The Road Leads On | Page 9

what could be expected.
For example, there was Jørn Mathildesen, named thus after his mother,
Mathilde, for the reason that he had had no father--well, he married the

girl Valborg from Øira. They owned not the tiniest plot of ground and
they hadn't a King's copper to live on. For clothes all they had were a
few old rags they had picked up here and there. But, even so, they got
married and settled down in a rickety shack.--"For why did you do it
and go throwing yourself away?" folk inquired of Valborg.--"Was I to
go on waiting for another forever?" she asked in return.--"And you so
pretty and all," folk said. "If you're twenty you're never a day."--"No,"
Valborg answered, "but they began with me the year I was confirmed."
They begged a bit, did Jørn and Valborg, and they must have done a bit
of stealing on the side, too, for a sharp eye was kept on them whenever
they entered the shops in town.--"Well, what will you have today?" the
shopkeepers would ask, jocosely.--"Have I no leave to come in?" Jørn
would answer straight back. Whenever they would leave him in peace,
it might be that Jørn would inquire the price of a bit of red and green
dress material which had happened to catch his fancy, or to ask the cost
of a pound of American bacon. But what good did it do to tell him what
things were worth? the dealers might grumble. The fact was, he never
bought anything, did he? "Have I no leave to ask?" Jørn would answer.
A wretched existence for Jørn and Valborg, but at least they had no
children--no, unfortunately, they didn't have even a child to their name.
But children there were on the farms throughout the countryside, of
these alone there were plenty, and they were no mean blessing. Without
children there would be no laughter heard one year to the next, and
without children no tiny groping hands and no droll questions to
answer. Otherwise, poverty and desolation reigned over each rural
home. When autumn came, folk might, of course, slaughter a bit of a
sheep and, God be praised, there were still potatoes in the house and
milk to be had from the byre, so it really wasn't so bad to be a farmer in
a small way, with three or four kine and a horse in the barn and a few
smaller creatures besides. But did they own these things? They were in
debt for more than these and their entire farms were worth; they were
deep in the books of the merchants in town, they were far behind in
their taxes, they were living in tumble-down homes. And it would help
little were they to offer a cow or a pair of sheep as a payment against

those enormous debts of theirs, and whenever the fishing was lean at
Lofoten, they only got in deeper. No, they had little enough to offer
Jørn and Valborg when these beggars were making their rounds. And
another result was, one poor soul would help out another with a
half-sack of potatoes or a pail of milk. And thus folk took full pity one
upon another and showed such a splendid spirit of mutual helpfulness
as must have delighted the angels.
Honest, everyday people, these, content to be what they were. They
lived according to the keen good sense of their forefathers, though they
lived so close by the town with all its people of rank and quality and
the new imported customs. No thank you, the people of the countryside
still lived as they had once learned to live and slow they were to adopt
such fancy new articles as white collars for the neck of a man and cut
tobacco for an honest man's pipe.
Ay, the old ways, those are the best! Look there at those boat-sheds of
theirs, those little sheds on stilts! Surely they differ in no particular
from those which stood here eight centuries ago when Sverre ruled the
land, though they still answer every practical purpose. The walls are
open strips of birch and aspen, the roofs are of turf and birchbark. And
if someone there is who imagines that these boathouse walls ought to
be fitted tight against the weather, the reply is obvious that much would
be lost thereby, since it is wind blowing in through the cracks which
airs out the sails and the fishing gear left hanging there to dry. And
observe those massive wooden locks on the doors of the sheds with
their prehistoric wooden keys! No iron there, not a single thing which
will rust. And when, at last, lock and key have become rotten, what a
simple matter it will be to fit new ones