Pause.

I ventured to ask in my turn if Fruen had ever been there.

"Yes; when I was a child."

Then she looked at her watch, as if to check me from any more questions, and at the same time to hint it was getting late.

I rose at once and went out to the horses.

It was already growing dusk; the sky was darker, and a loose, wet sleet was beginning to fall. I took my rug down covertly from the box, and hid it under the front seat inside the carriage; when that was done, I watered the horses and harnessed up. A little after, Fruen came down the hill. I went up for the basket, and met her on the way.

"Where are you going?"

"To fetch the basket."

"You needn't trouble, thanks; there's nothing to take back."

We went down to the carriage; she got in, and I made to help her to rights with the rug she had. Then I pulled out my own from under the front seat, taking care to keep the border out of sight lest she should recognize it.

"Oh, what a blessing!" cried Fruen. "Why, where was it?"

"Under the seat here."

"Well.... Of course, I might have borrowed some more rugs from the vicarage, but the poor souls would never have got them back again....

Thanks; I can manage ... no, thank you; I can manage by myself. You can drive on now."

I closed the carriage door and climbed to my seat.

"Now, if she knocks at the window again, it's that rug," I thought to myself. "Well, I won't stop...."

Hour after hour pa.s.sed; it was pitch dark now, raining and snowing harder than ever, and the road growing worse all the time. Now and again I would jump down from the box and run along beside the horses to keep warm; the water was pouring from my clothes.

We were nearing home now.

I was hoping there would not be too much light when we drove up, so that she recognized the rug. Unfortunately, there were lights in all the windows, waiting her arrival.

In desperation I checked the horses a little before we got to the steps, and got down to open the carriage door.

"But why ... what on earth have you pulled up here for?"

"I only thought if perhaps Fruen wouldn't mind getting out here. It's all mud on ahead ... the wheels...."

She must have thought I was trying to entice her into something, Heaven knows!...

"Drive on, man, do!" she said.

The horses moved on, and the carriage stopped just where the light was at its full.

Emma came out to receive her mistress. Fruen handed her the rugs all in a bundle, as she had rolled them up before getting out of the carriage.

"Thanks," she said to me, glancing round as she went in. "Heavens, how dreadfully wet you are!"

XXV

A curious piece of news awaited me: Falkenberg had taken service with the Captain as a farm-hand.

This upset the plan we had agreed on, and left me alone once more. I could not understand a word of it all. Anyhow, I could think it over tomorrow.... By two in the morning I was still lying awake, shivering and thinking. All those hours I could not get warm; then at last it turned hot, and I lay there in full fever.... How frightened she had been yesterday--dared not sit down to eat with me by the roadside, and never opened her eyes to me once through all the journey....

Coming to my senses for a moment, it occurs to me I might wake Falkenberg with my tossing about, and perhaps say things in my delirium.

That would never do. I clench my teeth and jump up, get into my clothes again, scramble down the stairs, and set out over the fields at a run.

After a little my clothes begin to warm me; I make towards the woods, towards the spot where we had been working; sweat and rain pour down my face. If only I can find the saw and work the fever out of my body--'tis an old and tried cure of mine, that. The saw is nowhere to be seen, but I come upon the ax I had left there Sat.u.r.day evening, and set to work with that. It is almost too dark to see at all, but I feel at the cut now and then with my hands, and bring down several trees. The sweat pours off me now.

Then, feeling exhausted enough, I hide the ax in its old place; it is getting light now, and I set off at a run for home.

"Where have you been?" asks Falkenberg.

Now, I do not want him to know about my having taken cold the day before, and perhaps go making talk of it in the kitchen; I simply mutter something about not knowing quite where I have been.

"You've been up to see Rnnaug, I bet," he said.

I answered: yes, I had been with Rnnaug, since he'd guessed it.

"'Twas none so hard to guess," he said. "Anyhow, you won't see me running after any of them now."

"Going to have Emma, then?"

"Why, it looks that way. It's a pity you can't get taken on here, too.

Then you might get one of the others, perhaps."

And he went on talking of how I might perhaps have got my pick of the other girls, but the Captain had no use for me. I wasn't even to go out tomorrow to the wood.... The words sound far away, reaching me across a sea of sleep that is rolling towards me.

Next morning the fever is gone; I am still a little weak, but make ready to go out to the wood all the same.

"You won't need to put on your woodcutting things again," says Falkenberg. "I told you that before."

True! Nevertheless, I put on those things, seeing the others are wet.

Falkenberg is a little awkward with me now, because of breaking our plan; by way of excuse, he says he thought I was taking work at the vicarage.

"So you're not coming up to the hills, then?" I asked.

"H'm! No, I don't think so--no. And you know yourself, I'm sick of tramping around. I'll not get a better chance than this."

I make as if it was no great matter to me, and take up a sudden interest in Petter; worst of all for him, poor fellow, to be turned out and nowhere to go.

"Nowhere to go?" echoes Falkenberg. "When he's lain here the three weeks he's allowed to stay sick by law, he'll go back home again. His father's a farmer."