In the Wilderness Read online

  But once again his courage had failed him. He had stood looking on when God came and took Ingunn, carried her away alone.

  And he was left behind as a man is left sitting on the beach when his ship has sailed away from him.

  And to bide here at home in Hestviken after that—it was the same as waiting for the days and nights to pass by in an endless train, one like another.

  No, he would not turn away the Richardsons’ offer, that was sure.

  From out of the darkness came the boy’s wide-awake voice: “The Danes, Father—they lie out in the English Sea and seize our ships, I have heard.”

  “The English Sea is wide, Eirik, and our vessel is small.—Best that you stay at home this year, for all that.”

  “I meant it not so—” Olav could hear that the lad sat up in his bed. “I meant—I had such a mind to prove my manhood,” he whispered in bashful supplication.

  “Lie down and go to sleep now, Eirik,” said Olav.

  “For I am no longer a little boy—”

  “Then you should have wit enough to let folk sleep in peace. Be quiet now.”

  His father’s voice sounded weary, only weary but not angry, thought Eirik. He curled himself up and lay still. But sleep was impossible.

  He would be allowed to go, he believed that firmly—so firmly that when he had lain for a while thinking of the voyage, he felt quite sure of it. He was certain that they would fall in with Danish ships. They have a much higher freeboard than ours usually have, so at the first onset it might look bad enough. But then he calls out that all hands are to run to the lee side and hold their shields over their heads, and then, when all their enemies have leaped on board, they come forward and attack them. His father singles out the enemy captain—he looks like that friend of Father’s they met in Tunsberg once: a stout, broad man with red hair and a full red face, little blue eyes, and a big mouth crammed with long yellow horse’s teeth.—Then Eirik flings his shield at the stranger’s feet, so that he slips on the wet floor-boards and the blow does not reach his father—yes, it does, but his father takes no heed of the wound. The Dane stumbles and his hauberk slips aside so as to expose his throat for an instant; at the same moment Eirik plies his short sword as though it were a dagger. Now the Danes try to escape on board their own ship. The ships’ sides creak and give as they crash against one another in the seaway, and while the men hang sprawling, with axes and boathooks fixed in the high, overhanging side of the Danish vessel, the Norwegians lay on them with sword and spear. “Methinks ’tis no more than fair,” says his father, “that Eirik, my son, should take the captain’s arms—but if ye will have it otherwise, I offer to redeem your shares from this booty.” But all the men agree: “Nay, ’tis Eirik that laid low this champion single-handed, and we have saved the ship through his readiness.”

  “Are you the young Norse squire, Eirik Olavsson from Hestviken?”—for the tale has spread all over London town. And one day when the governor of the castle rides abroad, he meets him. The White Tower is the name of London’s castle; it is built of white marble. And one day when he has gone up to have a sight of it—this castle is even greater and more magnificent than Tunsberghus, and the rock on which it stands is much higher—the governor comes riding down the steep path with all his men, and some of them whisper to their lord, pointing to the lad from Norway—

  Nay, stay behind in London when his father goes home, that he will not, after all. Not even in play can Eirik imagine his father leaving him and going back to Hestviken, and the life here taking its wonted course, but without him. In his heart Eirik harbours an everlasting dread; even if of late he has been able to lull it to sleep, he goes warily, fearing to awake it—what if one day he should find out that he is not the rightful heir to Hestviken? Even if he lies here weaving his own story from odds and ends that he has heard—the house-carls’ tales of the wars in Denmark, the wonderful sagas of old Aasmund Ruga—the boy does not forget his secret dread: if he should be renounced by his father and lose Hestviken. Then let him rather play at something else—at strangers who make a landing here in the creek; his father is not at home, he himself must be the one to urge on the house-folk to defend the place, he must rouse the countryside—

  But in any case his father shall soon have proof of what stuff there is in this son of his. He shall have something to surprise him, his father. Then maybe he will give up walking as one asleep, taking no heed of Eirik when they are together.

  But the next day Olav set Eirik to bring home firewood for the summer, and his father said he was to have it all brought in today. The snow still lay over the fields here on the south side of the creek, but tomorrow most of it might well be gone.

  The going was good early in the morning. Anki loaded one sledge while Eirik drove home the other. But as the day wore on, it grew very warm, and even before the hour of nones Eirik was driving through sheer mud a great part of the way.

  Eirik spread snow along the track, but it turned at once to slush. Olav went higher up and spread snow on the fields there; he called down to the boy to drive round under the trees. But this was many times farther, around all the fields—and Eirik made as though he had not heard.

  When Olav looked down again, the load of wood had stuck fast at the bottom of the slope leading to the yard. Eirik heaved off billets, making the rocks ring; then he went forward, jerked the bridle and shouted, but the horse stood still. “Will you come up, you lazy devil!”—and back went Eirik, dragging at the reins. Then he threw off more wood.

  The sledge was stuck in a clay-pit at the bottom of the rock under the old barn, where the road from Kverndal turned up toward the yard. The sun had not yet reached this spot, so the rock was covered with ice, but water trickled over the surface. Eirik took hold of the back of the sledge and tried to wriggle it loose. But the horse did not move. The boy strained at it all he could, stretching to his full length over the ground; then he lost his foothold in the miry clay, dropped on his hands and knees, and some billets of wood slid off the load and hit him on the back—and there was his father standing on the balk of the field beside him. Fear at the sight of him gave Eirik such a shock that he was on the verge of tears; he plunged forward, tore at the reins, and belaboured the horse with them: the horse floundered, threw its head about, but did not move from the spot. “Will you come up, foul jade!” Quite beside himself, seeing that his father did nothing but stand and look on, Eirik struck at the horse with his clenched fist, on the cheeks, on the muzzle. Olav leaped down from the balk and came toward him, threateningly.

  Then the horse put its forefeet on the frozen surface, slid, and looked as if it would come down on its knees. But at last it got a foothold, came up to the collar—the sledge with its lightened load came free—and dashed at a brisk pace up the slope.

  On reaching the yard Eirik turned and shouted back to his father, with tears in his voice: “Ah, you might have lent us a hand—why should you stand there and do nothing but glare!”

  A flush spread slowly over Olav’s forehead. He said nothing. Now that the boy shouted it at him, he did not know how it had been—but he had simply stood and glared, without ever a thought that he might give Eirik a hand. A queer, uncomfortable feeling came over Olav—it was not the first time either. Of late it had happened to him several times to wake up, as it were, and find himself standing idly by—simply staring without a thought of bestirring himself and doing the thing that lay to his hand.

  Up by the woodpile he heard Eirik talking kindly and caressingly to the horse. Olav had seen this before—such was the lad’s way with both man and beast: one moment he was beside himself with sudden passion, the next all gentleness, imploring forgiveness. With a grimace of repugnance Olav turned away and walked up again across the fields.

  The Richardsons returned to Oslo, and Eirik guessed that his father had made a bargain with them. But now he dared not ask whether he would be allowed to go too. What deterred him was that not even this last misbehaviour of his had sufficed to
drive his father out of his sinister silence. When Olav suddenly appeared beside the sledge, Eirik had been so sure that now he would be given a thrashing—he winced already under his father’s hard hand. But afterwards he felt it as a terrible disappointment that nothing had happened. Blows, curses, the most savage threats he would have accepted—and returned, inwardly, at any rate—and felt it as a relief, if only it put an end to this baneful uncertainty—not knowing what to make of his father.

  Olav would sit of an evening staring straight at Eirik—and the boy could not tell whether his father were looking at him or through him at the wall, so queerly far-away were his eyes. Eirik grew red and unsteady beneath this gaze which he could not read. Sometimes Olav noticed his uneasiness: “What is it with you, Eirik?” There was a shadow of suspicion in his voice. Eirik found no answer. But it might chance that he collected himself, seized upon something that had happened during the day, and poured out his story, usually of how much work he had performed or of some remarkable thing that had befallen him—when he came to speak of it to his father, everything became far more important than he had guessed at first. Most commonly it fell out that long before Eirik had finished he found that his father was no longer listening—he had glided back into his own thoughts. But the worst was when his father finally gave the faintest of smiles and said quietly and coolly: “Great deeds are common when you are abroad.” Or “Ay, you are a stout fellow, Eirik—one need only ask yourself to find that out.”

  Yet Eirik did his best, when talking to his father, to remember everything as it had happened and to say nothing beyond that. But when his tongue was set going, it came so difficult to him—before he knew it he was relating an incident as it might have happened, or as he thought it ought to have happened. Another thing was that the house-folk egged him on to tell everything in the way that was most amusing to listen to. They knew as well as Eirik that he tricked out his truthful tales with a few trimmings, but they agreed with him that so it ought to be, and not one of them betrayed a knowledge that Eirik was apt to tell a little more than the truth. It was only his father who was so cross and dull of apprehension and always required to be told everything so baldly and exactly.

  But one day his father should be forced to say it in earnest—that Eirik was a brave fellow. Of that he was resolved.

  For that matter, Eirik now gave a good account of himself, for his age, both on the farm and in a boat. He had not much strength in his arms, was slender and lightly built, but tough and tenacious, so long as he did not trifle away his time and forget to do what he had been set to. But, for all that, the house-carls were glad to have Eirik working with them—he was of a kindly and cheerful humour so long as no one provoked him, but then he was quick to anger. He had also a fine, clear voice for all kinds of catches and decoy songs and working-chants.

  This spring both Tore and Arnketil spoke to the master about him, praising his industry and handiness. Olav nodded, but seemed not to see the expectant look on the boy’s face. And much as Eirik strove to please his father and serve him—well, sometimes Olav did remember to thank him. And at other times he appeared quite unaware of it when Eirik gave him such help as he could; he accepted it without looking at the boy or giving him so much as a nod.

  Then Eirik’s anger flared up. He turned over in his mind something he would do simply to vex his father—then maybe he would remember to chastise him at any rate. But when it came to the point he did not dare—for that would end all chance of his going on the voyage to England.

  In the week after Whitsunday, Olav Audunsson sailed up to Oslo, and ten days later the Richardsons’ little hoy lay alongside the quay at Hestviken. The freight that Olav was to take was soon loaded, though he had charged himself with some trifles for Baard Paalsson of Skikkjustad; skins and pig-iron. Apart from this, Olav had not been able to get hold of any goods in the country round at this unfavourable time of year. The very next day Olav’s boats towed the hoy out of the creek; they came out into the fiord and hoisted sail. It was a bright, calm morning of early summer.

  Eirik had been on board, helping to stow the cargo and talking to the men. There was not a strip of plank or boarding, not a block or a rope’s end, that he had not pried into and handled.

  Toward evening the boy sat on the lookout rock gazing after the little craft, which was now sinking out of view far away to the south. He went down to the quay, cast off his own boat, and rowed away under the Bull.

  Some way up the headland there was a green ledge, and in the middle of it lay some great rocks. On the biggest of these grew three firs; Eirik called it the King. One could crawl in between these rocks; underneath the King there was a little hollow like a cave, and here he had a hiding-place.

  On this side of the Bull there was only one place where one could land from a boat and climb up by a cleft in the rock. Otherwise one had to row round to the north side, or else up to the head of the creek. And toward the water this ledge ended in a sheer drop. Eirik had thought many a time that if a man were surrounded by his enemies up on that ledge, he could leap out, swim a long way under water, and save himself, before the others found the path down to their boat.

  But this evening he was so sad and heavy of heart that there was no solace in the thought of these things. He crept into his cave and took out his possessions, but felt none of the old thrill and joy of ownership when he sat with them in his lap. He had not had them out more than once before this year—and then he had overhauled his treasures with the same intense delight as of yore.

  There were two wooden boxes, turned on the lathe. The little one he had used for collecting rosin in summer, but now it held nothing but some scraps of little birds’ eggs that he had kept because they were redder than most. In the other box he had the bones of a strange fish. It had been caught in the nets one day, several years ago; neither his father nor the boatmen had seen the like of it before, and so Olav ordered them to throw it into the sea—it looked likely to be poisonous. But Eirik saw that it had fallen between the piles of the old pier; when the men had left the waterside he rowed out and fished it up. There was no knowing whether it was dangerous to keep its bones, or whether there might be some hidden virtue in them; therefore he had always counted them very valuable. Until now—and now even he thought they were only trash.

  He also had a leather bag full of smooth and barbed flints. Under an overhanging crag above the mouth of the stream in Kverndal he found plenty of these in the gravel, but he only kept the finest, those that looked like arrow-heads. His father said they were arrow-heads—the Lapps had used such things in heathen times, long before the Norsemen came and settled Norway. But Eirik thought there might well be something queer about them—perhaps they were thunderbolts. He had also found a bone fishhook up there one time—a fine hook, with barbs and an eye for the line. He had thought of using it some day, when the fish would not bite; then the others would marvel at him, pulling up fish by the heap when no one else had any. But now he had lost that hook.

  For all that, his dearest possession was the horse. It was roughly whittled from the root of a tree, and was not much bigger than his hand. Eirik did not know where it had come from—he had brought it with him from the place where he was fostered as a child, he believed; and he had a notion that it had been found under a rock, beneath which mound-folk dwelt—it was a gift from them. He had given away his childish toys long ago, for he saw that he was too big to play with such things without disgracing himself. But the horse seemed to be more than a toy, so he kept it up here under the King Rock.

  Eirik knelt on the ground looking at the horse. It was dark and worn; one of its hind legs was so short that it stood on three, and it had an eye on only one side of its head, which stood out, a knot that had been cut away. It gave it such a weird look.

  He took it up and placed it on the flat white stone that belonged to it. With closed eyes he walked backwards three times withershins about this altar, crooning softly the while:

  “Sun sinks in t
he sea, carrion cumbers the foreshore,

  Down go we to our doom, Fakse my fair one.…”

  But having accomplished this, he did not care to make the sign of the cross backwards—that was sinful, and foolish besides. He had a misgiving that the whole game had always been foolish. He could never really have expected to see it turn into a copper horse with a silver bridle. But he had believed in a way that one day something wonderful must happen, after he had sung that ugly spell over it.

  Jörund Rypa would think it a foolish game. He was always afraid that Jörund might come upon him while he was thus employed. It was not very likely—Jörund had kinsfolk who lived far up the parish and sometimes he came to stay with them, but it was scarcely to be imagined that he would show himself out here on the farthest rocks of Hestviken. Nevertheless Eirik was always afraid Jörund might come upon him. He felt in himself that Jörund would make nothing of it, would only think he was faddling here like a little child—and he could well believe that Jörund would bear the tale of it and make mock of him. Yet Jörund Rypa was, of all the lads of his own age Eirik had met, the only one of whom he wished to make a friend. But Jörund had not been in the neighbourhood for more than a year now—his home was in the east, by Eyjavatn.

  Eirik sat with his hands clasped about his knees and his chin resting on them, gazing over at the manor.

  It was now flooded by the evening sun, and the creek below was still as glass, so that it could not be seen where the land came to an end and the reflection began in the deep shadows under the foreshore, but below the quay with its sheds another quay stood on its head in the water, and deep down in the creek he saw the image of the sun-gilt rocks on the hill and the row of turf roofs, already slightly yellowed by the sun, and the meadows and all the fair strips of plough-land where the corn was now coming up finely and evenly—but across this mirrored Hestviken a bright wavy streak was drawn by the current.