Karl Oskar watched the sheriff’s face and became bolder. If the sheriff himself had a brother who had escaped from his master because of flogging, would he then report his brother for apprehension?
The sheriff shouted in answer: “If you cannot tell the truth, you might at least shut up, you scoundrel!”
But he looked up toward the sky for a moment, and Karl Oskar thought: What people said about him was true; if he hadn’t been sheriff he might have been almost a good man.
Lönnegren turned his back on Karl Oskar and called his man to accompany him; they went into the house. The sheriff and his servant searched the main room, they went into the kitchen where Kristina stood with the frightened children hanging on to her skirts. They looked into the reserved room where Nils and Märta sat silent and immovable on their chairs, and felt the shame of the search; no sheriff had ever before been to this house. They went up the stepladder into the attic, where they felt in a pile of old clothes; the dust rose from the rags and the sheriff came down angry and coughing. They had looked through the house, and the search continued now through the barns. Lönnegren remained in the yard while his helper went through a heap of unwashed wool in the byre, ascended the hay loft and kicked here and there in the hay, went down into the cellar, through the wagon cover, the woodshed, and the outhouse.
The authorities had to leave, their errand unsuccessful. Karl Oskar escorted the sheriff to his carriage. When Lönnegren was seated he said: “I’ll get the rascal if he remains in this district. Do you hear me, Karl Oskar Nilsson? I’ll catch up with your brother if he remains in my district!”
The young farmer in Korpamoen looked thoughtfully after the sheriff’s departing carriage: he had got the implication; he understood.
— 4—
Karl Oskar stayed up late that evening and waited for his brother. Toward midnight Robert knocked on the window and was admitted. He had been over in a neighbor’s field, and had hidden in Jonas Petter’s meadow barn the whole evening. The night frosts had set in, and he shivered and shook. There was still some fire on the hearth and Karl Oskar put on a pot and warmed milk for his brother.
The sheriff’s statement, he said, must be interpreted to mean that Robert need not worry about being returned to Nybacken if he stayed outside the sheriff’s district. He could therefore not remain at home any longer. Kristina had suggested that he stay for some time with her parents in Duvemåla. The parish of Algutsboda was outside Lönnegren’s district. He could safely remain there until some other opening turned up; Kristina’s parents needed a hand, they were both considerate and would treat him well, not on account of the relationship only. Few of the farmers hereabouts treated their help as badly as Aron in Nybacken.
Robert said he was glad to obey his brother and sister-in-law: early in the morning he would set out for Duvemåla.
Still feeling cold after the many hours in Jonas Petter’s windy barn, he moved closer to the hearth; across from him sat Karl Oskar and stirred the embers with the fire tongs. The brothers had seldom been together at home; Karl Oskar had been away in service while Robert grew up; they had been strangely foreign to each other until last Sunday, when Robert came home with his wounded back.
Robert was thinking: He had been a lazy and negligent farmhand; perhaps it was his inborn sinful nature which inclined him to idleness and disobedience. He had, according to the ordinances of God and man, received chastisement, and he was now a deserter, hunted by the sheriff. But he was no longer afraid of anything in this world because he had a big, protective brother. He need keep no secrets from this brother. Now as he sat here alone with him in the night was the right moment. Now it must out, now it must be said, what he ought to have said long ago, what he regretted not having said last spring.
He could hear the echo of Aron’s hard box in his ear, that eternal hum, the sound of that water which covered three-quarters of the globe’s surface, the great sea’s message to him, the ocean’s command: Come!
It was dark in the room, only a small section near the fireplace was lighted by the flickering embers. Now it must be said, now when they sat here together, as intimate brothers.
Robert did not look up as he began: “You’ve been good to me, Karl Oskar. I want to ask something of you.”
“Yes? If I can give it to you.”
“I would like to get my inheritance from the farm. I intend to go to North America.”
He had managed it, he had spoken, it was done. He inhaled deeply, then he waited.
A few minutes passed and Karl Oskar had not yet answered. He had heard big words from his brother, he had heard the fifteen-year-old speak as a grown man, he had heard him say boldly, challengingly, like a man: I intend to move to North America. But he did not answer.
Several more minutes elapsed and still nothing was said between the brothers. The elder kept silent, the younger one waited for him to speak. The grandfather’s clock in the corner creaked and snapped, the dying embers crackled on the hearth. And in Robert’s ear was heard the humming, roaring sound of the great water, challenging him to come and sail upon it.
Rays from the fire lit up Karl Oskar’s face. The younger brother sat close to the hearth and stared into the glowing ashes; he dared not look at his brother just now.
What could he expect? He knew in advance what he was going to hear. Through his one healthy ear he would hear his brother speak of childish ideas, notions of a fifteen-year-old. What possesses you, Robert? You know very well, my little brother, that you cannot handle your inheritance before you are of age, before you are twenty-one. And you think a boy like you can travel to the other end of the world? Much is still lacking in your head; you must stay at home and eat many loaves of bread before you can leave the country. You must ripen in your notions, my little brother. Your big brother knows more about the world than you. Listen now to what he has to say, this your elder, wiser brother.
But the surprising thing was that Robert couldn’t hear his brother say anything at all. Karl Oskar sat with the fire tongs in his hands, his elbows on his knees, and poked in the embers and kept silent. Robert dared not even look toward his face. Had his tongue become paralyzed from shock when he heard his brother say: I intend to go to North America?
Robert began again: “You were startled, Karl Oskar. .?”
“Ye-es.”
“I understand.”
“Never before in all my life have I been so startled!”
Now Karl Oskar raised his head and looked at his brother with a broad smile. “Because — I could never in the world have guessed that you had the same thoughts as I!”
“You too — Karl Oskar?”
“Yes. Those ideas have been my own lately. But I haven’t mentioned a word to anyone except Kristina.”
What was this that Robert’s healthy ear heard tonight? Weren’t Karl Oskar’s words a hearing-illusion, like the storm of the sea in the other ear?
Had two brothers ever before so surprised each other as Karl Oskar and Robert did this night, sitting together round the dying embers of the fire? When before had two brothers so promptly agreed in a great, life-important decision, as these two now did — before the embers on the hearth had even blackened?
Karl Oskar said: Robert need not move alone; he would have the company of his brother and sister-in-law and their children, he would have the company of all who were young on the farm.
The hum in Robert’s ear was intense and persistent tonight, louder than usual. Now he could answer “Yes!” to the message and the challenge in his sick ear: I come!
He had opened his first gate on the road to America.