The Great Hunger

Chapter II

When Peer, as quite a little fellow, had been sent to live with the old couple at Troen, he had already passed several times from one adopted home to another, though this he did not remember. He was one of the madcaps of the village now, but it was not long since he had been a solitary child, moping apart from the rest. Why did people always say “Poor child!” whenever they were speaking about his real mother? Why did they do it? Why, even Peter Ronningen, when he was angry, would stammer out: “You ba-ba-bastard!” But Peer called the pock-marked good-wife at Troen “mother” and her bandy-legged husband “father,” and lent the old man a hand wherever he was wanted—in the smithy or in the boats at the fishing.

His childhood was passed among folk who counted it sinful to smile, and whose minds were gloomy as the grey sea-fog with poverty, psalm-singing, and the fear of hell.

One day, coming home from his work at the peat bog, he found the elders snuffling and sighing over their afternoon meal. Peer wiped the sweat from his forehead, and asked what was the matter.

The eldest son shoved a spoonful of porridge into his mouth, wiped his eyes, swallowed, and said: “Poor Peer!”

“Aye, poor little chap,” sighed the old man, thrusting his horn spoon into a crack in the wall that served as a rack.

“Neither father nor mother now,” whimpered the eldest daughter, looking over to the window.

“Mother? Is she—”

“Ay, dearie, yes,” sighed the old woman. “She’s gone for sure—gone to meet her Judge.”

Later, as the day went on, Peer tried to cry too. The worst thing of all was that every one in the house seemed so perfectly certain where his mother had gone to. And to heaven it certainly was not. But how could they be so sure about it?

Peer had seen her only once, one summer’s day when she had come out to see the place. She wore a light dress and a big straw hat, and he thought he had never seen anything so beautiful before. She made no secret of it among the neighbours that Peer was not her only child; there was a little girl, too, named Louise, who was with some folks away up in the inland parishes. She was in high spirits, and told risky stories and sang songs by no means sacred. The old people shook their heads over her—the younger ones watched her with sidelong glances. And when she left, she kissed Peer, and turned round more than once to look back at him, flushed under her big hat, and smiling; and it seemed to Peer that she must surely be the loveliest creature in all the world.

But now—now she had gone to a place where the ungodly dwell in such frightful torment, and no hope of salvation for her through all eternity—and Peer all the while could only think of her in a light dress and a big straw hat, all song and happy laughter.

Then came the question: Who was to pay for the boy now? True, his baptismal certificate said that he had a father—his name was Holm, and he lived in Christiania—but, from what the mother had said, it was understood that he had disappeared long ago. What was to be done with the boy?

Never till now had Peer rightly understood that he was a stranger here, for all that he called the old couple father and mother.

He lay awake night after night up in the loft, listening to the talk about him going on in the room below—the good-wife crying and saying: “No, no!”, the others saying how hard the times were, and that Peer was quite old enough now to be put to service as a goat-herd on some up-country farm.

Then Peer would draw the skin-rug up over his head. But often, when one of the elders chanced to be awake at night, he could hear some one in the loft sobbing in his sleep. In the daytime he took up as little room as he could at the table, and ate as little as humanly possible; but every morning he woke up in fear that to-day—to-day he would have to bid the old foster-mother farewell and go out among strangers.

Then something new and unheard of plumped down into the little cottage by the fjord.

There came a registered letter with great dabs of sealing-wax all over it, and a handwriting so gentlemanly as to be almost unreadable. Every one crowded round the eldest son to see it opened—and out fell five ten-crown notes. “Mercy on us!” they cried in amazement, and “Can it be for us?” The next thing was to puzzle out what was written in the letter. And who should that turn out to be from but—no other than Peer’s father, though he did not say it in so many words. “Be good to the boy,” the letter said. “You will receive fifty crowns from me every half-year. See that he gets plenty to eat and goes dry and well shod. Faithfully your, P. Holm, Captain.”

“Why, Peer—he’s—he’s—Your father’s a captain, an officer,” stammered the eldest girl, and fell back a step to stare at the boy.

“And we’re to get twice as much for him as before,” said the son, holding the notes fast and gazing up at the ceiling, as if he were informing Heaven of the fact.

But the old wife was thinking of something else as she folded her hands in thankfulness—now she needn’t lose the boy.

“Properly fed!” No need to fear for that. Peer had treacle with his porridge that very day, though it was only a week-day. And the eldest son gave him a pair of stockings, and made him sit down and put them on then and there; and the same night, when he went to bed, the eldest girl came and tucked him up in a new skin-rug, not quite so hairless as the old one. His father a captain! It seemed too wonderful to be true.

From that day times were changed for Peer. People looked at him with very different eyes. No one said “Poor boy” of him now. The other boys left off calling him bad names; the grown-ups said he had a future before him. “You’ll see,” they would say, “that father of yours will get you on; you’ll be a parson yet, ay, maybe a bishop, too.” At Christmas, there came a ten-crown note all for himself, to do just as he liked with. Peer changed it into silver, so that his purse was near bursting with prosperity. No wonder he began to go about with his nose in the air, and play the little prince and chieftain among the boys. Even Klaus Brock, the doctor’s son, made up to him, and taught him to play cards. But—“You surely don’t mean to go and be a parson,” he would say.

For all this, no one could say that Peer was too proud to help with the fishing, or make himself useful in the smithy. But when the sparks flew showering from the glowing iron, he could not help seeing visions of his own—visions that flew out into the future. Aye, he WOULD be a priest. He might be a sinner now, and a wild young scamp; he certainly did curse and swear like a trooper at times, if only to show the other boys that it was all nonsense about the earth opening and swallowing you up. But a priest he would be, all the same. None of your parsons with spectacles and a pot belly: no, but a sort of heavenly messenger with snowy white robes and a face of glory. Perhaps some day he might even come so far that he could go down into that place of torment where his mother lay, and bring her up again, up to salvation. And when, in autumn evenings, he stood outside his palace, a white-haired bishop, he would lift up his finger, and all the stars should break into song.

Clang, clang, sang the anvil under the hammer’s beat.

In the still summer evenings a troop of boys go climbing up the naked slopes towards the high wooded ranges to fetch home the cows for the milking. The higher they climb, the farther and farther their sight can travel out over the sea. And an hour or two later, as the sun goes down, here comes a long string of red-flanked cattle trailing down, with a faint jangle of bells, over the far-off ridges. The boys halloo them on—“Ohoo-oo-oo!”—and swing their ringed rowan staves, and spit red juice of the alder bark that they are chewing as men chew tobacco. Far below them they see the farm lands, grey in shadow, and, beyond, the waters of the fjord, yellow in the evening light, a mirror where red clouds and white sails and hills of liquid blue are shining. And away out on the farthest headland, the lonely star of the coast light over the grey sea.

On such an evening Peer came down from the hills just in time to see a gentleman in a carriole turn off from the highway and take the by-road down towards Troen. The horse balked suddenly at a small bridge, and when the driver reined him in and gave him a cut with his whip, the beast reared, swung about, and sent the cart fairly dancing round on its high wheels. “Oh, well, then, I’ll have to walk,” cried the gentleman angrily, and, flinging the reins to the lad behind him, he jumped down. Just at this moment Peer came up.

“Here, boy,” began the traveller, “just take this bag, will you? And—” He broke off suddenly, took a step backward, and looked hard at the boy. “What—surely it can’t be—Is it you, Peer?”

“Ye-es,” said Peer, gaping a little, and took off his cap.

“Well, now, that’s funny. My name is Holm. Well, well—well, well!”

The lad in the cart had driven off, and the gentleman from the city and the pale country boy with the patched trousers stood looking at each other.

The newcomer was a man of fifty or so, but still straight and active, though his hair and close-trimmed beard were sprinkled with grey. His eyes twinkled gaily under the brim of his black felt hat; his long overcoat was open, showing a gold chain across his waistcoat. With a pair of gloves and an umbrella in one hand, a light travelling bag in the other, and his beautifully polished shoes—a grand gentleman, thought Peer, if ever there was one. And this was his father!

“So that’s how you look, my boy? Not very big for your age—nearly sixteen now, aren’t you? Do they give you enough to eat?”

“Yes,” said Peer, with conviction.

The pair walked down together, towards the grey cottage by the fjord. Suddenly the man stopped, and looked at it through half-shut eyes.

“Is that where you’ve been living all these years?”

“Yes.”

“In that little hut there?”

“Yes. That’s the place—Troen they call it.”

“Why, that wall there bulges so, I should think the whole affair would collapse soon.”

Peer tried to laugh at this, but felt something like a lump in his throat. It hurt to hear fine folks talk like that of father and mother’s little house.

There was a great flurry when the strange gentleman appeared in the doorway. The old wife was kneading away at the dough for a cake, the front of her all white with flour; the old man sat with his spectacles on, patching a shoe, and the two girls sprang up from their spinning wheels. “Well, here I am. My name’s Holm,” said the traveller, looking round and smiling. “Mercy on us! the Captain his own self,” murmured the old woman, wiping her hands on her skirt.

He was an affable gentleman, and soon set them all at their ease. He sat down in the seat of honour, drumming with his fingers on the table, and talking easily as if quite at home. One of the girls had been in service for a while in a Consul’s family in the town, and knew the ways of gentlefolk, and she fetched a bowl of milk and offered it with a curtsy and a: “Will the Captain please to take some milk?” “Thanks, thanks,” said the visitor. “And what is your name, my dear? Come, there’s nothing to blush about. Nicoline? First-rate! And you? Lusiana? That’s right.” He looked at the red-rimmed basin, and, taking it up, all but emptied it at a draught, then, wiping his beard, took breath. “Phu!—that was good. Well, so here I am.” And he looked around the room and at each of them in turn, and smiled, and drummed with his fingers, and said, “Well, well—well, well,” and seemed much amused with everything in general. “By the way, Nicoline,” he said suddenly, “since you’re so well up in titles, I’m not ‘Captain’ any more now; they’ve sent me up this way as Lieutenant-Colonel, and my wife has just had a house left her in your town here, so we may be coming to settle down in these parts. And perhaps you’d better send letters to me through a friend in future. But we can talk about all that by and by. Well, well—well, well.” And all the time he was drumming with his fingers on the table and smiling. Peer noticed that he wore gold sleeve-links and a fine gold stud in his broad white shirt-front.

And then a little packet was produced. “Hi, Peer, come and look; here’s something for you.” And the “something” was nothing less than a real silver watch—and Peer was quite unhappy for the moment because he couldn’t dash off at once and show it to all the other boys. “There’s a father for you,” said the old wife, clapping her hands, and almost in tears. But the visitor patted her on the shoulder. “Father? father? H’m—that’s not a thing any one can be so sure about. Hahaha!” And “hahaha” echoed the old man, still sitting with the awl in his hand. This was the sort of joke he could appreciate.

Then the visitor went out and strolled about the place, with his hands under his coat tails, and looked at the sky, and the fjord, and murmured, “Well, well—well, well,” and Peer followed him about all the while, and gazed at him as he might have gazed at a star. He was to sleep in a neighbour’s house, where there was a room that had a bed with sheets on it, and Peer went across with him and carried his bag. It was Martin Bruvold’s parents who were to house the traveller, and people stood round staring at the place. Martin himself was waiting outside. “This a friend of yours, Peer? Here, then, my boy, here’s something to buy a big farm with.” This time it was a five-crown note, and Martin stood fingering it, hardly able to believe his eyes. Peer’s father was something like a father.

It was a fine thing, too, to see a grand gentleman undress. “I’ll have things like that some day,” thought Peer, watching each new wonder that came out of the bag. There was a silver-backed brush, that he brushed his hair and beard with, walking up and down in his underclothes and humming to himself. And then there was another shirt, with red stripes round the collar, just to wear in bed. Peer nodded to himself, taking it all in. And when the stranger was in bed he took out a flask with a silver cork, that screwed off and turned into a cup, and had a dram for a nightcap; and then he reached for a long pipe with a beaded cord, and when it was drawing well he stretched himself out comfortably and smiled at Peer.

“Well, now, my boy—are you getting on well at school?”

Peer put his hands behind him and set one foot forward. “Yes—he says so—teacher does.”

“How much is twelve times twelve?”

That was a stumper! Peer hadn’t got beyond ten times ten.

“Do they teach you gymnastics at the school?”

“Gym—? What’s that?”

“Jumping and vaulting and climbing ropes and drilling in squads—what?”

“But isn’t it—isn’t that wicked?”

“Wicked! Hahaha! Wicked, did you say? So that’s the way they look at things here, is it? Well, well—well, well! Hahaha! Hand me that matchbox, my boy. H’m!” He puffed away for a while in silence. Then, suddenly:

“See here, boy. Did you know you’d a little sister?”

“Yes, I know.”

“Half-sister, that is to say. I didn’t quite know how it was myself. But I may as well tell you, my boy, that I paid the same for you all along, the same as now. Only I sent the money by your mother, and she—well, she, poor girl, had another one to look after, and no father to pay for it. So she made my money do for both. Hahaha! Well, poor girl, we can’t blame her for that. Anyhow, we’ll have to look after that little half-sister of yours now, I suppose, till she grows up. Don’t you think so yourself?”

Peer felt the tears coming. Think so!—indeed he did.

Next day Peer’s father went away. He stood there, ready to start, in the living-room at Troen, stiff felt hat and overcoat and all, and said, in a tone like the sheriff’s when he gives out a public notice at the church door:

“And, by the way, you’re to have the boy confirmed this year.”

“Yes, to be sure we will,” the old mother hastened to say.

“Then I wish him to be properly dressed, like the best of the other youngsters. And there’s fifty crowns for him to give the school-teacher and the parson as a parting gift.” He handed over some more notes.

“Afterwards,” he went on, “I mean, of course, to look after him until he can make his own way in a respectable position. But first we must see what he has a turn for, and what he’d like to be himself. He’d better come to town and talk it over with me—but I’ll write and arrange all that after he’s confirmed. Then in case anything unexpected should happen to me, there’s some money laid by for him in a savings bank account; he can apply to a friend of mine, who knows all about it. Well, good-bye, and very many thanks!”

And the great man smiled to right and left, and shook them all by the hand, and waved his hat and was gone.

For the next few days Peer walked on air, and found it hard to keep his footing at all on the common earth. People were for ever filling his head with talk about that savings bank account—it might be only a few thousands of crowns—but then again, it might run up to a million. A million! and here he was, eating herrings for dinner, and talking to Tom, Dick, and Harry just like any one else. A million crowns!

Late in the autumn came the confirmation, and the old wooden church, with its tarred walls, nestled among its mighty tree-tops, sent its chimes ringing and ringing out into the blue autumn air. It seemed to Peer like some kindly old grandmother, calling so lovingly: “Come, come—old and young—old and young—from fjord and valley—northways and southways; come, come—this day of all days—this day of all days—come, come, come!” So it had stood, ringing out the chimes for one generation after another through hundreds of years, and now it is calling to us. And the young folks are there, looking at one another in their new clothes, and blowing their noses on clean white handkerchiefs, so carefully folded. There comes Peter Ronningen, passed by good luck this year, but forced to turn out in a jacket borrowed from Peer, as the tailor wasn’t ready with his own new things. The boys say “how-do-you-do” and try to smile like grown-up folks. One or two of them may have some little account dating from old school-fights waiting to be settled—but, never mind—just as well to forget old scores now. Peer caught sight of Johan Koja, who stole a pencil from him last summer, but, after all, even that didn’t seem worth making a fuss about. “Well, how’ve you been getting on since last summer?” they ask each other, as they move together up the stone steps to the big church door, through which the peal of the organ comes rolling out to meet them.

How good it seems, and how kind, the little church, where all you see bids you welcome! Through the stained-glass windows with their tiny leaded panes falls a light so soft that even poor ugly faces seem beautiful. The organ tones are the very light itself turned into sweet sound. On one side of the nave you can see all the boys’ heads, sleek with water; on the other the little mothers to be, in grown-up dress to-day for the first time, kerchief on head and hymn-book in hand, and with careful faces. And now they all sing. The elder folks have taken their places farther back to-day, but they join in, looking up now and again from the book to those young heads in front, and wondering how they will fare in life. And the young folk themselves are thinking as they sing, “To-day is the beginning of new things. Play and frolic are over and done with; from today we’re grown-up.” But the church and all in it seemed to say: “If ever you are in heavy trouble, come hither to me.” Just look at that altar-piece there—the wood-carvings are a whole Bible in themselves—but Moses with the Tables of the Law is gentle of face to-day; you can see he means no harm after all. St. Peter, with the keys, pointing upwards, looks like a kind old uncle, bringing something good home from market. And then the angels on the walls, pictured or carved in wood, have borrowed the voice of the organ and the tones of the hymn, and they widen out the vaulted roof into the dome of heaven; while light and song and worshippers melt together and soar upwards toward the infinite spaces.

Peer was thinking all the time: I don’t care if I’m rich as rich, I WILL be a priest. And then perhaps with all my money I can build a church that no one ever saw the like of. And the first couple I’ll marry there shall be Martin Bruvold and little sister Louise—if only he’ll have her. Just wait and see!

A few days later he wrote to his father, asking if he might come into town now and go to school. A long time passed, and then at last a letter came in a strange hand-writing, and all the grown folks at Troen came together again to read it. But what was their amazement when they read:

“You will possibly have learned by now from the newspapers that your benefactor, Colonel Holm, has met his death by a fall from a horse. I must therefore request you to call on me personally at your earliest convenience, as I have several matters to settle with you. Yours faithfully, J. Grundt, Senior Master.”

They stood and looked at one another.

Peer was crying—chiefly, it must be admitted, at the thought of having to bid good-bye to all the Troen folks and the two cows, and the calf, and the grey cat. He might have to go right on to Christiania, no later than to-morrow—to go to school there; and when he came back—why, very likely the old mother might not be there any more.

So all three of them were heavy-hearted, when the pock-marked good-wife, and the bow-legged old man, came down with him to the pier. And soon he was standing on the deck of the fjord steamer, gazing at the two figures growing smaller and smaller on the shore. And then one hut after another in the little hamlet disappeared behind the ness—Troen itself was gone now—and the hills and the woods where he had cut ring staves and searched for stray cattle—swiftly all known things drew away and vanished, until at last the whole parish was gone, and his childhood over.