The Son Avenger (15 page)

Only when they were going up toward the manor again did the man say: “Now thus it is, Cecilia—you know that the day will come, mayhap sooner than any of us looks for it, when you will return to Hestviken, and then all will be yours. Bear that in mind if it should chance now and again that you feel a longing for your home at first.”

“God grant you a long life, Father,” the bride hastened to say.
“Have you never spoken of it with Jörund—that he should move to Hestviken in your lifetime?” she then asked.

Olav had never thought of this, so he remained silent. There was no great comfort in the thought: he did not believe he would care to live under the same roof as his son-in-law. So he merely answered:

“Likely enough when you have been some time here at Gunnarsby you will be unwilling to leave the place. Here you have young people in the house”—he meant to say something of young women of her own age, but shrank, when it came to the point, from reckoning Cecilia’s sisters-in-law as an advantage—“wide lands and many neighbours. And you will be free to go abroad and will have much at your command.”

To this Cecilia made no reply.

Next morning Olav left the table before the other guests; there were many who were to ride homeward in his company, so he thought he ought to see to the saddling and packing of the horses. When he came out on the steps of the barn—where their saddles and harness had been stored—he heard Cecilia’s voice within; she was talking to old Tore. His daughter said:

“To think that you are to be parted from me—can you not come hither and dwell with us at Gunnarsby? Brynhild and Lucia have their own henchmen and waiting-women; they can scarce grudge me a man who can tend my horses and serve me.”

“God forgive us, Cecilia”—the old man laughed—“could you not find a man who is even worse fitted to be a lady’s henchman at Gunnarsby?”

Olav could not help smiling at the thought. Tore was a strange figure, he was so huge and broad in the chest and shoulders, but his legs were short and crooked, he had a round head with long grey hair hanging stiffly about it, his face was covered with little wrinkles, red and fleshy, and his eyes were dull as those of a boiled fish. He was strong as a giant and chose the hardest work, a man of few words and one to be trusted; one could not call his manner discourteous, but he was sufficient to himself and could never have learned such meekness as the servants at Gunnarsby had to practise—and now his age was three score years and more.

“I should be so
kind
to you!” Cecilia begged.

“You are as good as gold, I know that. But now I have served
your father twenty years and more, and if the truth be told, ’twould be harder for Olav to get on without me at Hestviken than the man himself can guess, or anyone else.”

“’Twill be hard for me to do without you. No friend have I had so faithful as you, since I was so small that you let me ride on your back.”

“When I am too old for aught else,” said old Tore with a laugh, “I will come and be nurse to your children, Cecilia.”

“Ay, will you promise that?”

Olav went in. Cecilia was sitting on the old house-carl’s knees and had put her arm round his neck; she looked into his ugly face like a child begging for something.

Olav nodded to the two. “You are unhappy at parting from Tore, I can see.”

Cecilia had risen hastily, and now her face was as calm and stubborn as usual.

“I have asked Tore, Father, if he would come and live with us here at Gunnarsby.”

“’Tis not sure, Cecilia, that it would go well with him here-old folk are ill matched with new customs.”

Tore agreed with his master.

In going eastward the bridal progress had been compelled to follow the best roads there were, but on the homeward journey Olav, together with some of the guests who wished to travel rapidly, took the same short cut through the forest as he had ridden in returning from Gunnarsby the first time.

They rested at the same sæter as before. And while his companions lay and took their ease in the meadow above, Olav stole from them and walked down by the bank of the stream.

The sun was shining, and nothing was changed—only the willow-herb was pale and flowerless; it had begun to shed its seed, which drifted like silvery down in the breeze. Olav stood for a while gazing over at the scree, but today he could see nothing strange.

For the first time it occurred to him that his vision might have been a phantom—or something else:
“a negotio perambulante in tenebris, ab incursu et dæmonio meridiano.”
Thus in the evening prayer one asks for help against the thing that walketh in darkness,
and against the assaults of evil spirits at noonday. And in truth he had often felt that just in the stillness of the noonday heat there are many things abroad that one cannot see.

Or what if it had been she, but with some other purpose—to beg him take good heed, ere he gave away their only child—

Then Olav shook it from him. He would hold to what he had believed at first.

Coming through the church town Olav was told that there had been a fire at Hestviken. The great old barn to the east of the manor and the haystacks had been burned down.

It had begun in the forest away on the north side of the inlet-fishermen had made a fire over on the Bull—and then it had caught the heather, and the fir forest was burned up, but the flames were checked at the cleft that runs inland and is overgrown with lime and hazel. But for a while the wind had blown from the north, and sparks had fallen on the roofed haystacks outside the barn; then hay and barn had gone up in a blaze—for a time the houses beyond had been in danger.

It was strange how unhomely it had made the place look, thought Olav, as he stood next morning looking over toward the Bull—with the stumps of trees that stood out, jagged, blackened, and scorched red, or lay fallen on the burned moss. A thick band of charcoal and soot floated along the beach all the way.

The barn was the only building at Hestviken that belonged to the great days of the manor, so Olav was sorry to lose it. And now they would be in sore straits for fodder in the coming winter.

He had now to think of rebuilding and of getting in what might serve for fodder. Then came the seal-hunting and the fishing season. Olav had his hands full with one thing and another throughout the autumn and winter. His house-folk remarked that he gave unusual care to all that he did that winter. To Tore he had dropped hints that led the men to suppose he was minded to make another journey in foreign lands next summer, and perhaps he intended that Jörund Kolbeinsson should come to Hestviken with his wife.

Olav was happier at home than he had been in all the years he had been there. He liked the loneliness and he liked the busy activity, for he felt it to be a preparation for departure. He even got
to like the view of the Bull’s neck with the burned wood when he was used to it, especially after the autumn storms had cleared it and snow had fallen. It had a more open look.

That winter Einar and Valgard, the sons of Björn, Torhild’s brothers, were away north in Haugsvik. Olav had often wished he could hear something of his son, the young Björn, and of the boy’s mother. Now he sent off Tore, for he knew Einar and his brother well from of old.

Tore came back and was able to tell him that Björn had left home last spring: he wished to go out into the world and try his fortune. His uncles said he had gone away to learn the trade of a blacksmith—from childhood he had been more cunning with his hands than most lads—he had talked of going to a man in the Dovre Fell of whom folk said that his mother was a giant’s daughter—but maybe that was not true; he was accounted a most excellent smith. With him Björn Olavsson would take service.

Torhild and Ketil prospered; there were three children born to them: a daughter and then a son and daughter who were twins. Nay, Björn had parted from his parents in all kindness, and his mother had bestowed on him saddle and horse and all he needed for the journey, in such noble sort for their condition that folk had called her overweening.

Olav had little to say to Tore’s report, for over this son he had never had any rights.

N
EXT
year, in the early summer, Olav put up a new barn and had it roofed by the time of bearing in the hay. He and his house-folk were busy haymaking in the meadows down by the mouth of the river—it was an afternoon a few days before Margaretmass
⁹
—when a strange man came up to him among the hay-cocks, gave him greeting, and said:

“I have a message for you, Olav, which is such that I may not tarry in the telling. Will you go with me a little apart, so that we may speak—alone?”

Olav did so, and when they came a little way from the others, the man said:

“I come from Gunnarsby. Your daughter is in travail of childbirth and in great jeopardy; it were well if you could come to her and that as swiftly as your swiftest horse can bring you.”

“Is it so,” asked Olav, “that they deem her life to be at stake?”

“There is peril of it,” replied the other.

Olav ran back to the field, found Ragna and Tore, and told them how matters stood. He bade Tore bring Brunsvein from the paddock and Ragna fetch food; then he went down to the stranger and asked him to go with him to the house. As they went, Olav asked, of a sudden:

“But where have you your horse, man?”

“Nay, I have walked from Gunnarsby.”

“Have you walked?” Olav looked at his guest suspiciously. He was a man in the thirties, looked like any other serving-man—Olav could not call to mind having seen him before, but that was nothing to go by, since they had so many folk about them at Gunnarsby; he had a trustworthy look. “Did Jörund send you hither with such a message and gave you no horse?”

“To tell the truth, Olav, ’twas not the Rypungs that sent me. But Cecilia helped me once when I was in bad straits, and then I vowed to God and Saint Halvard I would repay her if it were ever in my power. I thought I had a chance to do so now—if it be given her to see you and speak with you, before she may die—”

Olav was somewhat easier in his mind as he thought that perhaps his daughter was not in such a bad way after all, since it was neither her husband nor his brothers’ wives who had dispatched the messenger. There seemed to be something strange about the whole affair, but however it might be, he was glad to have been told of his daughter’s sickness, and he would ride to Gunnarsby at once. He asked no more questions of the stranger—Finn was his name—but on arriving at the manor gave orders that he should be well housed and cared for, and when he had taken his rest, they were to lend him a horse for his homeward journey.

An hour later Olav was in the saddle and stretched Brunsvein to the utmost—this was the swiftest colt in his stable, but he did not usually ride him himself, as he was not so handsome to look at as Bay Roland, his own saddle-horse. On reaching Skeidis parish he stayed for a few hours with his kinsfolk at Hestbæk and gave
Brunsvein a rest, but Olav mounted again long before sunrise, and late in the day he came to Gunnarsby.

But there he was told at once that Cecilia was doing well; she had given birth to a fine and healthy son; this was already a day and a half ago. No, Mistress Lucia replied to his questions, Cecilia had not had so hard a travail, she had been in no more peril of her life than any other young wife. Olav saw plainly that they were greatly surprised at his coming, and he was no more than moderately welcome at Gunnarsby this time. There was something behind this—he could not guess what—but so as not to betray this Finn he replied, when Lucia asked him where he had heard of Cecilia’s illness, that he had met some folk at church who had kindred in these parts; they had told him that his daughter who was married at Gunnarsby last summer might expect a child about the time of Margaretmass.

“Ay, but ’twas not expected before Marymass
¹
—” Mistress Lucia broke off in confusion, as though she had said too much, and there was an odd look on the faces of the others. Brynhild said the young wife had been sore afraid all the time she had been with child; maybe she had talked of it, saying she was afraid of this too, that it might come before its time-It was strangely unlike Cecilia to be afraid, thought her father. But with women one can never know, and after all a man was no judge of these things. He could only be glad that Cecilia was doing well, and since he was here, he was glad too that he would see his daughter again.

It was fairly dark in the upper chamber where Cecilia lay, when Lucia took Olav up to see her in the evening. It rejoiced Olav to see that his daughter was glad he had come; she said that all was well with her now, and she was doing well in every way. The room in which they had laid her was spacious and richly bedight, and there was no lack of neighbours’ wives and serving-maids to attend to her and her child.

Jörund spoke very lovingly to his wife and seemed exceedingly proud that he too had a son. And the women loudly praised the child. Olav took it in his arms when they handed it to him, looked at it—this was the little lad who would one day take his place at Hestviken, if God should suffer him to grow into a man—but he
had always thought that new-born babes were ugly little monsters to look at, all except Cecilia; she had been fair from the first day of her life.

Next morning Olav sat with his daughter again; they talked for the most part of those they knew at home. It was very little Cecilia had to say of how she liked her new home—only that there was far more bustle here than at Hestviken, and the folk of Gunnarsby were much abroad to feastings and the like—this had been a burden to her of late; but now, to be sure, she would stay more at home, as she had a child at the breast.

“Ay,” said her father, “but a little lad like this will grow quickly, and soon you will be free again.”

“’Twas not of that I thought,” replied the young wife hastily. “I must take after you, Father—I like best to live where there is no such crowd.”

Her last word struck her father as strangely scornful; he was about to correct the child, bid her enjoy her youth while she had it.