United States or Fiji ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Fru Heyerdahl stopped. She could see from the look of the court and the spectators that she had spoken wonderfully well; there was a great silence in the place, only Barbro sat dabbing her eyes now and again for sheer emotion. And Fru Heyerdahl closed with these words: "We women have some heart, some feeling.
But 'twas no way needful; Axel had seen from the first that taking Barbro would mean getting help for all the year. No swaying and swinging with Axel, no thinking with his head among the stars. Now he's a woman of his own to look after the place, he can keep on the telegraph business for a bit.
He was not so much concerned over the fact that Barbro had killed her first child that was nothing to do with himself. That she had had a child at all before she came to him was nothing much either; she was no innocent, and had never pretended to be so, far from it. She had made no secret of her knowledge, and had taught him many things in the dark. Well and good.
And after that, Barbro must have something to show in return; she confessed about how she could have taken a lad in Bergen, and he was a carter in a big brewery, a mighty big concern, and a good position. "And he'll be sorrowing for me now, I doubt," says Barbro, and makes a little sob.
True, this Eleseus was not like the really fine young men in offices, that wore glasses and gold watches and so on, but he could pass for a gentleman here in the wilds, there was no denying that. And she took out her photograph now and showed him that's what she looked like then "all different now, of course." And Barbro sighed. "Why, what's the matter with you now?" he asked.
"Ay, and I'll not stay here, neither." But Axel only smiled a little at this; not broadly and laughing in her face, no; for he did not mean to cross her. And then he spoke soothingly, as to a child: "Be a good girl now, Barbro. 'Tis you and me, you know." And of course in the end Barbro gave in and was good, and even went to sleep with the silver ring on her finger.
By the simplest means, merely by demanding an unreasonable price for a mine, he had succeeded in checking the entire development of the district. Ay, a strong man! Axel Ström from Maaneland could bear them out in this; he was the one who had last met Geissler. Brede's girl Barbro had had a lawsuit in the town, and come home acquitted; but Geissler, he had been there in court all the time.
That Saturday evening, for instance, when Axel himself had to go down to the village to get some things, it was wrong of Barbro to run away from the hut and the animals and leave the place to itself. They had a few words over that. And where had she been?
Oh, she could go to the devil, what did Eleseus care; her face was visibly dirty, and her condition plain enough now even to his innocent eyes. "Can't you play a bit on the guitar?" he asked. "No," answered Barbro shortly. "What I was going to say: Sivert, couldn't you come and help Axel a bit with the new house a day or so? If you could begin tomorrow, say, when you come back from the village?"
The least said about that, if you ask me," said Barbro. "I'm here to sit in the house like a statue, I suppose? What have I got to be ashamed of, anyway? If you like to go and get some one else to look after the place, I'm ready to go. You hold your tongue, that's all I've got to say, if it's not too much to ask.
Word Of The Day