Old Olson

== OLD OLSON ==
=== By Arthur T. Quiller-Couch ===
Originally published in Noughts and Crosses. 1892
Judge between me and my guest, the stranger
within my gates, the man whom in his extremity I clothed and fed. 
I remember well the time of his coming, for
it happened at the end of five days and nights during which the year passed
from strength to age; in the interval between the swallow's departure and the
redwing's coming; when the tortoise in my garden crept into his winter
quarters, and the equinox was on us, with an east wind that parched the blood
in the trees, so that their leaves for once knew no gradations of red and
yellow, but turned at a stroke to brown, and crackled like tinfoil. 
At five o'clock in the morning of the sixth
day I looked out. The wind still whistled across the sky, but now without the
obstruction of any cloud. Full in front of my window Sirius flashed with a
whiteness that pierced the eye. A little to the right, the whole constellation
of Orion was suspended clear over a wedge-like gap in the coast, wherein the
sea could be guessed rather than seen. And, travelling yet further, the eye
fell on two brilliant lights, the one set high above the other — the one steady
and a fiery red, the other yellow and blazing intermittently — the one
Aldebaran, the other revolving on the lighthouse top, fifteen miles away. 
Half-way up the east, the moon, now in her
last quarter and decrepit, climbed with the dawn close at her heels. And at
this hour they brought in the Stranger, asking if my pleasure were to give him
clothing and hospitality. 
Nobody knew whence he came — except that it
was from the wind and the night — seeing that he spoke in a strange tongue,
moaning and making a sound like the twittering of birds in a chimney. But his
journey must have been long and painful ; for his legs bent under him, and he
could not stand when they lifted him. So, finding it useless to question him
for the time, I learnt from the servants all they had to tell — namely, that
they had come upon him, but a few minutes before, lying on his face within my
grounds, without staff or scrip, bareheaded, spent, and crying feebly for
succor in his foreign tongue; and that in pity they had carried him in and
brought him to me. 
Now for the look of this man, he seemed a
century old, being bald, extremely wrinkled, with wide hollows where the teeth
should be, and the flesh hanging loose and flaccid on his cheek-bones; and what
color he had could have come only from exposure to that bitter night. But his
eyes chiefly spoke of his extreme age. They were blue and deep, and filled with
the wisdom of years ; and when he turned them in my direction they appeared to
look through me, beyond me, and back upon centuries of sorrow and the slow
endurance of man, as if his immediate misfortunes were but an inconsiderable
item in a long list. They frightened me. Perhaps they conveyed a warning of
that which I was to endure at their owner's hands. From compassion, I ordered
the servants to take him to my wife, with word that I wished her to set food
before him, and see that it passed his lips. 
So much I did for this Stranger. Now learn
how he rewarded me. 
He has taken my youth from me, and the most
of my substance, and the love of my wife. 
From the hour when he tasted food in my
house, he sat there without hint of going. Whether from design, or because age
and his sufferings had really palsied him, he came back tediously to life and
warmth, nor for many days professed himself able to stand erect. Meanwhile he
lived on the best of our hospitality. My wife tended him, and my servants ran
at his bidding; for he managed early to make them understand scraps of his
language, though slow in acquiring ours — I believe out of calculation, lest
some one should inquire his business (which was a mystery) or hint at his
departure. I myself often visited the room he had appropriated, and would sit
for an hour watching those fathomless eyes while I tried to make head or tail
of his discourse. When we were alone, my wife and I used to speculate at times
on his probable profession. Was he a merchant? — an aged mariner? — tinker,
tailor, beggarman, thief? We could never decide, and he never disclosed. 
Then the awakening came. I sat one day in
the chair beside his, wondering as usual. 1 had felt heavy of late, with a
soreness and languor in my bones, as if a dead 'weight hung continually on my
shoulders, and another rested on my heart. A warmer color in the Stranger's
cheek caught my attention; and I bent forward, peering under the pendulous lids.
His eyes were livelier and less profound. The melancholy was passing from them
as breath fades off a pane of glass. He was growing younger. Starting up I ran
across the room to the mirror. 
There were two white hairs in my fore-lock,
and at the corner of either eye half a dozen radiating lines. I was an old man.
Turning, I regarded the Stranger. He sat
phlegmatic as an Indian idol; and in my fancy I felt the young blood draining
from my own heart, and saw it mantling in his cheeks. Minute by minute I watched
the slow miracle — the old man beautified. As buds unfold, he put on a lovely
youthfulness; and, drop by drop, left me winter. 
I hurried from the room, and seeking my
wife, laid the case before her. " This is a ghoul," I said, "
that we harbor; he is sucking my best blood, and the household is clean
bewitched." She laid aside the book in which she read, and laughed at me.
Now my wife was well-looking and her eyes were the light of my soul. Consider,
then, how I felt as she laughed, taking the Stranger's part against me. When I
left her, it was with a new suspicion in my heart. " How shall it
be," I thought, "if after stealing my youth, he go on to take the one
thing that is better? " 
In my room, day by day, I brooded upon this
— hating my own alteration, and fearing worse. With the Stranger there was no
longer any disguise. His head blossomed in curls; white teeth filled the
hollows of his mouth; the pits in his cheeks were heaped full with roses,
glowing under a transparent skin. It was Olson renewed and thankless; and he
sat on, devouring my substance. 
Now having probed my weakness, and being
satisfied that I no longer dared to turn him out, he, who had half-imposed his
native tongue upon us, constraining the household to a hideous jargon, the
bastard growth of two languages, condescended to jerk us back rudely into our
own speech once more, mastering it with a readiness that proved his former
dissimulation, and using it henceforward as the sole vehicle of his wishes. On
his past life he remained silent; but took occasion to confide in me that he
proposed embracing a military career, as soon as he should tire of the shelter
of my roof. 
And I groaned in my chamber; for that which
I feared had come to pass. He was making open love to my wife. And the eyes
with which he looked at her, and the lips with which he coaxed her, had been
mine ; and I was an old man. Judge now between me and this guest. 
One morning I went to my wife ; for the
burden was past bearing, and I must satisfy myself. I found her tending the
plants on her window-ledge; and when she turned, I saw that years had not taken
from her comeliness one jot. And I was old. 
So I taxed her on the matter of this
Stranger, saying this and that, and how I had cause to believe he loved her. 
"That is beyond doubt," she
answered, and smiled. 
" By my head, I believe his fancy is
returned! " I blurted out. 
And her smile grew radiant, as, looking me
in the face, she answered, "By my soul, husband, it is." 
Then I went from her, down into my garden,
where the day grew hot and the flowers were beginning to droop. I 5tared upon
them and could find no solution to the problem that worked in my heart. And
then I glanced up, eastward, to the sun above the privet-hedge, and saw him
coming across the flower beds, treading them down in wantonness. He came with a
light step and a smile, and I waited for him, leaning heavily on my stick. 
" Give me your watch! " he called
out, as he drew near. 
"Why should I give you my watch,"
I asked, while something worked in my throat. 
" Because I wish it ; because it is
gold ; because you are too old, and won't want it much longer." 
"Take it," I cried, pulling the
watch out and thrusting it into his hand. " Take it — you who have taken
all that is better! Strip me, spoil me " 
A soft laugh sounded above, and I turned.
My wife was looking down on us from the window, and her eyes were both moist
and glad. 
"Pardon me," she said, "it
is you who are spoiling the child."
Category:Quiller-Couch
Category:Nought & Crosses