Independent People (20 page)

The crying of a child woke him next morning.

When he went upstairs Gudny was sitting on the bed with the babe in her arms, and, what was more, had unfastened the clothes about her bosom to share her warmth with the infant, while his wife, its mother, lay lifeless in the bedstead opposite. She had tied a few tufts of wool round a bottle-neck and was teaching it to suck. Bjartur stood watching in some embarrassment, his modesty offended, and then the smile stole over his bearded, frostbitten face, and into his eyes, bloodshot after the blizzard.

“Here you see your daughter sound in wind and limb,” said Gudny, proud of having recalled this object to life.

“It sounds like it,” said he, “poor little mite.” And marvelled that it could be so small and delicate. “You can’t really expect it to be much of a thing,” he added apologetically, “the way mankind is such a sorry affair when you come to look at it as it actually is.”

“Little sweetheart,” cooed the woman, fondling the babe. “What would daddy be thinking of christening us?”

“Mm, I’ll be her father as far as that’s concerned, anyway,” he said. “She’ll have a pretty name and no other.”

Gudny said nothing, cooing away to the child and persuading the bottle into its mouth.

Bjartur stood gazing at them for a while in obvious commune with his soul, then declared with great conviction:

“Yes, it’s all settled,” and touched the babe’s face with his strong, grimy hand, which had battled with the spectral monsters of the country. “She shall be called Asta Sollilja.”

He was proud that this helpless little thing should have no one in the world but himself, and was determined to share with her one and the same fate—“and that’s all I want to hear about it”

There was much to be done: the sheep were still over at Rauthsmyri; then there was the funeral to be attended to, the coffin, the minister, the bearers, the journey to town, the burial feast. “I was thinking, Gunsa lass, that maybe you’d like to mix a batch of
Christmas cake for the feast. You’d be welcome to spice, raisins, and if you like even those big black things that look like horse’s dottles, prunes I think you call them. Don’t consider the expense; I’ll pay. And, of course, as many pancakes as everybody can hold. And strong coffee, woman; coffee strong enough to tar a tup with; I won’t stand for people drinking any old dish-wash at the funeral of a wife of mine.”

E
VERYONE
took it for granted that the ghost was active again in Summerhouses, so Gudny had a servant-girl sent from home to keep her company, and round the death of Rosa were spun strange stories, the stranger the greater the distance of their origin, but all in agreement as to its cause and all, indeed, of a pattern with the tales that had been told of this lonely croft from time out of memory. Great concern was therefore felt for the moor-crofter’s future, especially as events had taken such a course in his very first year, and a few days later, when the Sheriffs Officer ran across Bjartur up-country, he intimated that he might have a workman’s job vacant any time now and hinted that the difficulties in which it was expected Bjartur would shortly find himself might sooner or later become the concern of the whole parish; here he was, a widower left with an infant child on his hands, what was he going to do? He said he had heard that the Rauthsmyri people might be persuaded to take the child to foster, without the usual fee even, though with the stipulation that the land be returned to them free, “and in your shoes I would say I was well rid of it on such liberal terms.”

Bjartur, however, thought that if the Rauthsmyri people were offering him liberal terms for anything it was certainly not before time, even though the offer did reach him by a circuitous route. “It may be possible that you parish-council potentates call it good riddance to pack your kids off to be fostered at Rauthsmyri,” he declared. “But I don’t call it a good riddance. For it so happens that I was fostered by this same Rauthsmyri crew myself for eighteen years. And as long as I can call myself an independent subject of this country and can pay my way with God and men, I intend to see that it is I that brings up my children and not the Rauthsmyrians.”

“There may come a time,” said the other, “when legal causes
will prevent you from continuing to pay your way, especially if you have to farm those mountains of yours with hired female help; all of which might have its effects on this so-called independence of yours.”

“It took me eighteen years to scrape that stock of mine together and pay the deposit on Summerhouses,” replied Bjartur, “and though I may not have built myself a king’s palace of marble and sapphire, I’ve built myself at any rate a palace that stands on a foundation of eighteen years. And as long as I owe neither the parish nor the dealer, and can pay the Bailiff his instalments on the land, it is at least a palace that is as good as any palace that either you or the Bailiff ever built. And now let me tell you this, my friend: I have never concerned myself with the Bailiff’s children or made a fuss about whom they’re called after, and never will; but I demand in return that the Bailiff keep his nose out of my business and leave my children, and whatever names I happen to christen them, entirely to me. And tell him I was asking about him.”

Bjartur that day was on his way to Stathur to see the Reverend Gudmundur, the man for whom he had such a great respect, greater indeed than for almost anyone else, because of the excellent breed of sheep he had introduced into the parish. He was ushered into the eddying smoke of the room where, busy with his sermons and his farm accounts, the minister was as usual parading the floor. He had seldom been known to stand still, had no time for it, rarely sat down, was a master of the querulous, peremptory technique of the busy man. He was well on in years, rather corpulent, his cheeks and nose blue-tinted. Scion of an old family of rank in the west, he had held a living in the south in his younger days, but had spent most of his life here and was now in a very comfortable position. Though a very able farmer, he always reviled earthly matters when speaking to his parishioners and never aired his knowledge of agriculture in any discussion. Like most very busy people he was usually very curt in his conversation, and he always thought that anything anyone else said was nonsense. He was severe in his judgment and had bigoted opinions on every subject, but changed them immediately if anyone agreed with him. He had very little faith in human nature and was incredulous of good in anyone but the Danish royal family, whom he held in high esteem because of their intelligence and moral virtues. His special favourite was the Princess Augusta, of whom, although she had been dead for many years, there still hung
a portrait in his study. He had no great opinion of his parishioners’ morals and would frequently touch upon the subject in dark innuendo, implying always that a multitude of hidden crimes had been committed in the parish during the years of his ministry; and yet it was always said of him that he never refused anyone who came to him in distress. It was equally painful to him to hear anyone spoken ill of as to hear them praised. When in the company of people who had little faith, he would discuss religious matters with tremendous fervour, but among the devout his attitude was one rather of irreverence and derision. His parishioners found his sermons scrappy and disconnected, at times even completely unintelligible, and few people made any effort to live according to the precepts they contained.

“On the tramp again,” he grunted in his peevish way, offering Bjartur a lightning touch of the hand as he rushed past him on his circuit of the room. He puffed furiously at his pipe on the way, the clouds rising above his head like puffs of dust from a horse’s hoofs.

I’m not so sure that it’s usual for me to be on the tramp,” replied Bjartur, “but one thing I can’t deny is that I’ve just met the Sheriff’s Officer.”

“Tcha, the Sheriff’s Officer!” snorted the minister, spitting disdainfully into the coal-bucket as he sped past the stove.

“So I thought I’d give the minister a look-in too,” continued Bjartur, “just to see which of the two had the greater thirst for freedom.”

“Freedom?” repeated the minister, and actually pulled up, sharpening his gaze on his visitor as if demanding an explanation.

“Yes—I mean for the poor.”

“I lay no claim to freedom either for the poor or the rich,” hastily intimated the minister, and was off again.

“What I mean,” said Bjartur, “is that the difference between the parish council and me is that I have always made some demands in the way of freedom. They want to keep everyone down.”

“There is no freedom but the freedom of the one true Redemption of Our Lord Jesus Christ,” intoned the minister in the colourless gabble of an impatient clerk explaining to some insignificant customer that the only material for sale here is the canvas named after the master Hessian. “It is as it says in the old one,” and he produced a quotation in a foreign language, then asked: “What is freedom? Yes, just as I expected, you haven’t even the faintest notion yourself. Not that I’ve any objection to your living up among
the glaciers; you’re welcome to them. As it says in the old one”—another quotation in a most unintelligible language.

“Oh, I’m not going to argue with you about Hebrew, your reverence. But I don’t care what anybody says, I think I know as much about sheep as the next one and I say that your rams have done a power of good in these parts.”

“Yes, curse them,” said the minister, accelerating, “a power of good for those whose belly is their god and who pride themselves on the wretched beasts.”

“Hm, as far as I remember, the sheep is called the lamb of the Lord in the Bible.”

“I deny that the sheep was ever called the lamb of the Lord in the Bible,” replied the minister with some heat. “I don’t say that sheep weren’t created by God, but I do absolutely deny that God favours them any more than He does any other quadruped.” A moment’s silence, then in a voice full of bitter reproach: “Chasing sheep over mountains and deserts, what’s the point of it anyway? As if there was any sense in that!”

“Well, to tell you the truth just as it strikes me, your reverence, I expect that at bottom, if we spoke as man to man, from the heart like brothers, you know, we would maybe find that our opinion of sheep didn’t differ nearly half as much as you’d have an ignorant man like me believe. And I’d like to tell you, your reverence, that my main business here tonight, which I’ve been thinking of and dreaming of for long enough, was to see whether you couldn’t be persuaded to sell me a nice young ram in the autumn. Maybe, if God grants it, I'll be able to pay for it in ready money, but in any case, with the help of the Almighty, by a conveyance to my account with the dealer if things are bad.”

Bjartur was trying to tread with all possible care the middle course between the fear of God and the worship of Mammon, so as to give the minister no loophole for attack. But it was no use. The Reverend Gudmundur refused to be hoodwinked into agreement with anyone.

“Conveyance!” he repeated crossly. “I will have no conveyance between God and the Devil. You can go to the steward and haggle it out with him.”

“Yes, but I’d rather not talk to underlings before the matter is settled with you.”

“If you’re wanting any coffee,” said the minister, “you’d better say so now. But there’s not a single drop of brandy in the house, so help me God!”

“Oh, I’ve never spat my coffee out yet because there was no brandy in it. Many a poor soul has had to go short of his brandy before today, you know.”

The minister then went out into the kitchen to see how the coffee situation was, and returning after a few moments, resumed his perambulation at the same excessive speed, his head still hidden in the clouds of smoke puffed from his pipe.

“You’ll get nothing but the grounds here, my man,” said he, “for I’ve never noticed that you’ve ever had a thought to spare for your spiritual salvation. You follow your own unheeding ways up on the mountain peaks there, not only in perfect improvidence, but also in obvious hardness of heart, and then you think you can come and tell a man what’s what.”

One of the minister’s elegant daughters brought in fragrant coffee in a bronze pot, porcelain cups and saucers painted with Japanese figures, two plates covered with a variety of cakes, all delicious, sugar and cream. She reminded Bjartur of their last meeting and still remembered the verses he had composed in the summer, and recited them in his honour while the minister, listening with sour disapproval, mumbled away to himself.

“Tcha,” he said, “anything that can’t be translated into Latin on the spot is unadulterated doggerel. Go away, Gunna, you’ve nothing in common with this fellow.”

No sooner had the door closed on the young lady than he bent down and opened one of the drawers in his desk and, coughing in the clouds of smoke pouring from his pipe, drew out a brandy-flask full to the neck. In high dudgeon he poured half a pint or so of the brandy into the coffee-pot, then filled both cups with the mixture. Bjartur said nothing, out of reverence for the minister and admiration for the brandy. They began to drink the coffee. After three cups Bjartur was sweating.

“Drink up, man,” exhorted the minister. “What do you think the womenfolk give you coffee for in this weather?”

“I’ve stabled three already, you know,” said Bjartur politely.

“That can be as it likes, but I never drink less than thirty a day,” rejoined the minister, and kept on refilling the cups and urging the crofter to drink, till each had had six cups and the coffee-pot was empty. By this time the sweat was pouring from Bjartur’s brow and down his temple. He gazed at the pictures on the cups and saucers thoughtfully for a while, then made the following observation:

“There’s nothing dowdy about those damsels there and all their
finery,” referring to the Japanese ladies on the cups, “and it will be a while, I know, before the lasses on Summerhouses cups smile as sweetly. And that reminds me, your reverence,” he added, wiping the sweat from his face with his sleeve, “that I’m in a nice mess just now: my wife, as I suppose you would call her since you blessed our marriage in the spring, died a day or two ago.”