Nord, was it really you who were here with those three terrible men?"
He flushed and looked on the ground. Then he had to tell her the whole story of the day with all its shame. In the first place, what unmanliness he had shown in not sooner demanding justice, and how he had only gone because he was forced to it, and then how he had been beaten and whipped instead of beating some one himself. He did not dare to look up while he was speaking; he did expect that even those gentle eyes would judge him with forbearance. He felt that he was robbing himself of all the glory with which she must have surrounded him in her dreams.
"But Petter Nord, what would have happened if you had met
Halfvorson?" asked Edith, when he had finished.
He hung his head even lower. "I saw him well enough," he said. "He had not gone away. He was working in his garden outside the gates. The boy in the shop told me everything."
"Well, why did you not avenge yourself?" said Edith.
He was spared nothing.—But he felt the inquiring glance of her eyes on him and he began obediently: "When the men lay down to sleep on a slope, I went alone to find Halfvorson, for I wished to have him to myself. He was working there, staking his peas. It must have rained in torrents the day before, for the peas had been broken down to the ground; some of the leaves were whipped to ribbons, others covered with earth. It was like a hospital, and Halfvorson was the doctor. He raised them up so gently, brushed away the earth and helped the poor little things to cling to the twigs. I stood and looked on. He did not hear me, and he had no time to look up. I tried to retain my anger by force. But what could I do? I could not fly at him while he was busy with the peas. My time will come afterwards, I thought.
"But then he started up, struck himself on the forehead and rushed away to the hotbed. He lifted the glass and looked in, and I looked too, for he seemed to be in the depths of despair. Yes, it was dreadful, of course. He had forgotten to shade it from the sun, and it must have been terribly hot under the glass. The cucumbers lay there half-dead and gasped for breath; some of the leaves were burnt, and others were drooping. I was so overcome, I too, that I never thought what I was doing, and Halfvorson caught sight of my shadow. 'Look here, take the watering-pot that is standing in the asparagus bed and run down to the river for water,' he said, without looking up. I suppose he thought it was the gardener's boy. And I ran."
"Did you, Petter Nord?"
"Yes; you see, the cucumbers ought not to suffer on account of our enmity. I thought myself that it showed lack of character and so on, but I could not help it. I wanted to see if they would come to life. When I came back, he had lifted the glass off and still stood and stared despairingly. I thrust the watering-pot into his hand, and he began to pour over them. Yes, it was almost visible what good it did in the hotbed. I thought almost that they raised themselves, and he must have thought so too, for he began to laugh. Then I ran away."
"You ran away, Petter Nord, you ran away?"
Edith had raised herself in the arm-chair.
"I could not strike him," said Petter Nord.
Edith felt an ever stronger impression of the glory round poor Petter Nord's head. So it was not necessary to plunge him into the depths of remorse with the heavy burden of sin around his neck. Was he such a man? Such a tender-hearted, sensitive man! She sank back, closed her eyes and thought. She did not need to say it to him. She was astonished that she felt such a relief not to have to cause him pain.
"I am so glad that you have given up your plans for revenge, Petter Nord," she began in friendly tones. "It was about that that I wished to talk to you. Now I can die in peace."
He drew along breath. She was not unfriendly.
She did not look as if she had been mistaken in him. She must love him very much when she could excuse such cowardice.—For when she said that she had sent for him to ask him to give up his thoughts of revenge, it must have been from bashfulness not to have to acknowledge the real reason of the summons. She was so right in it. He who was the man ought to say the first word.
"How can they let you die?" he burst out.
"Halfvorson and all the others, how can they? If I were here, I would refuse to let you die. I would give you all my strength. I would take all your suffering."
"I have no pain," she said, smiling at such bold promises.
"I am thinking that I would like to carry you away like a frozen bird, lay you under my vest like a young squirrel. Fancy what it would be to work if something so warm and soft was waiting for one at home! But if you were well, there would be so many—"
She looked at him with weary surprise, prepared to put him back in his proper place. But she must have seen again something of the magic crown about the boy's head, for she had patience with him. He meant nothing. He had to talk as he did. He was not like others.
"Ah," she said, indifferently, "there are not so many, Petter Nord.
There has hardly been any one in earnest."
But now there came another turn to his advantage. In her suddenly awoke the eager hunger of a sick person for compassion. She longed for the tenderness, the pity that the poor workman could give her. She felt the need of being near that deep, disinterested sympathy. The sick cannot have enough of it. She wished to read it in his glance and his whole being. Words meant nothing to her.
"I like to see you here," she said. "Sit here for a while, and tell me what you have been doing these six years!"
While he talked, she lay and drew in the indescribable something which passed between them. She heard and yet she did not hear. But by some strange sympathy she felt herself strengthened and vivified.
Nevertheless she did get one impression from his story. It took her into the workman's quarter, into a new world, full of tumultuous hopes and strength. How they longed and trusted! How they hated and suffered!
"How happy the oppressed are," she said.
It occurred to her, with a longing for life, that there might be something for her there, she who always needed oppression and compulsion to make life worth living.
"If I were well," she said, "perhaps I would have gone there with you. I should enjoy working my way up with some one I liked."
Petter Nord started. Here was the confession that he had been waiting for the whole time. "Oh, can you not live!" he prayed. And he beamed with happiness.
She became observant. "That is love," she said to herself. "And now he believes that I am also in love. What madness, that Värmland boy!"
She wished to bring him back to reason, but there was something in Petter Nord on that day of victory that restrained her. She had not the heart to spoil his happy mood. She felt compassion for his foolishness and let him live in it. "It does not matter, as I am to die so soon," she said to herself.
But she sent him away soon after, and when he asked if he might not come again, she forbade him absolutely. "But," she said, "do you remember our graveyard up on the hill, Petter Nord. You can come there in a few weeks and thank death for that day."
As Petter Nord came out of the garden, he met Halfvorson. He was walking forward and back in despair, and his only consolation was the thought that Edith was laying the burden of remorse on the wrong-doer. To see him overpowered by pangs of conscience, for that alone had he sought him out. But when he met the young workman, he saw that Edith had not told him everything. He was serious, but at the same time he certainly was madly happy.
"Has Edith told you why she is dying?" said Halfvorson.
"No," answered Petter Nord.
Halfvorson laid his hand on his shoulder as if to keep him from escaping.
"She is dying because of you, because of your damned pranks. She was slightly ill before, but it was nothing. No one thought that she would die; but then you came with those three wretched tramps, and they frightened her while you were in my shop. They chased her, and she ran away from