Christmas was near, the days were all grey twilight, and there was a frost that set the wall-timbers cracking. The children went about blue with cold. When Merle scrubbed the floors, they turned into small skating-rinks, though there might be a big fire in the stove. Peer waded and waded through deep snow to the well for water, and his beard hung like a wreath of icicles about his face.
Aye, this was a winter.
Old Raastad’s two daughters were in the dairy making whey-cheese. The door was flung open, there was a rush of frosty air, and Peer stood there blinking his eyes.
“Huh! what smokers you two are!”
“Are we now?” And the red-haired one and the fair-haired one both giggled, and they looked at each other and nodded. This queer townsman-lodger of theirs never came near them that he didn’t crack jokes.
“By the way, Else, I dreamed last night that we were going to be married.”
Both the girls shrieked with delight at this.
“And Mari, you were married to the bailiff.”
“Oh my! That old creature down at Moen?”
“He was much older. Ninety years old he was.”
“Uf!—you’re always at your nonsense,” said the red-haired girl, stirring away at her huge, steaming cauldron.
Peer went out again. The girls were hardly out of their teens, and yet their faces seemed set already and stiff with earnestness. And whenever Peer had managed to set them laughing unawares, they seemed frightened the next minute at having been betrayed into doing something there was no profit in.
Peer strode about in the crackling snow with his fur cap drawn down over his ears. Jotunheim itself lay there up north, breathing an icy-blue cold out over the world.
And he? Was he to go on like this, growing hunchbacked under a burden that weighed and bowed him down continually? Why the devil could he not shake it off, break away from it, and kick out bravely at his evil fate?
“Peer,” asked Merle, standing in the kitchen, “what did you think of giving the children for a Christmas present?”
“Oh, a palace each, and a horse to ride, of course. When you’ve more money than you know what to do with, the devil take economy. And what about you, my girl? Any objection to a couple of thousand crowns’ worth of furs?”
“No, but seriously. The children haven’t any ski—nor a hand-sleigh.”
“Well, have you the money to buy them? I haven’t.”
“Suppose you tried making them yourself?”
“Ski?” Peer turned over the notion, whistling. “Well, why not? And a sleigh? We might manage that. But what about little Asta?—she’s too little for that sort of thing.”
“She hasn’t any bed for her doll.”
Peer whistled again. “There’s something in that. That’s an idea. I’m not so handless yet that I couldn’t—”
He was soon hard at it. There were tools and a joiner’s bench in an outhouse, and there he worked. He grew easily tired; his feet tried constantly to take him to the door, but he forced himself to go on. Is there anything in the notion that a man can get well by simply willing it? I will, will, will. The thought of others besides himself began to get the upper hand of those birds of prey ravening in his head. Presents for the children, presents that father had made himself—the picture made light and warmth in his mind. Drive ahead then.
When it came to making the iron ribbons for the sleigh runners he had to go across to the smithy; and there stood a cottar at work roughing horseshoes. Red glowing iron once more, and steel. The clang of hammer on anvil seemed to tear his ears; yet it drew him on too. It was long since last he heard that sound. And there were memories.
“Want this welded, Jens? Where’s the borax? Look here, this is the way of it.”
“Might ha’ been born and bred a smith,” said Jens, as he watched the deft and easy hammer-strokes.
Christmas Eve came, and the grey farm-pony dragged up a big wooden case to the door. Peer opened it and carried in the things—a whole heap of good things for Christmas from the Ringeby relations.
He bit his lips when he saw all the bags piled up on the kitchen table. There had been a time not long ago when Merle and he had loaded up a sledge at the Loreng storehouse and driven off with Christmas gifts to all the poor folk round. It was part of the season’s fun for them. And now—now they must even be glad to receive presents themselves.
“Merle—have WE nothing we can give away this year?”
“I don’t know. What do you think?”
“A poor man’s Christmas it’ll be with a vengeance—if we’re only to take presents, and haven’t the least little thing to give away.”
Merle sighed. “We must hope it won’t happen to us again,” she said.
“I won’t have it happen to us now,” he said, pacing up and down. “There’s that poor devil of a joiner down at Moen, with consumption. I’m going down there with a bit of a parcel to chuck in at his door, if I have to take your shift and the shirt off my back. You know yourself it won’t be any Christmas at all, if we don’t do something.”
“Well—if you like. I’ll see if we can’t find something among the children’s clothes that they can do without.”
The end of it was that Merle levied toll on all the parcels from home, both rice and raisins and cakes, and made up little packets of them to send round by him. That was Merle’s way; let her alone and she would hit upon something.
The snow creaked and crackled underfoot as Peer went off on his errand. A starry sky and a biting wind, and light upon light from the windows of the farms scattered over the dark hillsides. High above all, against the sky, there was one little gleam that might be a cottage window, or might be a star.
Peer was flushed and freshened up when he came back into the warmth of the room. And a chorus of joyful shouts was raised when Merle announced to the children: “Father’s going to bath you all to-night.”
The sawed-off end of a barrel was the bathing-tub, and Peer stood in the kitchen with his sleeves rolled up, holding the naked little bodies as they sprawled about in the steaming water.
Mother was busy with something or other in the sitting-room. But it was a great secret, and the children were very mysterious about it. “No, no, you mustn’t go in,” they said to little Asta, who went whimpering for her mother to the door.
And later in the evening, when the Christmas-tree was lit up, and the windows shone white with frost, there were great doings all about the sitting room floor. Louise got her ski on and immediately fell on her face; Lorentz, astride of the new sleigh, was shouting “Hi, hi!—clear the course there!”, and over in a corner sat little Asta, busy putting her baby to bed and singing it to sleep.
Husband and wife looked at each other and smiled.
“What did I tell you?” said Merle.
Slowly, with torturing slowness, the leaden-grey winter days creep by. For two hours in the middle of the day there is pale twilight—for two hours—then darkness again. Through the long nights the north wind howls funeral dirges—hu-u-u-u—and piles up the snow into great drifts across the road, deep enough, almost, to smother a sleigh and its driver. The days and nights come and go, monotonous, unchanged; the same icy grey daylight, and never a human soul to speak to. Across the valley a great solid mountain wall hems you in, and you gaze at it till it nearly drives you mad. If only one could bore a hole through it, and steal a glimpse of the world beyond, or could climb up to the topmost ridge and for a moment look far round to a wide horizon, and breathe freely once more.
At last one day the grey veil lifts a little. A strip of blue sky appears—and hearts grow lighter at the sight. The snow peaks to the south turn golden. What? Is it actually the sun? And day by day now a belt of gold grows broader, comes lower and lower on the hillside, till the highest-lying farms are steeped in it and glow red. And at last one day the red flame reaches the Courthouse, and shines in across the floor of the room where Merle is sitting by the window patching the seat of a tiny pair of trousers.
What life and cheer it brings with it!
“Mother—here’s the sun,” cries Louise joyfully from the doorway.
“Yes, child, I see it.”
But Louise has only looked in for a moment to beg some cake for Lorentz and herself, and be off again on her ski to the hill-slopes. “Thank you, mother—you’re a darling!” And with a slice in each hand she dashes out, glowing with health and the cold air.
If only Peer could glow with health again! But though one day they might persuade themselves that now—now at last he had turned the corner—the next he would be lying tossing about in misery, and it all seemed more hopeless than ever. He had taken to the doctors’ medicines again—arsenic and iron and so forth—and the quiet and fresh air they had prescribed were here in plenty; would nothing do him any good? There were not so many months of their year left now.
And then? Another winter here? And living on charity—ah me! Merle shook her head and sighed.
The time had come, too, when Louise should go to school.
“Send the children over to me—all three of them, if you like,” wrote Aunt Marit from Bruseth. No, thanks; Merle knew what that meant. Aunt Marit wanted to keep them for good.
Lose her children—give away her children to others? Was the day to come when that burden, too, would be laid upon them?
But schooling they must have; they must learn enough at least to fit them to make a living when they grew up. And if their own parents could not afford them schooling, why—why then perhaps they had no right to keep them?
Merle sewed and sewed on, lifting her head now and again, so that the sunlight fell on her face.
How the snow shone—like purple under the red flood of sunlight. After all, their troubles seemed a little easier to bear to-day. It was as if something frozen in her heart were beginning to thaw.
Louise was getting on well with her violin. Perhaps one day the child might go out into the world, and win the triumphs that her mother had dreamed of in vain.
There was a sound of hurried steps in the passage, and she started and sat in suspense. Would he come in raging, or in despair, or had the pains in his head come back? The door opened.
“Merle! I have it now. By all the gods, little woman, something’s happened at last!”
Merle half rose from her seat, but sank back again, gazing at his face.
“I’ve got it this time, Merle,” he said again. “And how on earth I never hit on it before—when it’s as simple as shelling peas!”
He was stalking about the room now, with his hands in his pockets, whistling.
“But what is it, Peer?”
“Why, you see, I was standing there chopping wood. And all the time swarms of mowing machines—nine million of them—were going in my head, all with the grass sticking fast to the shears and clogging them up. I was in a cold sweat—I felt myself going straight to hell—and then, in a flash—a flash of steel—it came to me. It means salvation for us, Merle, salvation.”
“Oh, do talk so that I can understand a little of what you’re saying.”
“Why, don’t you see—all that’s wanted is a small movable steel brush above the shears, to flick away the grass and keep them clear. Hang it all, a child could see it. By Jove, little woman, it’ll soon be changed times with us now.”
Merle laid her work down in her lap and let her hands fall. If this were true!
“I’ll have the machine up here, Merle. Making the brushes and fixing them on will be no trouble at all—I can do it in a day in the smithy here.”
“What—you had better try! You’re just beginning to get a little better, and you want to spoil it all again!”
“I shall never get well, Merle, as long as I have that infernal machine in my head balancing between world-success and fiasco. It presses on my brain like a leaden weight, I shall never have a decent night’s sleep till I get rid of it. Oh, my great God—if times were to change some day—even for us! Well! Do you think I wouldn’t get well when that day came!”
This time she let him take her in his arms. But when he had gone, she sat still, watching the sun sink behind the snow-ranges, till her eyes grew dim and her breath came heavily.
A week later, when the sun was flaming on the white roofs, the grey pony dragged a huge packing-case up to Raastad. And the same day a noise of hammer and file at work was heard in the smithy.
What do a few sleepless nights matter now? And they are sleepless not so much from anxiety—for this time things go well—as because of dreams. And both of them dream. They have bought back Loreng, and they wander about through the great light rooms once more, and all is peace and happiness. All the evil days before are as a nightmare that is past. Once more they will be young, go out on ski together, and dine together after, and drink champagne, and look at each other with love in their eyes. Once more—and many times again.
“Good-night, Merle.”
“Good-night, Peer, and sleep well.”
Day after day the hammering went on in the smithy.
A few years back he could have finished the whole business in a couple of days. But now, half an hour’s work was enough to tire him out. It is exhausting work to concentrate your thoughts upon a single point, when your brain has long been used to play idly with stray fancies as they came. He found, too, that there were defects to be put right in the parts he thought were complete before, and he had no assistants now, no foundry to get castings from, he must forge out each piece with his own hands, and with sorry tools.
What did it matter?
He began to discipline his brain, denying himself every superfluous thought. He drew dark curtains across every window in his consciousness, save one—the machine. After half an hour’s work he would go back to bed and rest—just close his eyes, and rest. This too was discipline. Again he flooded all his mind with darkness, darkness, to save his strength for the half-hour of work next day.
Was Merle fearful and anxious? At all events she said no word about the work that so absorbed him. He was excited enough as it was. And now when he was irritable and angry with the children, she did not even look at him reproachfully. They must bear it, both she and the children—it would soon be all over now.
In the clear moonlight nights, when the children were in bed, the two would sometimes be seen wandering about together. They went with their arms about each other’s waists, talking loudly, laughing a great deal, and sometimes singing. People going by on the road would hear the laughter and singing, and think to themselves: It’s either someone that’s been drinking, or else that couple from the Court-house.
The spring drew on and the days grew lighter.
But at the Hamar Agricultural Exhibition, where the machine was tried, an American competitor was found to be just a little better. Everyone thought it a queer business; for even if the idea hadn’t been directly stolen from Peer, there could be no doubt that his machine had suggested it. The principles adopted were the same in both cases, but in the American machine there was just enough improvement in carrying them out to make it doubtful whether it would be any use going to law over the patent rights. And besides—it’s no light matter for a man with no money at his back to go to law with a rich American firm.
In the mighty race, with competitors the wide world over, to produce the best machine, Peer had been on the very point of winning. Another man had climbed upon his chariot, and then, at the last moment, jumped a few feet ahead, and had thereby won the prize.
So that the achievement in itself be good, the world does not inquire too curiously whether it was honestly achieved.
And there is no use starting a joint-stock company to exploit a new machine when there is a better machine in the field.
The steel had seized on Peer, and used him as a springboard. But the reward was destined for another.
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