Wanderers Part 35

But the Captain must have had some inkling as to the two brown horses Nils had been in such a hurry to get in; he goes round patting the animals in turn, to see which of them are warm. Then he comes back to us, wiping his fingers with his handkerchief.

"Do you go ploughing with other people's horses, Nils?"

Pause.

"I'll not have it here; you understand?"

"H'm! No," says Nils submissively. Then suddenly he flares up: "We've more need of horses this spring than any season ever at vreb: we're taking up more ground than ever before. And here were these strange cattle standing here day after day eating and eating, and doing never so much as the worth of the water they drank. So I took them out for a bit of a spell now and then, just enough to keep them in trim."

"I'll have no more of it. You hear what I say?" repeated the Captain shortly.

Pause.

"Didn't you say one of the Captain's plough horses was ailing yesterday?" I put in.

Nils was quick to seize his chance.

"Ay. So it was. Standing all a-tremble in its box. I couldn't have taken it out anyway."

The Captain looked me coldly up and down.

"What are you standing here for?" he asked sharply.

"Captain said I was to drive to the station."

"Well, then, be off and get ready."

But Nils took him up on the instant.

"That can't be done."

"Bravo, Nils!" said I to myself. The lad was thoroughly in the right, and he looked it, st.u.r.dily holding his own. And as for the horses, our own had been sorely overdone with the long season's work, and the strange cattle stood there eating their heads off and spoiling for want of exercise.

"Can't be done?" said the Captain, astounded. "What do you mean?"

"If Captain takes away the help I've got, then I've finished here, that's all," says Nils.

The Captain walked to the stable door and looked out, biting his moustache and thinking hard. Then he asked over his shoulder:

"And you can't spare the lad, either?"

"No," said Nils; "he's the harrowing to do."

This was our first real encounter with the Captain, and we had our way.

There were some little troubles again later on, but he soon gave in.

"I want a case fetched from the station," he said one day. "Can the boy go in for it?"

"The boy's as ill to spare as a man for us now," said Nils. "If he's to drive in to the station now, he won't be back till late tomorrow; that's a day and a half lost."

"Bravo!" I said to myself again. Nils had spoken to me before about that case at the station; it was a new consignment of liquor; the maids had heard about it.

There was some more talk this way and that. The Captain frowned; he had never known a busy season last so long before. Nils lost his temper, and said at last: "If you take the boy off his field work, then I go." And then he did as he and I had agreed beforehand, and asked me straight out:

"Will you go, too?"

"Yes," said I.

At that the Captain gave way, and said with a smile: "Conspiracy, I see.

But I don't mind saying you're right in a way. And you're good fellows to work."

But the Captain saw but little of our work, and little pleasure it gave him. He looked out now and again, no doubt, over his fields, and saw how much was ploughed and sown, but that was all. But we farm-hands worked our hardest, and all for the good of our master; that was our way.

Ay, that was our way, no doubt.

But maybe now and again we might have just a thought of question as to that zeal of ours, whether it was so n.o.ble after all. Nils was a man from the village who was anxious to get his field work done at least as quickly as any of his neighbours; his honour was at stake. And I followed him. Ay, even when he put on that temperance badge, it was, perhaps, as much as anything to get the Captain sober enough to see the fine work we had done. And here again I was with him. Moreover, I had perhaps a hope that Fruen, that Fru Falkenberg at least, might understand what good souls we were. I doubt I was no better than to reckon so.

The first time I saw Fru Falkenberg close to was one afternoon as I was going out of the kitchen. She came walking across the courtyard, a slender, bareheaded figure. I raised my cap and looked at her; her face was strangely young and innocent to see. And with perfect indifference she answered my "_G.o.ddag_," and pa.s.sed on.

It could not be all over for good between the Captain and his wife. I based this view upon the following grounds:

Ragnhild, the parlour-maid, was her mistress's friend and trusted spy.

She noted things on Fruen's behalf, went last to bed, listened on the stairs, made a few swift, noiseless steps when she was outside and somebody called. She was a handsome girl, with very bright eyes, and fine and warm-blooded into the bargain. One evening I came on her just by the summer-house, where she stood sniffing at the lilacs; she started as I came up, pointed warningly towards the summer-house, and ran off with her tongue between her teeth.

The Captain was aware of Ragnhild's doings, and once said to his wife so all might hear--he was drunk, no doubt, and annoyed at something or other:

"That Ragnhild's an underhanded creature; I'd be glad to be rid of her."

Fruen answered:

"It's not the first time you've wanted to get Ragnhild out of the way; Heaven knows what for! She's the best maid we've ever had."

"For that particular purpose, I dare say," he retorted.

This set me thinking. Fruen was perhaps crafty enough to keep this girl spying, simply to make it seem as if she cared at all what her husband did. Then people could imagine that Fruen, poor thing, went about secretly longing for him, and being constantly disappointed and wronged.

And then, of course, who could blame her if she did the like in return, and went her own way? Heaven knows if that was the way of it!

One day later on the Captain changed his tactics. He had not managed to free himself from Ragnhild's watchfulness; she was still there, to be close at hand when he was talking to Elisabet in some corner, or making towards the summer-house late in the evening to sit there with some one undisturbed. So he tried another way, and began making himself agreeable to that same Ragnhild. Oho! 'twas a woman's wit--no doubt, 'twas Elisabet--had put him up to that!

We were sitting at the long dining-table in the kitchen, Nils and I and the lad; Fruen was there, and the maids were busy with their own work.

Then in comes the Captain from the house with a brush in his hand.

"Give my coat a bit of a brush, d'you mind?" says he to Ragnhild.

She obeyed. When she had finished, he thanked her, saying: "Thank you, my child."

Fruen looked a little surprised, and, a moment after, sent her maid upstairs for something. The Captain looked after her as she went, and said: