Growth of the Soil - Knut Hamsun (children's ebooks free online TXT) 📗

In the end, Inger washes the patient herself, and throws her a towel.

“What I was going to say,” says Oline, wiping herself, and quite peaceable now. “About Isak and the children⁠—how will they get over this?”

“Does he know?” asks Inger.

“Know? He came and saw it.”

“What did he say?”

“What could he say? He was speechless, same as me.”

Silence.

“It’s all your fault,” wails Inger, beginning to cry.

“My fault? I wish I may never have more to answer for!”

“I’ll ask Os-Anders, anyhow, be sure of that.”

“Ay, do.”

They talk it all over quietly, and Oline seems less revengeful now. An able politician, is Oline, and quick to find expedients; she speaks now as if in sympathy⁠—what a terrible thing it will be for Isak and the children when it is found out!

“Yes,” says Inger, crying again. “I’ve thought and thought of that night and day.” Oline thinks she might be able to help, and be a saviour to them in distress. She could come and stay on the place to look after things, while Inger is in prison.

Inger stops crying; stops suddenly as if to listen and take thought. “No, you don’t care for the children.”

“Don’t care for them, don’t I? How could you say such a thing?”

“Ah, I know.⁠ ⁠…”

“Why, if there’s one thing in the world I do feel and care for, ’tis children.”

“Ay, for your own,” says Inger. “But how would you be with mine? And when I think how you sent that hare for nothing else but to ruin me altogether⁠—oh, you’re no better than a heap of wickedness!”

“Am I?” says Oline. “Is it me you mean?”

“Yes, ’tis you I mean,” says Inger, crying; “you’ve been a wicked wretch, you have, and I’ll not trust you. And you’d steal all the wool, too, if you did come. And all the cheeses that’d go to your people instead of mine.⁠ ⁠…”

“Oh, you wicked creature to think of such a thing!” answers Oline.

Inger cries, and wipes her eyes, saying a word or so between. Oline does not try to force her. If Inger does not care about the idea, ’tis all the same to her. She can go and stay with her son Nils, as she has always done. But now that Inger is to be sent away to prison, it will be a hard time for Isak and the innocent children; Oline could stay on the place and give an eye to things. “You can think it over,” says Oline.

Inger has lost the day. She cries and shakes her head and looks down. She goes out as if walking in her sleep, and makes up a parcel of food for Oline to take with her. “ ’Tis more than’s worth your while,” says Oline.

“You can’t go all that way without a bite to eat,” says Inger.

When Oline has gone, Inger steals out, looks round, and listens. No, no sound from the quarry. She goes nearer, and hears the children playing with little stones. Isak is sitting down, holding the crowbar between his knees, and resting on it like a staff. There he sits.

Inger steals away into the edge of the wood. There was a spot where she had set a little cross in the ground; the cross is thrown down now, and where it stood the turf has been lifted, and the ground turned over. She stoops down and pats the earth together again with her hands. And there she sits.

She had come out of curiosity, to see how far the little grave had been disturbed by Oline; she stays there now because the cattle have not yet come in for the night. Sits there crying, shaking her head, and looking down.

And the days pass.

A blessed time for the soil, with sun and showers of rain; the crops are looking well. The haymaking is nearly over now, and they have got in a grand lot of hay; almost more than they can find room for. Some is stowed away under overhanging rocks, in the stable, under the flooring of the house itself; the shed at the side is emptied of everything to make room for more hay. Inger herself works early and late, a faithful helper and support. Isak takes advantage of every fall of rain to put in a spell of roofing on the new barn, and get the south wall at least fully done; once that is ready, they can stuff in as much hay as they please. The work is going forward; they will manage, never fear!

And their great sorrow and disaster⁠—ay, it was there, the thing was done, and what it brought must come. Good things mostly leave no trace, but something always comes of evil. Isak took the matter sensibly from the first. He made no great words about it, but asked his wife simply: “How did you come to do it?” Inger made no answer to that. And a little after, he spoke again: “Strangled it⁠—was that what you did?”

“Yes,” said Inger.

“You shouldn’t have done that.”

“No,” she agreed.

“And I can’t make out how you ever could bring yourself to do it.”

“She was all the same as myself,” said Inger.

“How d’you mean?”

“Her mouth.”

Isak thought over that for some time. “Ay, well,” said he.

And nothing more was said about it at the time; the days went on, peacefully as ever; there was all the mass of hay to be got in, and a rare heavy crop all round, so that by degrees the thing slipped into the background of their minds. But it hung over them, and over the place, none the less. They could not hope that Oline would keep the secret; it was too much to expect. And even if Oline said nothing, others would speak; dumb witnesses would find a tongue; the walls of the house, the trees around the little grave in the wood. Os-Anders the Lapp would throw out hints; Inger herself would betray it, sleeping or waking. They were prepared for the worst.

Isak took the matter