay where you are until you’re properly rested, and I’ll put the horse in the stable and tend to him, and get this child a bite to eat.”
Even in his worn-out state, Rossan managed to send Eidi a little smile from the bed.
She wasn’t a child. She was out to earn her living, not just tagging along as a burden.
The smoked herring fillets were warm; the scrambled eggs were rich yellow and soft, sprinkled with finely chopped chives; the butter was spread thick on the bread; and the tea was hot and sweet.
Eidi ate alone at the table while Lesna served her. She had three helpings. Afterward Lesna showed her to a little room by the stable where she was to sleep.
A settle bed stood open and pulled out, made up with white, smooth linen. The whitewashed walls hadn�
��t a damp patch on them, and the floor was swept and scrubbed. But it was cold, dreadfully cold, and Eidi’s sore and weary body could find no rest until it occurred to her to open the inner door to the stable, where the horse lived, to let some of that comforting warmth in.
Every time she closed her eyes she saw the white gulls diving at her with loud, hoarse, screaming cries—until the horse’s comfortable munching and rustling drove their calls away and brought peace to her ears.
6
Rossan was too weak to go to market. So he considered getting someone else to sell his wool for him, but that would mean a lower price. The man who did the selling would need to have something for his trouble as well.
But Eidi had already decided that she would sell the wool for him.
“You don’t know anything about dickering,” said Rossan, shaking his head.
“Dickering?” asked Eidi, puzzled.
“Yes, dickering on the price. First you name a price that’s higher than what you want to get. Then the buyer names a price that is less than he’s willing to pay. Then you lower your price a trifle, and the buyer raises his, until you meet somewhere in the middle. That’s dickering.”
“Aha,” said Eidi. “I guess I can learn to do that.”
So Rossan started playing the part of a customer. He was a very good complainer.
“That bale is full of sheep dung! Just look at all that muck! And you’re asking money for that, something anybody could pick up in a field? If they’d touch it, that is. Maybe you only shear the back legs. Where do you keep your clean wool, pray tell?”
Then it was Eidi’s turn.
“You’re right, it’s not as clean as it might be,” she said confidingly, and took a bit off the price.
Rossan laughed.
“That was a good one! You’ll manage just fine.”
So Eidi was allowed to take the wool to market.
The market was held on a big green on the other side of the road along the harbor.
Eidi Page 2