“Someone. . someone is going to die. . now, tonight.”
“Arvid!”
“The old mistress is going to die tonight.”
“Arvid! Put back the ax!”
Arvid was drunk and apparently unconscious of his actions. His eyes were flaming, burning with rage. Robert shouted: “Drop the ax!”
“I’ll kill the bitch!”
“You’re crazy!”
“I’ll split her snout, the old sow!”
“Arvid, please. . please. .”
“She’s ruined my life. She must die!”
And Arvid staggered off toward the house.
Robert ran after. He grabbed his comrade by the arm, seizing the ax handle. “Arvid, please. .”
“Let go the ax!”
“Listen to me. You’ll ruin your whole life.”
“It’s ruined already.”
“But listen, you don’t know what you’re doing!”
“Let go the ax, I say. Let go!”
The two farmhands fought over the ax. Robert was afraid he might cut himself on the sharp edge; and Arvid was bigger and stronger and soon had the ax away from him. But Arvid’s legs were unsteady from all the brännvin, and he slipped and fell on his back, dropping his weapon to the ground. Quickly Robert snatched it, unnoticed by Arvid, and threw it as far away as he was able; it fell among the gooseberry bushes near the barn. Arvid turned over and felt among the debris, searching for the ax. Robert tried to talk sense to him: “We’re friends. I want to help you. Please, Arvid.”
And soon the drunken man calmed down; he no longer searched for the ax, he only repeated, again and again: “I’m so unhappy. . so unhappy. .”
Robert was frightened by the rage which had come to the surface so suddenly in his good-natured comrade. He shivered in the cold wind, and from the fright he had experienced.
“I’m cold. Let’s go to bed now.”
And after a time he was able to persuade Arvid to go back into the stable room. The drunken man threw himself full length onto his bed; all his strength seemed to have left him; he lay there, limp and exhausted, and kept mumbling: “At times I feel like killing her. . that devil’s bitch in the attic.”
Robert thought it best to leave his comrade alone until he grew more calm. And presently Arvid’s stupor began to wear off and his head cleared. He sat up in his bed and his voice was normal as he asked: “Do you know what she accuses me of?”
“Ye-es.”
“Hm. . I thought so. It’s the old bitch’s evil invention — all of it! You know that, don’t you?”
“I know that, Arvid.”
The elder boy mumbled something incoherent, then said nothing for a time; apparently he was sleeping. But suddenly he sat up and continued, and now he seemed fully to have regained his senses. He had never done anything horrible or forbidden with the white heifer. If this were his deathbed and he were unable to say aught else, this he would say to the dean, to the sheriff, to the authorities — to all people on earth he would say this: he had never mixed with any animal. The old woman had said that only God and he knew what he had done with the white heifer in the barn. And God in His heaven knew that he, Arvid, was innocent. But what joy did he get from this when people thought him guilty, when people believed he had done it?
Robert didn’t know how to reply, except to say that he himself had never believed the accusation.
Moreover, said Arvid, the heifer had not been with calf, it was a lie, a lie which the hag in the attic had invented, long after the heifer had been butchered. The heifer would never have calved any monster with a human head if she had been spared.
“Why don’t you sue the old woman in court?”
Yes, Arvid had thought of clearing himself that way, but he was afraid of the court; he didn’t like to have to stand there, gaped at by all people; and the rumor might spread still worse if it were brought to the county court and the old woman found not guilty — after all, she had never accused him outright, she had only said that God and he alone knew what he had done.
Robert had seldom seen her outside the house, the little woman in the gray shawl and the black kerchief, a shriveled-up creature who didn’t seem to have the strength to hurt a fly. Yet she had ruined Arvid’s life, a terrible injustice had been done to him. Why couldn’t God, Who was omnipotent, reveal the truth, so Arvid could be cleared?
“Do you know what they call me?” asked Arvid.
“No.”
“Listen. .”
Walking along the road the other day he had met some boys who mocked him. He had heard their words — something about the bull in Nybacken. They referred to him. People called him “The Bull of Nybacken.”
They were silent again in the stable room. Robert felt sudden twitches in his eyes; he understood why his comrade had filled his brännvin keg so often of late.
Arvid resumed, and now his voice trembled. He was called the Bull. No wonder all women shunned him, no wonder the girls shied away from him. Who would want to be seen in the company of one called the Bull? And he would always be referred to by that name, although he had not harmed man or animal. He had tried to endure it, but the loathsome name would cling to him forever; he would be treated as fool and scoundrel, an outcast whom people would abhor. He could show himself nowhere in this countryside.
So Robert could understand why he went out and got the ax.
Arvid lay down again, but his body shook: he cried. He cried silently, his whole frame shaking. He lay so for some time.
By now Robert knew enough: Arvid could not bear being called the Bull of Nybacken; indeed, no one in his predicament could endure to remain in the neighborhood. Anyone suffering what Arvid did must move away.
And so Robert knew also what he must do: he must confide in his friend.
The next evening he disclosed his secret. The two farmhands sat as usual on their beds, ready to retire, alone in the stable room. Everyone on the farmstead slept. But Robert acted as if Sheriff Lönnegren had been standing outside the window listening to them. He moved over to Arvid’s bed and sat down close to him; he spoke in whispers although no living being could hear him, except his friend and the bedbugs in their cracks and hiding places. And now he uncovered his criminal intentions: “I carry a heavy secret, Arvid. You’re the only one I’ll confide in. Can I rely on you?”
“If my head is chopped off for it I shall say nothing!”
They shook hands, and the younger one unburdened himself: he intended to escape from service. But this time he would not act as foolishly as he had done in the spring on entering service. He would wait till fall, when they carried oak timbers to Karlshamn. He could drive now, and he would no doubt have to join the timbermen, driving Aron’s old mare. But once Aron had let him out of sight with the beast he would never see him again: the mare would return alone to Nybacken. By that time the driver would be far away. In Karlshamn he would board a ship which was to sail to North America — to the New World.
“Are you coming along, Arvid? You’ll get rid of your name — the Bull.”
Arvid found nothing to say; he just stared, such was his surprise; he could only look at his comrade, this fifteen-year-old boy so recklessly plotting to escape with his master’s timber load — a daredevil planning to venture the ocean!
For Arvid knew nothing of what had transpired in Robert’s mind since that day in spring when he had taken the wrong road at the bridge over the mill creek, on his way to service.
And Robert had discovered something which had helped him along on this road; he now took from its secret hiding place — under the straw of his bed — a little book in narrow, brown-specked covers and gold-stamped back: Description of the United States of North America.