Wanderers | Page 6

his ways
and speech; tiny wrinkles spread out fanwise from the corners of his
eyes, like the traces of a thousand kindly smiles. He was sorry to
interrupt, and hoped we wouldn't mind--but they'd so much trouble
every year with the fowls slipping through into the garden. Could we
leave the well just for a little, and come round and look at the garden
wall? There was one place in particular....
Grindhusen answered: surely; we'd manage that for him all right.
So we went up and set the crumbling wall to rights. While we were
busy there a young lady came out and stood looking on. We greeted her
politely, and I thought her a beautiful creature to see. Then a
half-grown lad came out to look, and asked all sorts of questions. The
two were brother and sister, no doubt. And the work went on easily
enough with the young folk there looking on.
Then evening came. Grindhusen went off home, leaving me behind. I
slept in the hayloft for the night.
Next day was Sunday. I dared not put on my town clothes lest they
should seem above my station, but cleaned up my working things as
neatly as I could, and idled about the place in the quiet of Sunday
morning. I chatted to the farm-hands and joined them in talking
nonsense to the maids; when the bell began ringing for church, I sent in
to ask if I might borrow a Prayer Book, and the priest's son brought me
one himself. One of the men lent me a coat; it wasn't big enough, really,
but, taking off my blouse and vest, I made it do. And so I went to
church.
That inward calm I had been at such pains to build up on the island
proved all too little yet; at the first thrill of the organ I was torn from
my setting and came near to sobbing aloud. "Keep quiet, you fool," I

said to myself, "it's only neurasthenia." I had chosen a seat well apart
from the rest, and hid my emotion as best I could. I was glad when that
service was over.
When I had boiled my meat and had some dinner, I was invited into the
kitchen for a cup of coffee. And while I sat there, in came Frøkenen,
the young lady I had seen the day before; I stood up and bowed a
greeting, and she nodded in return. She was charming, with her youth
and her pretty hands. When I got up to go, I forgot myself and said:
"Most kind of you, I'm sure, my dear young lady!"
She glanced at me in astonishment, frowned, and the colour spread in
her cheeks till they burned. Then with a toss of her head she turned and
left the room. She was very young.
Well, I had done a nice thing now!
Miserable at heart, I sneaked up into the woods to hide. Impertinent
fool, why hadn't I held my tongue! Of all the ridiculous things to say....
The vicarage buildings lay on the slope of a small hill; from the top, the
land stretched away flat and level, with alternating timber and clearing.
It struck me that here would be the proper place to dig the well, and
then run a pipe-line down the slope to the house. Judging the height as
nearly as I can, it seems more than enough to give the pressure needed;
on the way back I pace out the approximate length: two hundred and
fifty feet.
But what business was it of mine, after all? For Heaven's sake let me
not go making the same mistake again, and insulting folk by talking
above my station.

V
Grindhusen came out again on Monday morning, and we fell to digging
as before. The old priest came out to look, and asked if we couldn't fix

a post for him on the road up to the church. He needed it badly, that
post; it had stood there before, but had got blown down; he used it for
nailing up notices and announcements.
We set up a new post, and took pains to get it straight and upstanding
as a candle in a stick. And by the way of thanks we hooded the top with
zinc.
While I was at work on the hood, I got Grindhusen to suggest that the
post should be painted red; he had still a trifle of red paint left over
from the work at Gunhild's cottage. But the priest wanted it white, and
Grindhusen was afraid to contradict, and carefully agreed to all he said,
until at last I put in a word, and said that notices on white paper would
show up better against red. At that the priest smiled,