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

chest swelling to a roar, bellowing so it could be heard right down at the hut, again and again. “Ay, and a swine and a monster,” he cries after Brede again; “never a thought of how you’re leaving me to lie and be perished. And couldn’t even reach me the ax, that was all I asked; and call yourself a man, or a beast of the field? Ay, well then, go your way, and good luck to you if that’s your will and thought to go.⁠ ⁠…”

He must have slept; he is all stiff and lifeless now, but his eyes are open; set in ice, but open, he cannot wink nor blink⁠—has he been sleeping with open eyes? Dropped off for a second maybe, or for an hour, God knows, but here’s Oline standing before him. He can hear her asking: “In Jesu name, say if there’s life in you!” And asking him if it is him lying there, and if he’s lost his wits or no.

Always something of a jackal about Oline; sniffing and scenting out, always on the spot where there was trouble; ay, she would nose it out. And how could she ever have managed through life at all if it hadn’t been that same way? Axel’s word had reached her, and for all her seventy years she had crossed the field to come. Snowed up at Sellanraa in the storm of the day before, and then on again to Maaneland; not a soul on the place; fed the cattle, stood in the doorway listening, milked the cows at milking-time, listening again; what could it be?⁠ ⁠…

And then a cry comes down, and she nods; Axel, maybe, or maybe the hill-folk, devils⁠—anyway, something to sniff and scent and find⁠—to worm out the meaning of it all, the wisdom of the Almighty with the dark and the forest in the hollow of His hand⁠—and He would never harm Oline, that was not worthy to unloose the latchet of His shoes.⁠ ⁠…

And there she stands.

The ax? Oline digs down and down in the snow, and finds no ax. Manage without, then⁠—and she strains at the tree to lift it where it lies, but with no more strength than a child; she can but shake the branches here and there. Tries for the ax again⁠—it is all dark, but she digs with hands and feet. Axel cannot move a hand to point, only tell where it lay before, but ’tis not there now. “If it hadn’t been so far to Sellanraa,” says Axel.

Then Oline falls to searching her own ways, and Axel calls to her that there’s no ax there. “Ay, well,” says Oline, “I was but looking a bit. And what’s this, maybe?” says she.

“You’ve found it?” says he.

“Ay, by the grace of the Lord Almighty,” answers Oline, with high-sounding words.

But there’s little pride in Axel now, no more than he’ll give in that he was wrong after all, and maybe not all clear in his head. And what’s he to do with the ax now ’tis there? He cannot stir, and Oline has to cut him free herself. Oh, Oline has wielded an ax before that day; had axed off many a load of firing in her life.

Axel cannot walk, one leg is dead to the hip, and something wrong with his back; shooting pains that make him groan curiously⁠—ay, he feels but a part of himself, as if something were left behind there under the tree. “Don’t know,” says he⁠—“don’t know what it can be.⁠ ⁠…” But Oline knows, and tells him now with solemn words; ay, for she has saved a human creature from death, and she knows it; ’tis the Almighty has seen fit to lay on her this charge, where He might have sent legions of angels. Let Axel consider the grace and infinite wisdom of the Almighty even in this! And if so be as it had been His pleasure to send a worm out of the earth instead, all things were possible to Him.

“Ay, I know,” said Axel. “But I can’t make out how ’tis with me⁠—feels strange.⁠ ⁠…”

Feels strange, does it? Oh, but only wait, wait just a little. ’Twas but to move and stretch the least bit at a time, till the life came back. And get his jacket on and get warm again. But never in all her days would she forget how the Angel of the Lord had called her out to the doorway that last time, that she might hear a voice⁠—the voice of one crying in the forest. Ay, ’twas as in the days of Paradise, when trumpets blew and compassed round the walls of Jericho.⁠ ⁠…

Ay, strange. But while she talked, Axel was taking his time, learning the use of his limbs again, getting to walk.

They get along slowly towards home, Oline still playing saviour and supporting him. They manage somehow. A little farther down they come upon Brede. “What’s here?” says Brede. “Hurt yourself? Let me help a bit.”

Axel takes no heed. He had given a promise to God not to be vengeful, not to tell of what Brede had done, but beyond that he was free. And what was Brede going up that way again for now? Had he seen that Oline was at Maaneland, and guessed that she would hear?

“And it’s you here, Oline, is it?” goes on Brede easily. “Where d’you find him? Under a tree? Well, now, ’tis a curious thing,” says he. “I was up that way just now on duty, along the line, and seems like I heard someone shouting. Turns round and listens quick as a flash⁠—Brede’s the man to lend a hand if there’s need. And so ’twas Axel, was it, lying under a tree, d’you say?”

“Ay,” says Axel. “And well you knew that saw and heard as well. But never helping hand.⁠ ⁠…”

“Good Lord, deliver us!” cries Oline, aghast. “As I’m a sinner.⁠ ⁠…”

Brede explains. “Saw? Why, yes, I saw you right enough. But why didn’t you call out? You might have called