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Copyright, 1920, by The American-Scandinavian Foundation

D. B. Updike · The Merrymount Press · Boston · U.S.A.

To the Honorable Samuel Coffin Eastman, of Concord,New Hampshire, belongs the credit of havinggiven American readers an English version ofTheFamily at Gilje while the author was still at theheight of his creative activity. Mr. Eastman, whowas a lawyer by profession, was a man of variedinterests, the author of a White Mountain Guidewhich has gone through numerous editions, andthe translator of Brandes'sImpressions of Russia andPoland. He was familiar with the translations byMrs. Ole Bull of Jonas Lie'sThe Pilot and HisWife andThe Good Ship Future.The Family at Giljewas called to his attention by Miss Amalia Krohg,of Christiania, and it charmed him so much thathe rendered it into English. The translation appearedserially in the Concord magazine,The GraniteMonthly, in 1894, and was illustrated with viewsfrom Valders, the mountain district where the sceneof the story is laid.

When the Committee on Publications decidedto includeThe Family at Gilje in theScandinavianClassics, their attention was called to Mr. Eastman'sexcellent version, and permission was securedto reprint it. The translator consented to a revisionof his text so as to make it conform to the generalvistyle of theClassics and to interpret more accuratelysome of the Norwegian idioms. His death,in 1917, prevented his coöperation in the work ofrevision, to which, nevertheless, he had given hiscordial assent.

The story of Jonas Lie's life, even thoughtold in brief, will readily yield the key to thevarious phases of his strange authorship. No oneof his long list of books is an adequate index of hispowers. The special character of each is the outgrowthof peculiar traits of natural endowment inconjunction with definite facts and experiences ofhis life. Some of the features of his genius seemstrangely incongruous—as different as day andnight. These features are clearly reflected in his writings.By critics he has been variously proclaimed"the poet of Nordland," "the novelist of the sea,"or "the novelist of Norwegian homes," and is commonlyclassed as a realist. His reputation and greatpopularity rest mainly upon his realistic novels. Inthis field he ranks as one of the leading portrayersof character and social conditions in modern Norseliterature; and of his realismThe Family at Gilje ispossibly the best illustration.

Yet there was much more than an ingenuousrealist in Lie.1 He was also a fascinating mystic; ateller of fantastic stories, profoundly symbolic incharacter; a great myth-makingraconteur of grotesquetales that have a distinct folkloristic flavor,viiiparticularly as found in his two volumes entitledTrold. This part of his authorship, though it doesnot bulk large, and, naturally enough, has not beenfathomed by the general reader, is nevertheless avery important part, and is surely the most originaland poetic. It appears in a definite though restrainedform as mystic romanticism in his first prose work,Second Sight, and then scarcely a trace of it is seenuntil it bursts forth, twenty years later, with thevigor of long-repressed passion.

It would therefore be unfair to judge Jonas Lieby the single novel in hand—as unfair as it wouldbe to judge Ibsen by a single one of his social dramas—ThePillars of Society, for instance. In Ibsenthe imaginative power displayed inBrand andPeerGynt did not in the social dramas reassert itself inanything but an adumbration of the abandon andexuberance of the dramatic poems. In Lie, however,the mystic and myth-maker reappeared withstrength redoubled. Erik Lie, in a book on hisfather's life (Oplevelser), says with reference to this:"If it had been given to Jonas Lie to continue hisauthorship in his last years, his Nordland naturewould surely—such is my belief—more and morehave asserted itself, and he would have dived downinto the misty world of the subconscious, where hisnear-sighted eyes saw so clearly, and whence hisixfirst works sprang up like fantastic plants on thebottom of the sea." There is not a trace or an inklingof this clairvoyant power inThe Family at Gilje.Its excellences are of a distinctly different nature.

This much, then, must be said to warn the readeragainst a too hasty appraisement of Lie's genius—hispower, range, and vision—on the basis of a singlenovel. Let him be assured that Jonas Lie standsworthily by the side of Ibsen and Björnson both asa creative author and as a personality. He was oftheir generation, knew them both well as youngmen and old, and was a loyal friend to both, as theywere to him. He even knew Björnson well enoughin the early sixties to give him pointed advice onhis authorship. Though he seems never to havetaken such liberties with Ibsen,—as Björnson socategorically did during the same decade,—he didlend him a helping hand by paying him in advancefor the dramatic poem,Love's Comedy, published ina periodical owned by Lie. It is interesting to notethat Ibsen, so punctilious in later years, was aggravatinglyslow in forwarding the final batch of manuscript.As a last resource, Lie threatened to completethe drama himself. Later in life, during summersojourns in the Bavarian Alps, they saw muchof each other. In one of his social dramas,An Enemyof the People, Ibsen used Lie, together with traits ofxBjörnson and Apothecary Thaulow (father of thepainter) as a model for the genial hero, Dr. Stockmann.Both Ibsen and Björnson were generous intheir praise of Lie's many fine qualities. In the sixties,before Lie had written a single novel, Björnson,in an address at Tromsö, in Arctic Norway, whereLie had spent several years of his boyhood, saidsome striking things about Lie's creative powers.On a later occasion he referred to him as "the greatvague possibility," and after Lie's death, in a letterto the family, he said: "I have so much to thankhim for. In the luxuriant wealth of my youth he wasthe purest in heart, the richest in fancy." Björnsonunderstood from the first the clairvoyant mysticismin Lie, and profited by it. In other words, a manwho could interest men like Ibsen and Björnsonand maintain their admiration and respect for halfa century could do so only by dint of rare personalpowers.

Although he did not begin his literary careeruntil he was getting on toward forty, at which ageboth Ibsen and Björnson had won fame, Lie, it mayfairly be said, eventually overtook them in the favorof the Scandinavian reading public, and it is notunlikely that with this public he will hold his ownin comparison with them. This is surely due to therealism of his social novels. Though he at timesxiroamed far afield from the standards of realism, ashas been indicated, he never was identified with extremistsin any literary school, despite the sweepingforce of popular currents. As a realist he wasa patient plodder, following his own instincts, andin the course of long years he hammered out a literaryvehicle distinctly his own, so surcharged, infact, with the idiosyncrasies of his individuality as tomake it most difficult to recast in a foreign idiom.

From the above it will appear that Lie was an interestingdual personality. Further consideration ofhis life will show that he was both romanticist, ormystic, and realist by right of blood, as well asthrough environment and personal experience.

Scandinavian romanticism began in Denmarkwith the opening of the nineteenth century, as a revivalof the past, the exploitation of Northern antiquitiesfor modern literary material. In Norway,a generation or so later, romanticism grew out of anenthusiastic study of popular ballads and folk-lorestories still found on the lips of the peasantry. Inconnection with this there developed an intense interestin rural scenery and life on the part of bothartists and poets. The movement continued for ageneration, until the early seventies, and found itsbest conscious literary expression in Björnson'speasant idyls. When Jonas Lie had resolved to becomexiian author (1870), there was one region of romanticinspiration that had not been utilized. Thiswas Nordland, one of the northerly provinces ofNorway, beyond the Arctic Circle, under the gloryof the midnight sun, where, however, a long andsunless winter fostered in the minds of the inhabitantsa brooding melancholy which peopled mountainand sea, nature's every nook and cranny, withstrange and awe-inspiring creatures. In this natureof colossal contrasts Jonas Lie spent several yearsof his boyhood, and the tremendous impression lefton his sensitive and poetic mind are very evidentin his first novel,Second Sight (Den Fremsynte), alsoknown in English asThe Visionary andThe Seer.This, together with some lesser stories that followed,gave the Nordland stamp to Lie's earliestfiction—the stamp of romanticism, mysticism, andclairvoyance. The effect of this environment wasaccentuated by powerful innate impulses, for hisancestral heritage reveals a double strain, to whichallusion has already been made. On his father's sidethere were, for several generations, brains, energy,and good sense, with a predilection for law and administration.The father himself was a country magistrateof sterling uprightness. Here, then, plainlyenough, is the source of the novelist's realism, asfound, for example, inThe Family at Gilje, butxiiinothing whatever to indicate the poet and romancer.These surely can be traced to the mother, who wasa most remarkable woman, born in one of thenorthern provinces, and, as Lie himself believed,with either Finnish (i.e., Lappic) or Gypsy bloodin her veins, and possibly both. Professor Boyesen,inEssays on Scandinavian Literature, says ofLie's mother: "I remember well this black-eyed,eccentric little lady, with her queer ways and stillmore extraordinary conversation. It is from her thatJonas Lie has inherited the fantastic strain in hisblood, the strange superstitious terrors, and theluxuriant wealth of color which he lavished uponhis first novel,The Man of Second Sight. She wasunusually gifted intellectually, had pronounced literaryinterests, and revealed some decided clairvoyantqualities." Lie himself said of her: "There wassomething of a seer in her—something that remindedone of spae-women and the like." "Imagine,"says Arne Garborg,2 in his book on Lie,"this restless blood infused into the strong, sober,practical nature of the Lies: what should come ofsuch a mixture but that peculiar combination ofreality and romanticism that we know by the namexivof Jonas Lie, the poet of Finnish magic and sorcery—andof plain reality." In Nordland, wherehis maternal inheritance had its source, Lie as a boyfound things fit to satisfy the cravings of such animagination as the Finn in him possessed. In thisBrobdingnagian realm he heard tales and legendsof Finnish sorcery, of shipwrecks caused by fiercewater-bogies (draugs), of giant trolls, and a thousandother demoniacal creatures of morbid popularfancy, until he was chilled with terror, the effectsof which clung to him for life, made him as a matureman afraid of the dark, and finally cropped out intales of weird and grotesque imagery.

These, then, are the fundamental facts that arenecessary for comprehension of the duality in Lie'snature and authorship.

Jonas Lie was born in southern Norway, in 1833,and at the age of five removed with the family toNordland. His life as an author began in 1870; butbetween these dates there was a period of very unusualexperiences. His vivid imagination, stirred bythe witchery of life in Nordland, made the prosytasks of school seem direst punishment. He wascounted a dullard and an incorrigible mischief-maker.At the age of thirteen it was his passion tobecome a sailor. The father, at his wits' end, compromisedxvby sending him to a naval academy. Here hewas at times thought mad by his instructors, whosaw something of his semi-somnambulistic antics.Near-sightedness, however, proved an obstacle tohis continuance inthis path to maritime glory,which he was destined to win by a different route.After an awakening experience in a Bergen school,where an eccentric poet-pedagogue thought him a"lad of pairts," and his classmates voted him a prizeliar on account of his Nordland stories, he took ashort cut to the university at Heltberg's so-calledStudent Factory in Christiania, the head-master ofwhich—a prodigy who has been immortalized inliterature by both Björnson and Garborg—provedan inspiring and fructifying force to his gropinggenius. At this institution, among a motley hordeof country bumpkins, shipwrecked city talent, andbudding genius, he found Björnson, also preparingfor the university. Both were profoundly impressedby the genius of the asthmatic head-master in hisdogskin jacket, who led his young barbarians byforced marches through the Alpine passes of Latinsyntax into the classic domain of Livy and Horace.We shall see that he came to Lie's rescue at a laterperiod.

Lie entered the university in 1851, and took adegree in law in 1858. It had been a difficult taskxvifor him to decide what professional study to pursue.He thought at first that he had leanings towardtheology, bought the necessary books, kept thema day, then exchanged them for law books, afterhaving paid a brief but adequate visit to the clinicallaboratory. These years at the university, when aromantic interest in everything Norwegian filledthe air with mystic expectancy of great things tocome in the way of a regenerated Norway, arousedLie. Association with Björnson, Ibsen, Vinje,3 Nordraak,4and a score of other gifted young men wasstimulating, yet he did not become a disciple orslavish follower of any of these more vehement natures.He had his own ideas, and was boldly independentwhen occasion demanded it, as both KingOscar and Björnson later in life ascertained to theirdiscomfort, each of them having tried in vain tomake the "amiable" author conform to their plansand ideas. Among the many friends that Lie madein the capital city during his university days, Björnsonbecame the most intimate. He seems from thevery first to have espied the artist in Lie, and didxviimuch to help him in understanding his own strangeself. It had begun to worry Lie that his friendsthought him eccentric. And not only this: the mystic,superstitious, magic-loving Finn in his natureoften frightened him. Hence he made great effortsto counteract his tendency to fantastic musing andto develop his paternal heritage: the rationalist andrealist in himself. For this purpose the determinationto study law was doubtless a wise step. But hislegal studies did not suppress his literary yearnings,which found expression in verse that did notat first go beyond a circle of intimate friends. Hesaw no prospect of making a living with his pen, andso entered a government office—a decision hastilymade under pressure of respect for his stern andpractical father, who had announced a visit to thecapital city. Nevertheless, he dreamed of becomingan author, and began contributing poems to thedaily press. They seemed labored and heavy, andattracted no particular attention. On the otherhand, he prepared some well-written articles onEuropean politics, which indicated insight andcareful thinking. These articles made such a favorableimpression on Björnson that he offered to securehim the editorship of a Christiania daily. ButLie was unwilling. He had made arrangements topractise law at Kongsvinger, not far from the capital.xviiiAfter a year's work in the new field, he marrieda cousin, Thomasine Lie, to whom he had long beenbetrothed. Together they had planned that he wasto be an author, and his hasty decision to becomea lawyer was a severe shock to her. From the beginningshe had faith in his literary possibilities; andit was evidently her steady hand on the rudder,throughout a long life, that guided the bark of hisgenius through many dangerous reefs. But for hergood sense and loving loyalty, there would probablynot have been a Jonas Lie in Norwegian literature.He often remarked that her name mightwell appear on the title-page of most of his books.In this most interesting partnership, his was thecreative spirit, hers the practical guiding hand.

Lie's new home was in the heart of a rich timberdistrict, which at that time was at the high tide ofa tremendous business boom. Here he achieved immediatesuccess as a lawyer. Moreover, through aninfluential friend, he became the financial agent oftwo banking houses in the capital. This gave himthe opportunity—and he had the necessary courage—totake a hand in bold business enterpriseson a large scale. He prospered; the future seemedroseate; he began to dream of such affluence as toenable him to devote himself to literature. Meanwhilehe wrote verses for all manner of occasions,xixand even published a volume of these poems (1866).Both he and his wife had unusual social qualifications.She was a fine musician, a woman of characterand much intellectual force, and a most competenthousewife. In this home of culture many prominentmen were entertained—first of all, Ole Bull, whomLie adored. Mighty schemes for the glorificationof Mother Norway were discussed as these two"visionaries" sat brewing their toddy. Björnson,too, was often there, and Sverdrup, the statesman.

Meanwhile clouds ominous of disaster appearedon the commercial horizon. The period 1865–68witnessed the greatest financial panic that Norwayhad ever experienced. Lie had forebodings of acatastrophe, but too late to save himself. He hadbeen lavish with his signature, and was tremendouslyinvolved. The crash meant more than lifeand death to him. It was a matter of honor, integrity,conscience. He lost everything, and was indebt to the extent of over $200,000. Lie, the lawyer,was ruined. He resolved to return to literature, forinstinct urged him with "almost explosive force,"to use his own phrase. As for his financial obligations,he made a monumental resolution, as didWalter Scott in a similar predicament, to pay everydollar through his authorship; and for years hedropped every penny that he did not absolutelyxxneed into that abyss of debt. Friends finally convincedhim of the hopelessness of his purpose. Withwhat a heavy heart Lie carried the tale of his bankruptcyto his faithful wife several of his novels testify.Financial crashes play no small part in hiswritings, and the pathetic force with which thesesituations are handled sounds a distinctly personalnote.

With wife and children Lie returned to Christianiain the autumn of 1868—empty-handed.How he managed to keep his head above water bythe aid of loyal friends like Björnson, Sverdrup,whose private secretary he was for a time, and oldHeltberg, of the Student Factory, who came toengage him as a teacher of rhetoric and composition,is an interesting story which need not be toldhere. But through all his trials one determinationwas fixed and inflexible: he would make literaturehis life-work. It was not long before his thoughtsreverted to his early experiences in Nordland. Afterseveral years of subjection to the stern reality oflegal and commercial enterprise, the Finn was againasserting himself. His first novel,Second Sight, wasthe result. He read it to his wife; she thought itmagnificent, but later applied the pruning-knifedrastically. Then Björnson was called in. He concurredin the wife's opinion, and immediately wrotexxithe great Copenhagen publisher, Hegel, pronouncingthe novel a "sea-mew" that would fly over allthe Scandinavian North, and urging hasty publication.This was in November, 1870. By Christmasthe book was in the shops. In large part it purportsto be the autobiography of a visionary Nordlander,who tells of his beloved home, and recounts marvellousstories of the Arctic north; but through thisbead-string of episodes and descriptions there is interwovena pathetic tale of love, love so tender, sodelicate, that the words describing it seem to cometripping on tiptoe. Unpromising as the novelseems in the beginning, when one almost expectsa study in the pathology of second sight, it neverthelessdevelops into such beauty as to make it theRomeo and Juliet of Scandinavian literature.

Every step of Jonas Lie's development from thisfirst novel toThe Family at Gilje (1883) is of interestto the student of literature. It was a period ofhard study, careful, conscientious work, and highresolve to master his powers and to utilize his variedexperiences for literary purposes, in order to beable to serve Mother Norway,—for one must neverforget the intense patriotic ardor of all Norway'sgreat writers, artists, and musicians. By the aid ofa government stipend, Lie was enabled to visitNordland and the western coast to promote his literaryxxiiproduction, and soon afterward a second andlarger stipend for the purpose of foreign travelmade it possible for him to visit Rome, the Meccaof all Scandinavian artists andliterati of the period.There he remained more than three years, a time offruitful toil and stimulating experience. In 1872 hesent home two books relating to life on the westernand northern coast,The Good Ship Future, anda collection of short stories.

Lie was not content, however, to be "the poet ofNordland," as he at once had been named. Hisambition was to be more national. In the broaderrealms of literary activity the giant figures of Ibsenand Björnson towered. They were deep in the problemsof the day. How could he become nationaland modern? Instinct led him on in paths that unconsciouslyhe had already trodden. In this nationof seafarers he was the first in modern literature todiscover the coast-dwellers and to portray theirstruggles on the sea. His first book contained a descriptionof a storm in northern waters that makesthe reader hold his breath. In the volume of shortstories, which in their scenes sweep along the westerncoast, and inThe Good Ship Future as well, therewas a distinct odor of the sea. This was naturalenough: he had spent his early years in Nordlandand in Bergen, the centre of Norwegian shipping,xxiiiand he loved the sea passionately. In his next novel,The Pilot and his Wife, he put to sea with sailshoisted to the top.

The critics apparently had not felt the sea-breezesin his first books; but in the last there blew sucha lusty gale that all, both critics and public, sniffedits fresh and salty breath with keenest relish. Thebook was a success, which his previous novel hadnot quite been, and it marks the beginning of Lie'ssane and natural realism as consciously applied, inits main problem, to a modern social question, makingthe story, in its essence, a novel of character,a psychological study of the relation of man andwife, and not primarily a novel of adventure, whichassumption gave Lie the designation "novelist ofthe sea." The success of the book brought the author,in 1874, by vote of the Storting, a life stipendknown as a "poet's salary," which recognition puthim in a class with Ibsen and Björnson. The greathonor seems to have had a depressing effect, forLie now scored four failures in succession. He wasback in Norway, trying to portray social phenomenaof the capital city. The reviewers were most irritatingand offensive, and he felt obliged temporarily todesert the field. With the novelRutland (1881), hereturned to the sea. This story surpassesThe Pilotin every respect. The sea is described with the fondnessxxivof a lover. LikeThe Pilot, it also deals witha problem of the home, but what chiefly impressedthe public in reading the book was that the seamen,that important element of the Norwegian people,had found an adequate interpreter.

His next book,Forward (Gaa Paa) (1882), waslikewise a maritime novel, with panoramas in thelife of the fisher folk on the western coast. At thesame time it forecast the new age of industrial development,and revealed growing sympathy and increasedunderstanding in matters of national import.The author seems to have become convincedthat a novelist, too, might be able to lend a hand inpaving the way for progress. In this book he had byhis vivid portrayal attacked stagnation, superstition,sluggishness, and had proclaimed the new gospel ofwork, activity, enterprise. It had been begun duringthe latter part of a three years' sojourn in Germany.It was completed in Norway during the autumnof 1882, after which Lie took up his abode inParis, where he made his home for many years.

For his next work,A Life Prisoner (1883), Liefound his theme in the slums of Christiania. Thetreatment was not naturalistic enough to satisfy thecritics. Lie was of course not unmindful of the newliterary movement, but he possessed then, as always,sufficient individual momentum to carry himxxvthrough the ephemeral phases of literary fads. Hisnovels are not barometers of the prevailing literaryatmosphere. He believed in a realism of true naturalism,which has stood the test of time. In this lastwork he brings a waif of modern society close to thehearts of his readers, and needs no explosions ofpent-up indignation, no spirit of class hatred, tomake his readers understand this unfortunate productof a bad environment. In his reply to the critics,Lie spoke forcibly on the new literary method,summing up his views in these words: "The mainthing is to picture life so that the reader sees, hears,feels, comprehends it; by what esthetic means thisis accomplished must be the author's own affair ineach individual case. But experience has shown thatof all methods direct ones are often the least effective.A single deft touch may save a dozen pages ofdetailed description." Lie was not a student of thebase; he did not even have an artistic liking for evil.There are few bad characters in his works.

It was immediately after his controversy with thecritics, in 1883, thatThe Family at Gilje appeared—asuperb illustration of Lie's realism of naturalness.An American critic has said of good realistic writingthat it does not so much arouse the pleasure of surpriseas that of recognition. To intelligent Norwegianreaders of the day that was strikingly true ofxxviThe Family at Gilje. To many readers it seemed likeliving their lives over again. This may not be a verysevere test of the greatness of a novel. Greatness willdepend upon other things—the breadth and depthof its humanity. Another point: "The right understandingof men and women leads to the right relationsof men and women, and in this way a novelmay do good" (F. Marion Crawford). Most of Lie'snovels seem to have been written with this object inview. It is evident that in an attempt to portray lifefor this purpose, social and other questions are sureto appear—not thrust into the reader's face as aproblem demanding that he take sides, but broughtto his attention naturally, as such things ordinarilycome in life. Discreetly done, as Lie surely could doit, this may be a most effective way of revolutionizingconscience. In this artistic manner Lie was, andno doubt consciously, a reformer. To be sure, thisis not art for art's sake; it is something more human:art engaged in the pursuit of stimulating noble andhealthful thought for the purpose of raising theaverage of human happiness.

It was this calm and restrained realistic methodthat Lie now applied in a series of novels whichsucceededThe Family at Gilje. As in this work, thescenes are usually laid in a preceding generation,preferably among the official class in the country.xxviiIn these homes, which Lie knew so well, we feel thatwe are with real and natural people among whomproblems are not discussed, but experienced. Yetthese novels were not so conservative as they seemed.They had persuasive power in behalf of modern ideaswith respect to such fundamental things as marriage,home, and children. There was even something ofthe essence of social dynamite in some of them.TheFamily at Gilje gave the champions of women newarguments, but they could not approve of theauthor's advanced sympathies inThe Commodore'sDaughters, one of the realistic novels which nowflowed from Lie's pen and which included:A Maelstrom(1884),The Commodore's Daughters (1885),A Wedded Life (1887),Maisa Jons (1888), andEvilPowers (1890). Suddenly there came a change inhis literary method, seemingly induced by someunpleasant experience with good friends. He hadlearned that the conduct of the best of men is oftenswayed by primal instinct rather than by disciplinedreason. In this mood he reverted to the trusty Finnof his bosom who so long had lain dormant, andlet him discourse on life and human nature. Heproved voluble, resourceful, and original. The resultwas published in two volumes (1891 and 1892), entitledTrold. They are, in part, phantasmagoriascharged with the symbolism of Norse legendaryxxviiilore, where trolls are the personified manifestationof evil forces in nature. The opening sentence ofthe illuminating introduction says: "That there aretrolls in human beings every one knows who has aneye for that sort of thing."

In the most characteristic of these stories, ofwhich there are a dozen in each volume, Lie has personifiedprimal instincts,—allegorized some of thestrange facts and mystic forces of nature, man, andsociety. Others are in lighter vein and have a morehuman cast, being mere playful satires on socialphenomena. They form a marvellous medley. Atfirst it seems quite impossible to believe that theauthor ofThe Family at Gilje can be the begetterof things so fantastic and grotesque. But when thereader thinks of the early Nordland stories, he understands,and then feels inclined to regret, that theFinn had so long lain dormant. One is tempted tobelieve that a little of the troll element could easilyhave been used to give a tinge of terror to his calmrealism; and this is in fact what he has done mosteffectively in the novelDyre Rein (1896), which inother respects much resemblesThe Family at Gilje.

After the publication ofTrold, Lie, even wherehe does not introduce troll effects, is not hesitantabout using more tragic methods and more dramaticscenes than during the period of the strictlyxxixrealistic novels. There is, moreover, a decided trendtoward a wider scope and more cosmopolitan aims,as inWhen the Iron Curtain Falls (1901), a boldersymbolism, as inNiobe (1893) and in his last work,East of the Sun, West of the Moon, and Beyond theTowers of Babylon (1905), in which, however, as thetitle indicates, the story is top-heavy with symbolism.It runs parallel with the main narrative as anintroduction to each chapter. The whole is the taleof a genius, hampered and harassed by malicioustrolls in human guise—evidently an adumbrationof the author's own personal experience. But he is,as always, charitable: "Human nature is so complex!"

In other words: the last fifteen years of Lie'sauthorship reveal him in full possession of the realisticpowers of the preceding period, illuminated bya profound comprehension of the mystic forces oflife that so often determine human fates.

Like Ibsen, Lie lived abroad for many years, mainlyin Paris, but usually spending his summers inthe Bavarian Alps, where most of his writing wasdone. There were too many distractions in Paris,where his home was a centre of the colony of Scandinavianartists and literary workers. In the summerof 1893, after an absence of ten years, he feltxxxthe need of visiting Norway again. An intense feelingof homesickness had seized him, as the followingincident will indicate. He had called on a Norwegianfamily in Paris who had just received a plantfrom Norway in Norwegian earth. "Thinking himselfunobserved," one of his daughters tells, "I sawhim turn from the company, take a pinch of thatearth and put it to his mouth. Whether he kissedit or ate it I do not know. But he looked very solemn."

In Norway he was received most cordially. Onthe occasion of his sixtieth birthday, Brandes proclaimedhim "the most amiable of geniuses." Hewas interviewed, banqueted, and serenaded almostto distraction, and was glad to get back to Paris,happy, however, in having experienced the touchingdevotion of his countrymen. A decade of arduoustoil followed, after which he began to make plansfor returning to Norway to spend the last years ofhis life. A cozy home was built at Fredriksværn, onthe southern coast, and in 1906 the family tookpossession of it. The next year, however, his faithfulwife, the guardian of his genius, passed away.Dependent upon her companionship and solicitouscare, he did not long survive her. He died July 5,1908.

The Norwegian Storting took fitting cognizancexxxiof his death, and, as had been done at Ibsen's demise,decreed that interment should be made at theexpense of the State.

"Be merciful!" is the sentiment that echoes andreëchoes throughout Jonas Lie's pages.

It was a clear, cold afternoon in the mountainregion. The air lay blue with the frost, withlight rose tints over all the sharp crests, ravines,and peaks, which, like a series of gigantic drifts,tower above tower, floated up towards the horizon.Below, hills and wooded mountain slopes shut theregion in with white walls, constantly narrower andnarrower, nearer and nearer, always more contracting.

The snow was late this year, but in return, nowthat the Christmas season had come, lay so heavyon fir and spruce that it bent down both needlesand twigs. The groves of birches stood up to theirwaists in snow; the small clusters of tile-roofedhouses of the district were half buried, with snow-driftspressing down over the roofs. The entrancesto the farmyards were deeply dug paths, from whichthe gate and fence posts stuck up here and therelike the masts of sunken boats.

The snow-plough had recently gone through thehighway, and on the steep red-tiled roof of thecaptain's house men were busy shovelling down thegreat frozen snow-drifts, which hung threateningover the ends of the roof.

The captain's house was specially prominent in4the district. It was unpainted and built of squarelogs, like the greater part of that kind of houses ageneration ago.

Over the garden fence and almost up under thewindow-frames lay the snow-drifts with tracks ofsleds and skis in their icy crust, which smoked alittle in the frosty north wind under the sun.

It was the same cold, disagreeable north windwhich, every time the outer door was opened, blewagainst the kitchen door until that opened too, and,if it was not closed again, soon after, one or anotherdoor on the next floor,—and that made the captaincome down from his office, flushed and passionate,to make inquiries and fret and fume over the wholehouse as to who had gone there first and who hadgone last. He could never understand why they didnot keep the door shut, though the matter was mosteasily to be understood,—for the latch was old andloose, and the captain would never spend any moneyon the smith for a new one.

In the common room below, between the sofaand the stove, the captain's wife, in an old brownlinsey-woolsey dress, sat sewing. She had a tall, stifffigure, and a strong, but gaunt, dried-up face, andhad the appearance of being anxiously occupied atpresent by an intricate problem—the possibility ofagain being able to put a new durable patch on theseat of Jörgen's trousers; they were always bottomless—almostto desperation.

She had just seized the opportunity for this, whileJäger was up in his office, and the children were goneto the post-office; for she went about all day longlike a horse grinding clay in a brickyard.

The mahogany sewing-table inlaid with mother-of-pearland several different kinds of wood, whichstood open before her, must have been a familyheirloom; in its condition of faded antiquity, it remindedone not a little of her, and in any event didnot at all correspond either with the high-backed,rickety, leather armchair, studded with brass nails,in which she sat, nor with the long birchen sofa coveredwith green linsey-woolsey, which stood like asolitary deserted land against the wall, and seemedto look longingly over to the brown, narrow folding-table,which, with its leaves let down, stood equallysolitary and abandoned between the two windows.

The brown case with the four straight legs againstthe farther wall, with a heap of papers, books, hats,and the spy-glass upon it, was an old clavichord,which, with great trouble, she had had transportedup into the mountain region, out of the effects ofher home, and on which she had faithfully practisedwith her children the same pieces which she herselfhad learned.

The immense every-day room, with the bare timberwalls, the unpainted sanded floor, and the smallpanes with short curtains fastened up in the middle,was in its whole extent extremely scantily furnished;6it was half a mile from chair to chair, andeverything had a rural meagreness such as one couldoften see in the homes of officials in the mountaindistricts in the forties. In the middle of the innerwall, before the great white fire-wall, the antiquestove with the Naes iron-works stamp and theknotty wooden logs under it jutted out into theroom like a mighty giant. Indeed, nothing less thansuch a mass of iron was needed to succeed in warmingup the room; and in the woods of the captain'sfarm there was plenty of fuel.

Finally abandoning all more delicate expedientsfor the trousers, she had laid on a great patch coveringeverything, and was now sewing zealously.The afternoon sun was still shedding a pale yellowlight in the window-frames; it was so still in theroom that her movements in sewing were almostaudible, and a spool of thread which fell downcaused a kind of echo.

All at once she raised herself like a soldier at anorder and gave attention. She heard her husband'squick, heavy step creaking on the stairs.

Captain Jäger, a red, round, and stout man in athreadbare uniform coat, came hastily in, puffing,with the still wet quill-pen in his mouth; he wentstraight to the window.

His wife merely sewed more rapidly; she wished7to use the time, and also prudently to assume thedefensive against what might come.

He breathed on the frosty pane in order to enlargethe part that could be seen through. "You willsee there is something by the mail. The children arerunning a race down there in the road,—they arerunning away from Jörgen with the sled."

"Ah, how they run!—Thinka and Thea. ButInger-Johanna! Come here, Ma, and see how sheputs down her feet—isn't it as if she was dancing?Now she means to be the first in, and so she will bethe first, that I promise you. It is no story when Itell you that the lass is handsome, Ma; that theyall see. Ah, come and look how she gets ahead ofThinka! Just come now, Ma!"

But "Ma" did not stir. The needle moved withforced nervous haste. The captain's wife was sewinga race with what was coming; it was even possiblethat she might get the last of the patch finished beforethey entered, and just now the sun disappearedbehind the mountain crest; they were short days itgave them up there.

She rushed in with her cloak unfastened and coveredwith snow. She had untied the strings of her8hood on the way up the steps, so that her black hairfell down in confusion over her hot face. Breathless,she threw her flowered Valders mittens on a chair.She stood a moment to get her breath, brushed herhair under her hood, and shouted out:

"An order for post-horses at the station, for CaptainRönnow and Lieutenant Mein. The horses areto be here at Gilje at six o'clock to-morrow morning.They are coming here."

"Rönnow, Ma!" roared the captain, surprised; itwas one of the comrades of his youth.

The mother's pale face, with its marked featuresand smooth black hair in loops down over her cheeksin front of her cap, assumed a somewhat thoughtful,anxious expression. Should the veal roast besacrificed which she had reserved for the dean, orthe pig? The latter had been bought from the northdistrict, and was fearfully poor.

"Well, well, I bet he is going to Stockholm,"continued the captain, meditatively drumming onthe window-frame. "Adjutant, perhaps; they wouldnot let that fellow stay out there in the West. Doyou know, Ma, I have thought of something ofthis sort ever since the prince had so much to dowith him at the drill-ground. I often said to him,'Your stories, Rönnow, will make your fortune,—butlook out for the general, he knows a thing or9two.' 'Pooh! that goes down like hot cakes,' saidhe. And it looks like it—the youngest captain!"

"The prince—" The captain's wife was justthrough with the trousers, and rose hastily. Hermeagre, yellowish face, with its Roman nose, assumeda resolute expression: she decided on thefatted calf.

"Inger-Johanna, see to it that your father hashis Sunday wig on," she exclaimed hurriedly, andhastened out into the kitchen.

The stove in the best room was soon packed full,and glowing. It had not been used since it had beenrubbed up and polished with blacking last spring,and smoked now so that they were obliged to opendoor and windows to the cold, though it was belowzero.

Great-Ola, the farm-hand, had been busy carryinglarge armfuls of long wood into the kitchen, andafterwards with brushing the captain's old uniformcoat with snow out on the porch; it must not lookas if he had dressed up.

The guest-chamber was made ready, with thebeds turned down, and the fire started, so that thethin stove snapped, and the flies suddenly woke upand buzzed under the ceiling, while the wainscotwas browned outside of the fire-wall and smelled ofpaint. Jörgen's hair was wet and combed; the girlschanged their aprons to be ready to go down and10greet the guests, and were set to work rolling uppipe-lighters for the card-table.

They kept looking out as long as the twilightlasted, both from the first and second story windows,while Great-Ola, with his red peaked cap,made a path in the snow to the carriage-road andthe steps.

And now, when it was dark, the children listenedwith beating hearts for the slightest sound fromthe road. All their thoughts and longings went outtowards the strange, distant world which so rarelyvisited them, but of which they heard so much thatsounded grand and marvellous.

They had all agreed to that fact, when Inger-Johanna,who stood in the dark by a window whichshe held a little open, exclaimed, "But there theyare!"

Quite right. They could hear the sleigh-bells, asthe horse, moving by fits and starts, laboriouslymade his way up the Gilje hills.

The outside door was opened, and Great-Olastood at the stairs, holding the stable lantern witha tallow candle in it, ready to receive them.

A little waiting, and the bells suddenly soundedplainly in the road behind the wood-shed. Now youcould hear the snow creaking under the runners.

The captain placed the candlestick on the tablein the hall, the floor of which had been freshlyscoured, washed, and strewn with juniper. He wentout on the stairs, while the children, head to head,peeped out of the kitchen door, and kept Pasop,who growled and fretted behind them, from rushingout and barking.

"Good-evening, Rönnow! Good-evening, Lieutenant!Welcome to Gilje!" said the captain withhis strong, cheerful voice, while the vehicle, whichat the last post-house was honored with the nameof double sleigh, swung into the yard and up to thesteps. "You are elegantly equipped, I see."

"Beastly cold, Peter,—beastly cold, Peter," camethe answer from the tall figure wrapped in furs, ashe threw down the reins, and, now a little stiff in hismovements, stepped out of the sleigh, while thesteaming horse shook himself in his harness so thatthe bells rang loudly. "I believe we are frozen stiff.And then this little rat we have for a horse wouldnot go. It is a badger dog they have harnessed inorder to dig our way through the snow-drifts. Howare you, Peter? It will be pleasant to get into yourhouse. How goes it?" he concluded, upon the steps,shaking the captain's hand. "Bring in the case ofbottles, Lieutenant."

While the two gentlemen took off their furs andtravelling-boots in the hall and paid for the horse,and Great-Ola carried the trunk up to the guest-chamber,12an odor of incense diffused itself from thelarge room, which at once roused Captain Rönnow'scavalier instinct to a recollection of the lady, whom,in the joy of seeing his old comrade once more,he had forgotten. His large, stately figure stoppedbefore the door, and he adjusted his stock.

"Do I look tolerably well, Peter, so I can properlyappear before your wife?" he said, running hishand through his black curly hair.

"Yes, yes, fine enough—devilish fine-lookingfellow, Lieutenant.—If you please, gentlemen.Captain Rönnow and Lieutenant Mein, Ma," hesaid, as he opened the door.

The mistress of the house rose from her place atthe table, where she was now sitting with fine whiteknitting-work. She greeted Captain Rönnow asheartily as her stiff figure would allow, and thelieutenant somewhat critically. It was the governor'ssister to whom the salaam was made, as CaptainRönnow afterwards expressed it—an old, greatfamily.

She disappeared a little later into domestic affairs,to "get them something for supper."

Captain Rönnow rubbed his hands from the cold,wheeled around on one leg on the floor, and thusplaced himself with his back to the stove. "I tellyou we are frozen stiff, Peter,—but—Oh, Lieutenant,bring in the case of bottles."

When Lieutenant Mein came in again, Rönnow13took a sealed bottle with a label, and held it, swingingby the neck, before the captain.

"Look at it, Peter Jäger! Look well at it!" andhe moved over towards his friend. "Genuine arrackfrom Atschin in hither—farther—East—or WestIndia. I present it to you. May it melt your heart,Peter Jäger!"

"Hot water and sugar, Ma!" shouted the captainout into the kitchen, "then we shall soon knowwhether you only mean to deceive us simple countryfolks with stories. And out with the whist-tabletill we have supper! We can play three-handedwhist with a dummy."

"Brrr-rr-whew, what kind of stuff is it you'vegot in your tobacco box, Jäger?" said Captain Rönnow,who was filling his pipe at it; "powder, sneezingpowder, I believe! Smell it, Lieutenant. It mustbe tansy from the nursery."

"Tideman's three crown, fellow! We can't endureyour leaf tobacco and Virginia up here in themountain districts," came from Jäger, who was pullingout and opening the card-table. "Only look atthe next box under the lead cover, and you will findsome cut-leaf tobacco, Bremen leaf, as black andhigh flavored as you want. Up here it is only to thegoats that we can offer that kind, and to the folkwho come from Bergen; they use strong tobaccothere to dry out the wet fog."

The door opened, and the three girls and their14little brother came in, carrying the tray with theglasses and the jug of hot water, which task theyseemed to have apportioned among themselvesaccording to the rules for the procession at theDuke of Marlborough's funeral, where, as is known,the fourth one carried nothing.

The tall, blond Kathinka marched at the headwith the tray and glasses with the clinking teaspoonsin them. She attempted the feat of curtseying,while she was carrying the tray, and blushedred when it was ready to slip, and the lieutenantwas obliged to take hold of it to steady it.

He immediately noticed the next oldest, a brunettewith long eyelashes, who was coming with thesmoking water-jug on a plate, while the youngest,Thea, was immediately behind her with the sugar-bowl.

"But, my dear Peter Jäger," exclaimed Rönnow,astonished at the appearance of his friend's almostgrown-up daughters, "when have you picked up allthis? You wrote once about some girls,—and a boywho was to be baptized."

At the same moment Jörgen came boldly forward,strutting over the floor, and made his bestbow, while he pulled his bristly yellow locks insteadof his cap.

"That was heavy! You are a perfect mountain15boy, are you not? Let me see you kick as high asyour name."

"No, but as high as my cap," answered Jörgen,going back on the floor and turning a cart-wheel.

"Bold fellow, that Jörgen!" And with that, asJörgen had done his part, he stepped back into obscurity.But while the gentlemen were pouring outthe arrack punch at the folding-table, he kept hiseyes uninterruptedly fastened on Lieutenant Mein.It was the lieutenant's regularly trimmed blackmoustache, which seemed to him like bits that hehad not got into his mouth properly.

"Oh, here, my girl!" said Rönnow, turning toone of the daughters, who stood by his side whilehe was putting some sugar into the steaming glass,"what is your name?"

"Yes, listen"—he spoke without seeing anythingelse than the arm he touched to call her attention."Listen, my little Inger-Johanna! In thebreast pocket of my fur coat out in the hall thereare two lemons—I didn't believe that fruit grewup here in the mountains, Peter!—two lemons."

Captain Rönnow looked up, astonished. Thedark, thin girl, in the outgrown dress which hungabout her legs, and the three thick, heavy, blackcables, braided closely for the occasion, hanging16down her back, stood distinct in the light beforehim. Her neck rose, delicately shaped and dazzlinglyfresh, from the blue, slightly low-cut, linsey-woolseydress, and carried her head proudly,with a sort of swan-like curve.

"Up here among the peasants the children—more'sthe pity—grow up without any other mannersthan those that they learn of the servants,"sighed the mother. "Don't stand so bent over,Thinka, straighten up."

Thinka straightened up her overgrown blondfigure and tried to smile. She had the difficult taskof hiding a plaster on one side of her chin, wherea day or two before she had fallen down throughthe cellar trap-door in the kitchen.

Soon the three gentlemen sat comfortably at theircards, each one smoking his pipe and with a glass ofhot arrack punch by his side. Two moulded tallowcandles in tall brass candlesticks stood on the card-tableand two on the folding-table; they illuminatedjust enough so that you could see the almanac, whichhung down by a piece of twine from a nail underthe looking-glass, and a part of the lady's tall formand countenance, while she sat knitting in her frilled17cap. In the darkness of the room the chairs farthestoff by the stove could hardly be distinguished fromthe kitchen door—from which now and then camethe hissing of the roasting meat.

"Three tricks, as true as I live—three tricks,and by those cards!" exclaimed Captain Rönnow,eager in the game.

"Thanks, thanks," turning to Inger-Johannawho brought a lighted paper-lighter to his expiringpipe. "Th-a-nks"—he continued, drawing inthe smoke and puffing it out, his observant eyesagain being attracted by her. Her expression was sobright, the great dark eyes moving to and fro underher eyebrows like dark drops, while she stood followingthe cards.

"Yes, yes.—Now it is my turn to deal! Yourdaughter puts a bee in my bonnet, madam. I shouldlike to take her with me to Christiania to the governor's,and bring her out. We would make a tremendoussensation, that I am sure of."

With her hands on the back of her father's chair,Inger-Johanna gazed intently on the cards; but herface had a heightened glow.

Rönnow glanced at her from one side. "A sight18for the gods, a sight for the gods!" he exclaimed, ashe gathered together with his right hand the cardshe had just arranged, and threw them on the table."Naturally I mean how the lieutenant managesdummy—you understand, madam," nodding to herwith significance. "Heavens! Peter, that was a cardto play.—Here you can see what I mean," he continued."Trump, trump, trump, trump!" He eagerlythrew four good spades on the table, one afteranother, without paying any attention to what followed.

The expression of the lady's face, as she sat thereand heard her innermost thoughts repeated soplainly, was immovably sealed; she said, somewhatindifferently, "It is high time, children, you saidgood-night; it is past your bed-time. Say good-nightto the gentlemen."

The command brought disappointment to theirfaces; not obeying was out of the question, and theywent round the table, and made curtsies and shookhands with the captain and the lieutenant.

The last thing Jörgen noticed was that the lieutenantturned round, stretched his neck, and gapedlike Svarten as they went out.

Their mother straightened up over her knitting-work."You used to visit my brother's, the governor's,formerly, Captain Rönnow," she ventured."They are childless folk, who keep a hospitablehouse. You will call on them now, I suppose."

"Certainly I shall! To refrain from doing thatwould be a crime! You have, I should imagine,thought of sending one of your daughters there.The governor's wife is a person who knows how tointroduce a young lady into the world, and yourInger-Johanna—"

The captain's wife answered slowly and withsome stress; something of a suppressed bitternessrose up in her. "That would be an entirely unexpectedpiece of good fortune; but more than we out-of-the-waycountry folk can expect of our grand,distinguished sister-in-law. Small circumstancesmake small folk, more's the pity; large ones oughtto make them otherwise.—My brother has madeher a happy wife."

"Done. Will you allow an old friend to work alittle for your attractive little Inger?" returned CaptainRönnow.

"I think that Ma will thank you. What do yousay, Gitta? Then you will have a peg to hang oneof them on. It can't be from one of us two that Inger-Johannahas inherited her beauty, Ma!" saidCaptain Jäger, coughing and warding off his wife'sadmonitory look; "but there is blood, both on herfather's and mother's side. Her great-grandmotherwas married off up in Norway by the Danish queenbecause she was too handsome to be at court—itwas your grandmother, Ma! Fröken von—"

When the game was again started, the captain'swife went with her knitting-work to the card-table,snuffed first one candle and then the other, leanedover her husband, and whispered something.

The captain looked up, rather surprised. "Yes,indeed, Ma! Yes, indeed—'My camel for yourdromedary,' said Peter Vangensten, when heswapped his old spavined horse for Mamen'sblooded foal. If you come with your arrack fromHolland and farther India, then I put my red winedirect from France against it—genuine Bordeaux,brought home and drawn straight from the hogshead!There were just two dozen the governor sentus with the wagon the autumn Jörgen was baptized.—Thetwo farthest to the left, Ma! You had bettertake Marit with you with the lantern. Then youcan tell the governor's wife that we drank her healthup here among the snow-drifts, Rönnow."

When the captain's wife came in again, she hadthe stiff damask tablecloth on her arm, and was accompaniedby a girl who helped move the folding-tableout on the floor. It was to be set for supper,and the card-table must be moved into the bestroom, across the hall, which was now warm.

Ma did not answer; but they felt the full pressureof her silence; her honor was at stake—the roastveal.

Finally the captain exclaimed, while Ma stoodimmovable with the cloth in the middle of the floor,"There, there, we must get away, Rönnow!"

While Jörgen went to sleep with the image beforehim of his lieutenant who gaped like Svartenwhen he came out of the stable door into the light,and after Torbjörg had put out the candle, the sistersstole out into the great, cold, dark hall. Therethey all three stood, leaning over the balustrade,and gazing down on the fur coats and mufflers,which hung on the timber wall, and on the whipand the two sabre sheaths and the case of bottles,which were dimly lighted by the stable lantern onthe hall table.

They smelt the odor of the roast as it came up,warm and appetizing, and saw when the guests, eachwith his punch-glass in his hand and with flickeringcandle, went across the hall into the large room.They heard the folding-table moved out and set, andlater caught the sound of the clinking of glasses,laughter, and loud voices.

Every sound from below was given a meaning,every fragment of speech was converted into a romancefor their thirsty fancy.

They stood there in the cold till their teeth chatteredand their limbs shook against the wood-work,so that they were obliged to get into bed again tothaw out.

They heard how the chairs made a noise whenthe guests rose from the table, and they went out inthe hall again, Thinka and Inger-Johanna,—Theawas asleep. It helped a little when they put theirfeet upon the lowest rail of the balustrade, or hungover it with their legs bent double under them.

Thinka held out because Inger-Johanna heldout; but finally she was compelled to give up, shecould not feel her legs any more. And now Inger-Johannaalone hung down over the balustrade.

A sort of close odor of punch and tobacco smokefrozen together rose up through the stairs in thecold, and every time the door was opened andshowed the heavy, smoky, blue gleam of light inthe great room, she could hear officers' names, fragmentsof laughter, of violent positive assertions,with profane imprecations by all possible and impossiblepowers of the heavens above and the earthbeneath, and between them her father's gay voice,—allchopped off in mince-meat every time thedoor was shut.

When Inger-Johanna went to bed again, she lay23thinking how Captain Rönnow had asked her twicewhat her name was, and then again how at the card-tablehe had said, "I should like to take her with meto the governor's wife; we would make a tremendoussensation." And then what came next, "NaturallyI mean how the lieutenant plays dummy,"—whichthey thought she did not understand.

The wind blew and howled around the cornerof the house, and whistled down through thegreat plastered chimney-pipe in the hall—and shestill, half in her dreams, heard Captain Rönnow's"Trump! trump! trump! trump!"

The next day Ma went about the house as usualwith her bunch of keys; she had hardly slept at allthat night.

She had become old before her time, like somany other "mas," in the household affairs of thatperiod—old by bearing petty annoyances, by toiland trouble, by never having money enough, bybending and bowing, by continually looking likenothing and being everything—the one on whomthe whole anxious care of the house weighed.

That was Ma's pet sigh of consolation. Andthe new time had not yet come to the "mas" withthe question whether they were not also bound torealize their own personal lives.

But for the children it was a holiday, and immediately24after breakfast they darted into the greatroom.

There stood the card-table, again moved againstthe wall, with the cards thrown in a disorderly pileover the paper on which the score had been kept.It had been folded up and burned on one end fora lighter; and by its side, during a preliminarycleaning, the three pipes were lying, shoved aside.One window was still open, notwithstanding thewind blew in so that the fastening hook rattled.

There was something in the room—a pungentodor, which was not good; no, but there was,nevertheless, something about it—something of anactual occurrence.

Outside of the window Great-Ola stood with hishands on the shovel in the steep snow-drift, listeningto Marit's account of how the captain had lefta broad two-kroner piece for drink money on thetable up in the guest-chamber and the lieutenant ashilling under the candlestick, and how the mistresshad divided them among the girls.

"Don't you know that a lieutenant would beshot if he gave as much as his captain, girl," retortedGreat-Ola, while she hurried in with the keysof the storehouse and the meal-chest.

From the captain's sleeping-room the sound ofhis snoring could be heard for the whole forenoon.25The guests did not go to bed, and started at sixo'clock in the morning, when the post-boy came tothe door—after the second bottle, also, of Rönnow'sIndian arrack had been emptied, and abreakfast with whiskey, brawn, and the remnantsof the roast veal had strengthened them for the day'sjourney.

But the thing to be done was to have a goodtime on the holiday. The sisters bustled about inthe hall with their skis, and Jörgen was trying howthe outer steps would do for a ski slide.

Soon they were out on the long steep hill behindthe cow-barn—the ski-staff in both hands in frontfor a balance, their comforters streaming out behindtheir necks. In the jump Inger-Johanna lost herbalance and almost—no, she kept up!

It was because she looked up to the window ofthe sleeping-room to see if her father appreciatedher skill.

He was walking about and dressing. Ma had atlast, about dinner time, ventured to wake him up.

Two days before Christmas Great-Ola withSvarten and his load was expected from Christiania,where he went twice a year, St. John's Dayand Christmas, for the household supplies. To-daywas the ninth day; but in sleighing like this, whenthe horse's feet struck through at every step, noone could be sure of anything.

The load, met on the run, far down the slippery,slushy hill, by the children and the barking, one-eyedPasop, came along in the afternoon, whileSvarten, even in his exertions on the steep part ofthe hill, neighed and whinnied with pleasure atbeing home again and longing to get into the stallby the side of Brunen. He had had quite enoughof the journey, and worked himself into a foam inthe harness to get over the Gilje hill.

Marit, the cook, and Torbjörg were out in theporch before the kitchen; the three girls and Jörgenstood wholly absorbed by the load and the horse,and the captain himself came down the stairs.

"Well, Great-Ola, how has Svarten pulledthrough? Sweaty and tired, I see! Did you get myuniform buttons? Ah, well! I hope you did not forgetthe tobacco!—And my watch, could they doanything with that?—Have you the bill?—Well,then, you must put up Svarten—he shall have an27extra feed of oats to-day. What? What have yougot there?"

Besides the bill, Great-Ola had taken out of hisinside vest pocket a letter wrapped up in paper,blue postal paper, with a beautiful red seal on it.The captain looked at it a moment with surprise.It was the writing of the governor's wife and herseal in the wax, and without saying a word hehastened in to his wife.

The load from the city, the great event of thehalf year, occupied the attention of the wholehousehold. Its contents interested all, not the childrenalone, and when Great-Ola, later in the evening,sat in the kitchen, where he was treated as aguest on account of his return home, and told abouthis trip to the city and about Svarten and himself,what miracles they had wrought on such and suchhills—and the load weighed this time at least twohundred pounds more than the last—then therewas a sort of glamor about him and Svarten, too.

One evening he had even found his way in asnowstorm, and once the salt-bag was forgotten,and then Svarten actually would not stir from theinn-yard, but lashed his tail at every cut of thewhip, and kept looking back, until the boy camerunning out of the hall and shouted out about thebag, then off he started willingly enough.

The captain had gone in and had wandered upand down in the room for a while with the letter of28the governor's wife in blue postal paper in his hand.He looked very much offended at Ma, when sheseemed to think more about the load from the citythan about his letter. She only suggested gently thatthey must talk about all that in the evening.

"All that—you say, Ma!—that Inger-Johannais invited down there next winter—and we haveRönnow to thank for it. That is short and clearenough, I should think! What? What?" he roaredout impatiently. "Is it not plain?—or have yousome notions about it?"

"Well, then you should not delay the wholeunloading of the goods with your quiet sigh, fullof importance, and your secret meanings which alwaysmake me mad. You know I hate it! I gostraight to the point always!"

"I was merely thinking about your uniform coat,whether the tailor has sent the pieces with it, youknow—"

The unpacking went on in the kitchen, beforethe spice closet with its numerous compartments,where raisins, prunes, almonds, the different kindsof sugar, allspice, and cinnamon, were each put intotheir own places. Now and then fell a tribute, aprune, two almonds, three raisins, to each of thechildren; and it could not be denied that this load29from the city was like a foretaste of Christmas Eve.

At first the captain was intensely interested ingetting hold of the ink bottles, the tobacco, and thestrong wares which were to be kept in the cellar—everythingelse must be put aside for them. Andthen he flew in and out, with one bill or another inhis hand and a quill pen full of ink, to comparewith the general bill which his wife had nailed upon the upper door of the spice closet.

"Ma, can you conceive such extortion?" stoppingsuddenly before the bill, which still finally wasalways found to be right, and then turning thoughtfullyround again, while he dried his pen in hischocolate-colored every-day wig.

His plethoric, vociferous, somewhat confusednature always became furious when he saw a bill;it operated like a red cloth on a bull, and when, asnow, all the half year's bills came storming down onhim at once, he both roared and bellowed. It wasan old story for his wife, who had acquired a remarkableskill in taking the bull by the horns.

The wrongs, which thus he didnot suffer, seemednevertheless to awaken an increasing storm of resentmentin him. With a violent tug at the door-latch,and his wig awry, he would come suddenlyin, exclaiming,—"Seventy-five dollars, three shillings,seventeen pence!—seventy-five—dollars—threeshillings—and seventeen pence!—it is almostenough to make one crazy. And so you ordered30citron—citron,"—he put on a falsetto tone, andlaughed out of pure rage. "He, he, he, he!—nowhave we the means for that? And then, almond soapfor the guest-chamber!" This last came in a deep,suppressed, gloomy bass. "I cannot understandhow you could have hit on that!"

"My dear, that was thrown in. Don't you seethat it isn't carried out for anything?"

"Thrown in—oh, thrown in—yes, there yousee how they cheat! Seventy-five dollars, three shillings,and seventeen pence—plainly that is enoughto be frightened at. Where shall I find the money?"

"But you have already found it, Jäger!—Rememberthe servants," she whispered quickly. Itwas a quiet prayer to put off the rest of the outbursttill later in the afternoon, between themselves.

The captain's various ecstatic flashes of passionabout the bills went over the house that afternoonlike a refreshing and purifying thunderstorm beforeChristmas. The children, cowed and tortured,took refuge during the storm under the protectionof their mother, who warded off the blast; but whenhis step was again heard in the office, they went on,just as persevering and inquisitive as before, peepinginto and shaking out the bags in order to finda raisin or two or a currant that had been forgotten,collecting the twine, looking after the weight,and cutting up the bar soap.

During all these anxieties the tall form of the31mistress stood in uninterrupted activity, bowed likea crane over the box with the city wares, which hadbeen lifted in on the kitchen floor. Jars, willow basketsfilled with hay, small bags, and an infinity ofpackages in gray wrappers, tied up with twine, smalland great, vanished by degrees into their differentresting-places, even to the last, the bag with the finewheat flour, which was brought in by Great-Olaand put by itself in the meal-chest in the pantry.

When the spice closet was finally shut, the captainstood there for the twentieth time. With theair of a man who had been made to wait and beentormented long enough, he gently tapped her onthe shoulder with his fingers and said, rather reproachfully,"It really astonishes me, Gitta, thatyou don't pay more attention to the letter we havereceived to-day."

"I haven't been able to think of anything elsethan your troubles with the bills, Jäger. Now Ithink you might taste the French brandy this evening,to see if it is good enough for the Christmaspunch. Cognac is so dear."

The plates with oatmeal porridge and the bluemilk in the cold cups were placed upon the table;they stood like black, dreary islands over the cloth,and presented no temptation to linger over theevening meal.

After the necessary part of it was swallowed andthe children were sent upstairs, the captain sat, nowquite cozy and comfortable, before the table, whichwas still extended, with his tobacco and his taste oftoddy made of the French brandy, whose transformationinto Christmas punch was going on inthe kitchen, from which there was also heard thesizzling of the waffle-iron.

"Only strong, Ma,—only strong!—Then youcan manage with the brown sugar.—Yes, yes," tastingof the wooden dipper which his wife brought in,"you can treat the sheriff to that with pleasure."

"Now Marit is coming in with the warm waffles,—andthen it was this about the letter of the governor'swife.—You see, Jäger, we cannot send thechild there unless we have her suitably fitted out;she must have a black silk confirmation dress, cityboots and shoes, a hat, and other things."

"Yes, and some other dresses, which we mustorder in Christiania; there is no help for it."

"So, so!—So, so! Well, if that is your idea, thenI think we will decline the invitation with thanks."

"I knew that, Jäger! You would like to have theyolk, but as to breaking the egg, you hesitate."

"I mean, you can call in a part of the six hundreddollars you got with me. I have thought and33reckoned it over. Inger-Johanna alone will cost usover one hundred dollars this year, and whenThinka is going to Ryfylke, we shall not get offwith two hundred."

"Over two hundred dollars!—Are you crazy?Are you crazy—really crazy, Ma? I think youhave a screw loose!" He made a sudden turn overthe floor. "The letter shall rather go at once intothe stove."

"And the slight chance Inger-Johanna mighthave of being provided for, that perhaps is not somuch to be taken into account. She is certainly thenearest relation. There is nothing in the way to preventher being the heir also.—N-no, do as youwill and as you like, Jäger. You probably see moreclearly in this than I do.—And then you will takethe responsibility yourself, Jäger,"—she sighed.

The captain crumpled the letter together, gaveher a hasty glance like a wounded lion, and thenstood awhile and stared at the floor. Suddenly hethrew the letter on the table and broke out: "Shemust go!—But the cost of the campaign—the costof the campaign, Ma, that, I learned in my strategy,must be borne by the enemy! And the governor'swife must naturally take care of her outfit there."

"The governor's wife, Jäger, must not pay foranything—not a bit—before she has decided if shewill keep her. We must not be anxious to be rid ofher; butshe shall be anxious to get her; and shemust ask us for her, both once and twice, youunderstand."

That the winter was coming on was less noticedthis year than usual. Two children were to be fittedout. Soon spinning-wheel and reel accompanied, inthe short day and long evening, the murmur of thestove. Ma herself spun all the fine woof for thelinsey-woolsey dresses. There was knitting, weaving,and sewing, nay, also embroidery on linen—"twelveof everything for each one." And in schoolhours in the office the captain worked not less zealouslywith the French grammar.

The stiffening cold frost, which blew about thehouse and cut like ice from every crack; the coldso fierce that the skin was torn off the hands whenany one was unlucky enough to take hold of thelatch of the outer door or of the porch without mittens;complaints of nail ache, when the childrencame in from out-of-doors; or else that the drinking-waterwas frozen solid in the tubs and pails, that themeat must be thawed out,—this was only what wasusual in the mountain region. The doleful, monotonoushowling and the long, hungry yelling of thewolves down on the ice could be heard from the35Gilje hills both by day and by night. The road onthe lake lasted a long time. It was there till long intothe spring thaw, though worn, unsafe, and blue withits dirt-brown mudstreak.

But when it did disappear, and the ice was meltedby the heat of the sun, there lay on the steep hillbehind the house a long line of bleaching linen, soshining white that it seemed as if the snow had forgottento go away there.

It was midsummer. The mountain region washazy in the heat; all the distance was as if envelopedin smoke. The girls on the farm went aboutbarefooted, in waists and short petticoats. It wasa scorching heat, so that the pitch ran in stickywhite lines down from the fat knots in the timberof the newly built pigsty, where Marit was givingswill to the hogs. Some sand-scoured wooden milk-pansstood on edge by the well, drying, while oneor two sparrows and wagtails hopped about orperched nodding on the well-curb, and the blows ofthe axe resounded from the wood-shed in the quietof the afternoon. Pasop lay panting in the shadebehind the outer door, which stood open.

The captain had finished his afternoon nap, andstood by the field looking at Great-Ola and thehorses ploughing up an old grassland which wasto be laid down again.

The bumble-bee was humming in the garden.With about the same monotonous voice, Thinkaand Inger-Johanna, sitting by the stone table in thesummer-house over the cracked blue book-coverand the dog-eared, well-thumbed leaves, mumbledthe Catechism and Commentary, with elbows andheads close to each other. They had to learn pageseighty-four to eighty-seven before supper time, and37they held their fingers in their ears so as not to disturbeach other.

There was darkness like a shadow just outside ofthe garden fence. But they saw nothing, heard nothing;the long passage of Scripture went way over onthe second page.

Then there was a gay clearing of a throat. "Mightone interrupt the two young ladies with earthlyaffairs?"

They both looked up at the same time. The lighthop leaves about the summer-house had not yetentirely covered the trellis.

With his arms leaning on the garden fence therestood a young man—he might have been standingthere a long time—with a cap almost without a visorover thick brown hair. His face was sunburned andswollen.

Neither of them saw more; for, by a common impulseat the phenomenon, they ran in utter panicout of the door, leaving the books spread open behindthem, and up the steps in to Ma, who wasin the kitchen buttering bread for lunch.

"There was a man standing—there was a manout by the garden fence. It was certainly not any onewho goes around begging or anything like that."

"Hear what he has to say, Jörgen," said Ma,38quickly comprehending the situation; "this way,out the veranda door. Appear as if you came of yourown accord."

Both the girls flew in to the windows of the bestroom in order to peep out under the curtains.

He was coming in by the steps to the outer doorwith Jörgen, who suddenly vanished from his sightinto the kitchen.

Little Thea stood in the door of the sitting-roomwith a piece of bread and butter, clutching the latch,and, holding the door half shut and half open, staredat him; she was altogether out of it.

"Yes, but you must go by the kitchen path, doyou hear? And wait till we have had lunch; he isnot going up to the office before that." She took himfor a man who was going to be put on the roll.

Ma herself came now; she had managed to gether cap on in her hurry, but it was all awry.

"A young man, I see, who has perhaps come along distance to-day. Please walk in."

Her smile was kind, but her eye underneath itwas as sharp as an officer's review; here were holesand darns with coarse thread for the nonce and rentsin abundance, and it was not easy to free herself fromthe suspicion of some questionable rover, especiallywhen he dropped straight in through the door39with the remark: "I come like a tramp from themountain wilds, madam. I must make many excuses."

Ma's searching look had in the mean time brokenthrough the shell. The white streak on the upperpart of the forehead, under the shade where the skinhad not been reddened by the sunburn, and hiswhole manner determined her to scrutinize himprudently. "Please sit down, Jäger is coming soon."She incidentally passed by the sewing-table and shutit. "Won't you let me send you a glass of milk inthe mean time?"

He put it to his mouth, noted with his eye howmuch he had drunk, drank again, and took anotherview.

"It is delightful—is not at all like the mistressof the house, for she seemed like sour milk, and"—hesuppressed a sigh—"dangerously dignified."

"Best to attack him at once. Dead broke, will youon my honest face lend me four—no, that does notsound well, better out with it at once—five dollars,so that I can get to Christiania?"

The small eyes twinkled quickly. If only thecaptain had come then! Some one was walkingabout out there.

He gazed abstractedly; he repeated his speechto himself. It was always altered, and now he stoodagain at the ticklish point—the amount. He consideredif perhaps he only needed to ask for four—three?

There was a growling out in the hall; the dogrushed out, barking loudly. It was plainly thecaptain.

The young man rose hurriedly, but sat downagain like a spring ready to jump up out of a chair:he had been in too great haste.

"In the parlor—some sort of fellow who wantsto talk with me?" It was out on the stairs thatsome one was speaking.

"I must beg you to excuse me, Captain. I haveunfortunately, unfortunately"—here he began tostammer; bad luck would have it that one of thetwo young girls whom he had seen in the summer-house,the dark one, came in after her father; andso it would not do—"come over the mountain,"he continued. "You will understand that one cannotexactly appear in the best plight." The lastcame in a tone of forced ease.

"Arent Grip!" rejoined the captain, looking athim. "Grip! the same phiz and eyes! You cannever be the son of Perpetuum—cadet at Lurleiken?He is a farmer, or proprietor I suppose hecalls himself, somewhere among the fjords."

"Does he still work as hard as ever at hismechanical ideas?" asked the captain. "I heardthat he had carried the water for his mill straightthrough the roof of the cow-barn, so that the cowsgot a shower bath, when the pipes sprung a leak."

Inger-Johanna caught a movement of indignation,as if the stranger suddenly grasped after hiscap. "Shame, shame, that those times did not givea man like my father a scientific education." Hesaid this with a seriousness utterly oblivious ofthe captain.

"So, so. Well, my boy, you must be kindenough to take a little lunch with us, before youstart off. Inger-Johanna, tell Ma that we wantsomething to drink and bread and butter. Youmust be hungry coming down from the mountains.Sit down.—And what is now your—youroccupation or profession in the world? if I mightask." The captain sauntered around the floor.

"Student; and, Captain," he gasped, in order touse quickly the moment while they were alone,"since I have been so free as to come in here thuswithout knowing you—"

"Student!" The captain stopped in the middleof the floor. "Yes, I would have risked my headon it, saw it at the first glance, but yet I was a littlein doubt. Well, yes," clearing his throat, "nearlyplucked, perhaps; eh, boy?" inquired he good-naturedly."Your father also had trouble with hisexaminations."

"I have not the fractional part of my father'sbrains, but with what I have, they gave me this yearlaudabilis praeceteris."

"Son of my friend, Fin Arentzen Grip!" Heuttered each one of the names with a certain tenderrecognition. "Your father was, all things considered,a man of good ability, not to say a little ofa genius,—when he failed in his officer's examination,it was all due to his irregular notions. Well,so you are his son! Yes, he wrote many a compositionfor me—the pinch was always with thecompositions, you see."

"And, Captain," began the young man againearnestly, now in a louder and more decided tone,"since I can thus, without further ceremony, confidentlyaddress you—"

"You can tell Ma," said the captain, when Inger-Johannaagain came in with her taller, overgrown43sister, "that it is Student Arent Grip, son ofmy old delightful comrade at the Military School."

The result of this last message was that the contemplatedplate with a glass and bread and butterwas changed to a little lunch for him and the captain,spread out on a tray.

The old bread-basket of red lacquer was filledwith slices of black, sour bread, the crusts of whichwere cracked off. More's the pity, Ma declared,it had been spoiled in the baking, and the gray,heavy crust was due to the fact that so much of thegrain on the captain's farm last year was harvestedbefore it was ripe.

The student showed the sincerity of his forbearanceof these defects through an absolutely murderousappetite. The prudential lumps of salt, whichstudded the fresh mountain butter with pearlytears in a superfluous abundance, he had a knackof dodging boldly and incisively, which did notescape admiring eyes; only a single short strokeof his knife on the under side of the bread andbutter, and the lumps of salt rained and patteredover the plate.

"You will surely have some dried beef? I guessyou have not had much to eat to-day. Go and getsome more, Thinka. A little dram with the cheese,what? You can believe that we tested many a goodold cheese in the den at your father's, and whenwe had a spree, we sent for it, and it circulated44round from one party to another; and then theapples from Bergen which he got by the bushelby freighting-vessel from home! He was such agreenhorn, and so kind hearted—too confiding forsuch rascals as we! Oh, how we hunted throughhis closet and boxes!—and then we did our exercisesat the same time; it was only his that theteacher corrected through the whole class." Thecaptain emptied the second part of his long dram."Ah!" He held his glass up against the light, andlooked through it, as he was accustomed to. "Butnevertheless, there was something odd about him,you know; you must see that such a one, straightfrom the country, does not fit in at once. Neverforget when he first lectured us about perpetualmotion. It was done with only five apples in awheel, he said, and the apples must be absolutelymathematically exact. It was that which got out andruined him, so people came to—yes, you know—commenton it, and make fun of him; and thathung on till the examination."

The young ladies, who were sitting with theirsewing by the window, also noticed how he had nowforgotten himself; during the whole time he hadkept one boot under the chair behind the other inorder to conceal the sole of his shoes gaping wideopen. They were in good spirits, and hardly daredto look at each other—son of a man who was called45Perpetuum, was a cadet, and gave the cows a bath.Father was dreadfully amusing when there werestrangers present.

"Not a moment's doubt that there were ideas—butthere was something obstinate about him.To come, as he did, straight from the farm, andthen to begin to dispute with the teacher aboutwhat is in the book, never succeeds well, especiallyin physics in the Military School. And you canbelieve that was a comedy."

"Hm, hm—naturally yes, his father to a dot,"he mumbled—"Hm, well, you have gotpraeceterisall the same,—will you have a drop more?" camethe hospitable diversion.

"No, I thank you. But I will tell you how it waswith my father. It was just as it was with a houndthey had once at the judge's. There was such bloodand spirit in him that you would search long to findhis equal; but one day he bit a sheep, and so he hadto be cured. It was done by locking him up in asheepfold. There he stood, alone before the ram andall the sheepfold. It seemed to him splendid fun.Then the ram came leaping at him, and the dogrolled heels over head. Pshaw, that was nothing;but after the ram came tripping—before he couldrise—all the fifty sheep trip—trip—trip, overhim; then he was entirely confused. Again they46stood opposite each other, and once more the ramrushed in on the dog, and trip—trip—trip—trip,came the feet of the whole flock of sheep over him.So they kept on for fully two hours, until the doglay perfectly quiet and completely stunned. Hewas cured, never bit a sheep again. But what he wasgood for afterwards we had better not talk about—hehad been through the Military School, Captain."

When he looked up, he met the dark, intenseeyes of the mistress fixed on him; her capped headimmediately bent down over the sewing again.

The captain had listened more and more eagerly.The cure of the hound interested him. It was onlyat the last expression he discovered that there wasany hidden meaning in it.

"Hm—my dear Grip. Ah! Yes, you think that.Hm, can't agree with you. There were skilful teachers,and—ho, ho,—really we were not sheep—ratherwolves to meet with, my boy. But the cure,I must admit, was disgraceful for a good dog, andin so far—well, a drop more?"

With the food and the glass and a half of cordialwhich he had enjoyed, new life had come into theyoung man. He looked at his clothes, and was evenso bold as to put his boots out; a great seam wentacross one knee.

"I certainly might be set up as a scarecrow fora terror and warning to all those who will departfrom the highway. It was all because at the post stationI met a deer-hunter, an excellent fellow. Thechap talked to me so long of what there was on themountain that I wanted to go with him."

"Extremely reasonable," muttered the captain,"when a man is paying for his son in Christiania."

"I had become curious, I must tell you, and sostarted off for the heart of the mountains."

"Is he not even more aggravatingly mad than hisfather,—to start in haphazard over the black, pathlessmountain?"

"The track led over the débris and stones atthe foot at first for five hours. But I don't knowwhat it is upon the mountain; it was as if somethinggot into my legs. The air was so fine andlight, as if I had been drinking champagne; it intoxicatedme. I should have liked to walk on myhands, and it would have been of no consequenceto any one in the whole wide world, for I was onthe summit. And never in my life have I seen sucha view as when we stood, in the afternoon, on themountain crest,—only cool, white, shining snow,and dark blue sky, peak on peak, one behind theother, in a glory as far as the eye could reach."

"Yes, we have snow enough, my boy. It standsclose up against the walls of the house here all winter,as clear, white, and cold as any one could wish.48We find ourselves very well satisfied with that,—butshow me a beautiful green meadow or a finefield of grain, my boy."

"It seemed to me as if one great fellow of amountain stood by the side of another and said:You poor, thin-legged, puny being, are you notgoing to be blown away in the blue draught, here onthe snow-field, like a scrap of paper? If you wishto know what is great, take your standard from us."

"You gotpraeceteris, you said, my man? Yes,yes, yes, yes! What do you say if we get the shoemakerto put a little patch on your shoes to-night?"

It was as much as an invitation to stay all night!—Extremelytempting to postpone the request tillnext day. "Thank you, Captain, I will not deny thatit might be decidedly practical."

"Tell the shoemaker, Jörgen, to take them assoon as he has put the heel-irons on those I am tohave for the survey of the roads."

Oh! So he is going away, perhaps early to-morrowmorning; it must be done this evening, nevertheless!Now, when the daughters were beginningto clear off the table, it was best to watch hischance.

The captain began walking up and down thefloor with short steps. "Yes, yes, true! Yes, yes,true! Would you like to see some fine pigs,Grip?"

The student immediately sprang up. The wayout! He grabbed his cap. "Do you keep many,Captain?" he asked, extremely interested.

"Come!—oh, it is no matter about goingthrough the kitchen—come out a little while onthe porch steps. Do you see that light spot in thewoods up there? That is where we took the timberfor the cow-house and the pigsty, two yearsago."

"Marit, Marit, here is some one who wants tosee your pigs. Now you shall be reviewed. There area sow and seven—you see. Ugh, ugh, yes. Hearyour little ones, Marit!—But it was the brick wall,you see. Right here was a swamp hole; it oozedthrough from the brook above. And now—see thedrain there?—as dry as tinder."

"Here is your hat, father!"—Jörgen came fromthe house—"and there are some of the peopledown from Fosse standing there and waiting."

There stood Svarten and Brunen, just unharnessed,50still dripping wet and with stiff hair afterthe work at the plough.

"Fine stall, eh?—and very light; the horses don'tcome out of the door half blind. Ho, Svarten, areyou sweaty now?"

"But, Ola," interrupted the latter, "see Brunen'scrib there! I don't like those bits. It can't be thathe bites it?"

"Ha, ha, ha—no, by no means." Ola grinnedslyly; he was not going to admit in a stranger's presencethat the captain's new bay was a cribber!

The captain had become very red; he pulled offhis cap, and hurriedly walked along with it in hishand—"such a rascal of a horse-trader!"

Out of the afternoon shade by the stable walls thetwo men just spoken of appeared.

"Is this a time of day to come to people?" heblurted out. "Ah well—go up to the office."

At this he strode over the yard, peeped into thewell, and turned towards the window of the sitting-room.

"Girls! Inger-Johanna—Thinka," he called ina loud tone. "Ask Ma if that piece of meat is goingto lie there by the well and rot."

"Marit has taken it up, we are going to have itfor supper," Thinka tried to whisper.

"Oh! Is it necessary on that account to keep itwhere Pasop can get it?—Show the student downinto the garden, so that he can get some currants,"he called out of the door, as he went up by thestables to his office.

Arent Grip's head, covered with thick brown hair,with the scanty flat cap upon it, could now be seenfor a good long time among the currant bushes bythe side of Thinka's little tall, blond one. At firsthe talked a great deal, and the sprightly, bright,brown eyes were not in the least wicked, Thinkathought. She began to feel rather a warm interest inhim.

He found his boots in the morning standingmended before his bed, and a tray with coffee andbreakfast came up to him. He had said he must beoff early.

When he came down, the captain stood on thestairs with his pipe. Over his fat neck, where thebuckle of his military stock shone, grayish locks ofhair stuck out under his reddish wig. He was lookingout a little discontentedly into the morning fog,speculating on whether it would settle or rise so thathe would dare order the mowing to go on.

"Captain, can—will you lend me—" in his firstcourage of the morning he had thought of five, butit sank to four even while he was on the stairs, andnow in the presence of the captain to—"three dollars?I have used up every shilling I had to get toChristiania with. You shall have them by moneyorder immediately."

The captain hemmed and hawed. He had almostsuspected something of the sort yesterday in the fellow'sface—yes, such a student was the kind of afellow to send back a money order!

There began to be a sort of an ugly grin on hisface. But suddenly he assumed a good-natured, freeand easy mien. "Three dollars, you say?—If I hadthree in the house, my boy! But here, by fits andstarts in the summer, it is as if the ready money wasclean swept away." He stuck his unoccupied handin the breast of his uniform coat, and looked vacantlyout into the air. "Ah! hm-hm," came after a dreadfullyoppressive pause. "If I was only sure of gettingthem back again, I would see if I could pick upthree or four shillings at any rate in Ma's householdbox—so that you could get down to the sheriff orthe judge. They are excellent people, I know them;they help at the first word."

The captain, puffing vigorously at his pipe, wentinto the kitchen to Ma, who was standing in the53pantry and dealing out the breakfast. She had thehay-making and the whole of the outside affairsupon her shoulders.

"Well, if Ma did not have the three dollars afterall! So I have got them for you. And so good-byfrom Gilje! Let us hear when you get there."

It is true that at first Ma had stopped for a momentand pinched her lips together, and then shehad declared as her most settled opinion that, if thecaptain was going to help at all, it must be with allthree. He did not seem one of those who shirkedeverything—was not one who was all surface—andit would not do at all to let him beg at the judge's, thesheriff's, and perhaps the minister's, because hecould not get a loan of more than three shillings atGilje.

From time to time Thinka told of all that she andthe student had talked about together.

"Oh, he was entertaining almost all the time; Ihave never heard any one so entertaining."

"Oh, yes, he asked why you were reading54French. Perhaps you were to be trained to be a parrot,so that you could chatter when you came to thecity.

"He asked how old you were; and then I saidthat you were to be confirmed and to go there.He was very well acquainted at the governor'shouse; he had done extra writing, or something ofthat sort, at the office, since he had been a student."

She wrinkled her eyebrows and looked upsharply, so that Thinka hastened to add: "Whoevercomes there must be able to wind like a sewingthread around the governor's wife, he said; itwould be a shame for your beautiful neck to geta twist so early."

Thinka had gone to Ryfylke. Her place at thetable, in the living-room, in the bed-chamber, was55empty air. The captain started out time after timeto call her.

The sealskin trunk with new iron bands stoodopen in the hall ready for packing. The cariolewas standing in the shed, greased so that the oilwas running out of the ends of the axles, and Great-Ola,who was to start the next morning on the threedays' journey, was giving Svarten oats.

The captain had been terribly busy that day:no one understood how to pack as he did.

Ma handed over to him one piece of the newprecious stuff after the other; the linen from Giljewould bear the eye of the governor's wife.

But the misfortune of it was that the bloodrushed so to Jäger's head when he stooped over.

"Hullo, good! I don't understand what youare thinking of, Ma, to come with all that load ofcotton stockings at once! It is this, this, this Iwant."

Naturally, used to travelling as he was—"But itis so bad for you to stoop over, Jäger."

He straightened up hurriedly. "Do you thinkGreat-Ola has the wit to rub Svarten with Rigaliniment on the bruise on his neck and to take thebottle with him in his bag? If I had not thoughtof that now, Svarten would have had to trot withit. Run down and tell him that, Thea.—Oh, no!"56he drew a despairing breath; "I must go myself,and see that it is done right."

There was a pause until his footfall had ceasedto creak on the lowest step. Then Ma began topack with precipitous haste: "It is best to spareyour father from the rush of blood to his head."

The contents of the trunk rose layer upon layer,until the white napkin was at last spread over itand covered the whole, and it only remained to situpon the lid and force the key to turn in the lock.

Towards supper time the worst hubbub andtrouble were over. Ma's hasty-pudding, as smoothas velvet, with raspberry sauce, was standing on thetable, and solemnly reminded them that again therewould be one less in the daily circle.

Certainly she is beautiful, the apple of his eye.Only look at her hands when she is eating! Sheis as delicate and pale as a nun.

"You must write every month, child—at lengthand about everything—do you hear?—large andsmall, whatever you are thinking of, so that yourfather may have something to take pleasure in,"Ma admonished, while they were clearing off thetable. "And listen now, Inger-Johanna," she continuedwhen they were alone in the pantry: "If itis so that the governor's wife wants to read yourletters, then put a little cross by the signature.But if there is anything the matter, tell it to oldAunt Alette out in the bishop's mansion; then Ishall know it when Great-Ola is in for the cityload. You know your father can bear so little thatis disagreeable."

"The governor's wife read what I write to youand father! That I will defy her to do."

"You must accommodate yourself to her wishes,child. You can do it easily when you try, and youraunt is extremely kind and good to those she likes,when she has things her own way. You know howmuch may depend on her liking you, and—youunderstand—getting a little fond of you. She hascertainly not asked you there without thinking ofkeeping you in the place of a daughter."

"Any one else's daughter? Take me from youand father? No, in that case I would rather nevergo there."

"Come, come, Inger-Johanna." Ma stroked herhair with her hand. "We do not wish to lose you;you know that well enough,"—her voice trembled."It is for your own advantage, child. What do youthink you three girls have to depend upon, if yourfather should be taken away? We must be glad ifa place offers, and even take good care not to loseit; remember that, always remember that, Inger-Johanna.You have intelligence enough, if you canalso learn to control your will; that is your danger,child."

Inger-Johanna looked up at her mother withan expression almost of terror. She had a bitterstruggle to understand. In her, in whom she hadalways found aid, there was suddenly a glimpse ofthe helpless.

"I can hardly bear to lose the young one outof my sight to-night, and you leave me alone inthere," came the captain, creaking in the door."You haven't a thought of how desolate and lonesomeit will be for me, Ma." He blew out like awhale.

"We are all coming in now, and perhaps fatherwill sing a little this evening," Ma said encouragingly.

The captain's fine, now a little hoarse, bass washis pride and renown from his youth up.

The clavichord was cleared of its books and papers—the59cover must be entirely lifted when father wasto sing.

It stood there with its yellow teeth, its thin, hightone, and its four dead keys; and Ma must playthe accompaniment, in which always, in some partor other, she was left lying behind, like a sack thathas fallen out of a wagon, while the horse patientlytrots on over the road. His impatience she borewith stoical tranquillity.

This evening he went throughHeimkringlaspanna,du höga Nord, andVikingebalken, to

In the evening the captain was sitting, with twocandles in tin candlesticks, smoking and readingHermoder. At the other end of the table the lightwas used by Jörgen, who was studying his lessons;he must worry out the hours that had been assigned,whether he knew the lessons or not.

The frosty panes shone almost as white as marblein the moonlight, which printed the whole of a palewindow on the door panel in the lower, unlightedend of the sitting-room.

Jörgen raised his head, covered with coarse, yellowhair, from his book. It was the second time hehad heard them, far away on the hill; but, like thesentinels of Haakon Adelstensfostre at the beacon,of whom he was just reading, he did not dare tojump up from his reading and give the alarm untilhe was sure.

But, notwithstanding he pretended that he wasdeeply absorbed in the esthetic depths ofHermoder,the captain also sat with open ears.

"If you disturb me again, Jörgen, you shall hearthe bells about your own ears."

The trader, Öjseth, was the last one the captaincould think of wishing to see at the farm. He keptwriting and writing after those paltry thirty dollarsof his, as if he believed he would lose them. "Hm!hm!" He grew somewhat red in the face, and readon, determined not to see the man before he wasstanding in the room.

"If you move off the spot, boy, I'll break yourarms and legs in pieces!" foamed the captain, nowred as copper. "Sit—sit still and read!"

He intended also to sit still himself. That scoundrelof a trader—he should fasten his horse himselfat the doorsteps, and help himself as he could.

"Hold your tongue!" said the captain in a murderousdeep bass, and with a pair of eyes fixed onhis son as if he could eat him.

The truth of his martyrdom was established inthe same moment, because the short, square formof the military doctor appeared in the door.

His fur coat was all unbuttoned, and the tip ofhis long scarf trailed behind him on the threshold.He held his watch out: "What time is it?"

"Now, then, may the devil take your body andsoul to hell, where you long ago belonged, if it isn'tyou, Rist!"

"And here I go and lick Jörgen for—well, well,boy, you shall be excused from your lesson and canask for syrup on your porridge this evening. Goout to Ma, and tell her Rist is here."

The captain opened the kitchen door: "Hullo,Marit! Siri! A girl in here to pull off the doctor'sboots! All the diseases of the country are in yourclothes."

The doctor had got his fur coat off. The short,muscular man, with broad face and reddish-graywhiskers, stood there in a fur cap, swallowed up ina pair of long travelling boots.

"No, no," he exclaimed to the girl, who was makingan effort to pull them off. "Oh, listen, Jäger;63will you go out and feel of the bay's hind leg, if thereis a wind-gall? He began to stumble a little, justhere on the hill, I thought, and to limp."

"He has very likely got bruised." The captaineagerly grabbed his hat from the clavichord andwent with him.

Outside by the sleigh they stood, thinly clothedin the severe frost, and felt over the hamstring andlifted up the left hind foot of the bay. For a finalexamination, they went into the stable.

"I tell you, you might just as well have said hehad glanders in his hind legs. If you are not a betterjudge of curing men than you are of horses, Iwouldn't give four shillings for your whole medicalexamination."

"That brown horse of yours, Jäger—that is astrange fodder he takes. Doesn't he content himselfwith crib-splinters?" retorted the doctor, slylybantering.

"Heard it, heard it; he gnawed like a saw therein the crib. He has cheated you unmercifully—thatman from Filtvedt, you know."

"Oh, oh, in a year he will be tall enough for a cavalryhorse. But this I shall concede, it was a goodtrade when you got the bay for sixty-five."

"Sixty and a binding dram, not a doit more. ButI would not sell him, if you offered me a hundredon the spot."

Now, it was Aslak of Vaelta who had cut his footlast Thursday hewing timber—Ma had bandagedhim—and then Anders, who lived in the cottage,was in a lung fever. The parish clerk had beenthere and bled him; six children up in that hut—notgood if he should be taken away.

"We will put a good Spanish-fly blister on hisback, and, if that does not make him better, thena good bleeding in addition."

"Bleed—bleed—it is the blood which must begot away from the chest, or the inflammation willmake an end of him. I will go and see him to-morrowmorning—and for Thea's throat, camphor oiland a piece of woollen cloth, and to bed to sweat—anda good spoonful of castor-oil to-night—youcan also rub the old beggar woman about the bodywith camphor, if she complains too much. I will giveyou some more."

After supper the old friend of the house sat withhis pipe and his glass of punch at one end of thesofa, and the captain at the other. The red tint ofthe doctor's nose and cheeks was not exclusively tobe attributed to the passage from the cold to the65snug warmth of the room. He had the reputation ofrather frequently consoling his bachelorhood withardent spirits.

They had talked themselves tired about horsesand last year's reminiscences of the camp, and hadnow come to more domestic affairs.

"The news, you see, is blown here both from thecity and the West; old Aunt Alette wrote beforeChristmas that the governor's wife had found outshe must drive with both snaffle and curb."

"I thought so," said the doctor, chewing hismouthpiece. "The first thing of importance inmanaging is to study the nature of the beast; andInger-Johanna's is to rear; she must be treatedgently."

"And that sister-in-law never believed that somuch inborn stuff could grow up in the wild mountainregion."

The captain began to puff impatiently. Ma wouldsurely sometime get supper ready and come in, sohe could get to his daughter's letters.

"You can believe he is a real pelican, that oldjudge down in Ryfylke! Orders them round andbellows—keeps them hot both in the office and inthe house. I wonder if he won't sometime apply foran office somewhere else; for that is what he threatensto do every time he sees an office vacant, Thinkawrites. Let us have the letters, Ma, and my spectacles,"he exclaimed, when she came in. "The first66is of November, so you shall hear about your goddaughter'scoming to the governor's, Rist."

When Great-Ola put my baggage inside the streetdoor, I almost wanted to seat myself in the carioleand drive the three days home again; but then atonce I thought, best to march straight on, as fathersays! I went past the servant and inside the halldoor. It was very light there, and a great many outsidegarments and hats and caps were hanging onthe pegs, and twice two servant-girls flew throughwith trays and teacups, without troubling themselvesabout me in the least. But I thought that theone who had fallen into the midst of things was yourbeloved daughter. My outside garments were off ina jiffy; I knocked once, twice, three times. I hardlyknew what to do with myself, so I gently turnedthe knob. Thank heaven, there was no one there.There was another door with a portière, which Ionly needed to shove a little aside, and then—I wasplunged right into the centre of it. Nay, how shallI describe it? It was a corner room that I had entered:there was only mahogany furniture and upholsteredeasy chairs, and pictures in gilded framesover the sofa; the other pictures were in darkframes; but I did not see a doit of all that, for Ithought at first that it was dark. But it wasn't dark67at all. There was just a shade over the astral lampon the table, and neither more nor less than a wholecompany. There in the lion's den, with the marriedladies on the corner sofa, sat a number of peopledrinking tea.

I stood there in the middle of the floor, and thereddish brown linsey-woolsey, I believed, couldsurely defend itself.

"Who is it?—What? Can it be my dear Inger-Johanna?My husband's niece!" was said from thetable. "You have come just like a wild mountainrose, child, with the rain still on your face—and socold!" as she touched me. But I saw very well thatshe had her eye on my dress. I am sure it is too longin the waist, I thought; that is what I said at home.But then I forgot the whole dress, for it was indeedmy aunt, and she embraced me and said, "You areheartily welcome, my dear child! I think now a cupof good hot tea will do her good, Miss Jörgensen,—andwill you ask Mina to put her room in order upstairs!"And then she seated me on a soft cushionedchair by the side of the wall.

There I sat in the twilight, with a teacup in mylap, and biscuits—how I got them I cannot remember—andthought, is it I or not I?

At first it was not easy to see those who sat aboutin the soft stuffed chairs; what I saw nearest to mewas a piece of a foot, with spurs and a broad red68stripe along the side, which rocked up and down thewhole time. Now and then a head with a fine lacecap bobbed up into the light to put down a cup orto replenish it. The lamp-shade made just a roundring in the room, not a foot from the table.

In the light under the astral lamp-shade, aunt wassitting, bowed down over a little black contrivancewith the image of a negro on it, and was burningpastilles; her hair, on both sides of her forehead,was made into stiff, grayish curls.

The bright, shining tea-kettle stood singing overthe beautiful blue cups of that old Copenhagenporcelain, of which you have four pairs in the cabinet,which came from grandmother's. I could nothelp looking all the time on aunt's face, with thegreat earrings showing through the lace. I thoughtthe antique tea-kettle, which is like a vase or urn,resembled her so much, with the haughty stiffcurve of her chin! It was just as if they belongedtogether from—I don't know from what time, itcould not be from the time of the creation, I suppose.And then when the conversation among themcame to a stop and it was still as if there were not ahuman being there, the machine puffed and snortedas it were with aunt's fine Danish twist to the R:Arvet! Arvet! (inherited)—and in between it bubbledZittow, von Zittow. It was what you told me,69mother, about the Danish Zittow, who was diplomatistin Brussels, that was buzzing in me.

But it really did not look as if aunt thought therewas any hurry about seeing uncle. And then whenaunt sent Miss Jörgensen with some tea into thenext room, where they were playing cards, I at onceasked if I could be allowed to go with her.

"With all my heart, my child, it would be ashame to tax your patience any longer. And then,Miss Jörgensen, take our little traveller up to herroom, and see that she has something to eat, andlet her go to bed." But I saw very plainly that shepulled the lamp-shade down on the side I was going;that I thought of afterwards.

"What? what? what?" said my uncle. Youshould have seen him gaze at me. He looked somuch like you, mother, about the forehead andeyes that I threw my arms around his neck.

He held me before him with his arms stretchedout. "But really I think it is Aunt Eleonore allover! Well, well, now don't fancy you are such abeauty!"

Shortly after I was lying in bed in my elegant70little blue room, with curtains with long fringes.There were pastilles on the stove, and Miss Jörgensen—justthink, she called me Miss!—almostundressed me and put me between all the soft downquilts.

There I lay and thought it all over, and becamehotter and hotter in my head and face, till at lastit seemed as if I was thumping in the cariole withSvarten and Ola.

"Look out if you don't get her back to Giljeagain in a carriage," added the doctor.

"She was so handsome, Rist," exclaimed thecaptain, quite moved. "It seems as if I see her,standing there in the middle of the floor at brother-in-law's,with her heavy black hair dressed upon herneck. From the time when she used to run abouthere, with the three long braids down her back, it wasas if she developed into a swan all at once, when shecame to dress in the clothes of a full-grown person—Youremember her on confirmation day, Rist?"

The captain cautiously unfolded a letter, closelywritten on a large sheet of letter paper.

"You can certainly skip over to the next page,"remarked Ma with a certain emphasis.

To think that father, and you also, mother, cannotsee my two new dresses! Aunt is inconceivablygood. It is impossible to walk any other way thanbeautifully in this kind of shoes; and that auntsays I do; it is just as if you always felt a dancing-floorunder your feet. And yesterday aunt gaveme a pair of patent leather sandals with buckleson the ankles. Did you ever hear of such! Yes—Ikissed her for that, too, this time; she could saywhat she liked. For you must know, she says thatthe first rule of life for a lady is a kind of confident,reserved repose, which, however, may becordial! I have it naturally, aunt says, and onlyneed to cultivate it. I am going to learn to playon the piano and go through a regular course oflessons in dancing.

Aunt is so extremely good to me, only she willhave the windows shut when I want them open.Of course I don't mean in the sitting-room, where72they have pasted themselves in with double panes,but up in my own room. Just fancy, first doublewindows and then stuffy curtains, and then all thehouses, which are near us across the street; youcan't breathe, and much use it is to air out therooms by the two upper panes twice a day!

Aunt says that I shall gradually get accustomedto the city air. But I don't see how I can, when Inever get acquainted with it. Not once during thewhole winter have I frozen my fingers! We go outfor a short drive in the forenoon, and then I gowith aunt in the shops in the afternoon, and thatis the whole of it. And you can believe it is quiteanother thing to go out here than at home; whenI only jumped over a little pile of shovelled-upsnow, in order to get into the sleigh more quickly,aunt said that every one could instantly see mannersfrom my state of nature, as she always says.For all the movements I make, I might just as wellhave chains on both legs, like the prisoners we seesome days in the fort.

And now aunt wants me not to go bare-footedon the floor of my chamber. Nay, you should haveseen her horror when I told her how Thinka andI, at the time of the breaking up of the ice lastyear, waded across the mill stream in order toavoid the roundabout way by the bridge! At lastI got her to laughing with me. But I certainlybelieve that the pair of elegant slippers with swansdown73on them, which stuck out of a package thismorning, are for me! You see now, it is into them,nevertheless, that my sweet little will must be put.

"She is on her guard lest they should want to puta halter about her neck," mumbled the doctor.

Ma sighed deeply. "Such sweet small wills areso apt to grow into big ones, and"—again a sigh—"womendon't get on in the world with that."

The doctor looked meditatively down into hisglass: "One of woman's graces is flexibility, theysay; but on the other hand, she is called 'proudmaiden' in the ballad. There is something like acontradiction in that."

"Oh, the devil! Divide them into two platoons!It is mostly the ugly who have to be pliable," saidthe captain.

"Beauty does not last so very long, and so it isbest to think of the years when one has to be accommodating,"remarked Ma, down in her knitting-work.

The French is done in a twinkling. I am alwaysready with that before breakfast, and aunt is socontented with my pronunciation; but then thepiano comes from nine to eleven. Ugh! only exercises;and then aunt receives calls. Guess whocame day before yesterday? No one else than Student74Grip. It was just as if I must have knownhim ever so well, and liked him even better, soglad was I at last to see any one who knew aboutus at home. But just think, I am not entirely surethat he did not try to dictate to aunt; and then hehad the boldness to look at me as if I should agreewith him. Aunt helped him to a place in uncle'soffice, because she heard that he had passed such anexcellent examination and was so gifted, but hadalmost nothing from home to study on.

"I ventured my three dollars on him—But howthe fellow could manage to take such high honorspasses my comprehension," threw out the captain.

And then aunt thought he would be the better fora little polish in his ways, and enjoined him tocome to her fortnightly receptions; she likes to haveyoung people about her; but he let aunt see thathe regarded that as a command and compulsion.And now he came in fact to make a sort of excuse.But how they talked!

"Well, then, we shall see you again at some ofour Thursday evenings?" said aunt.

"Your ladyship no doubt remembers the occasionof my remaining away. It was my ill-bred objections75to the seven unanimous teacups which gavesupreme judgment in your celebrated small tea-fights."

"See, see, see," aunt smiled. "I can't be wrongwhen I say that you are really made for social life;there is need just there for all one's best sides."

"Now you are in the humor of contradictionagain; and there one gets entangled so easily, youknow."

"I only think that when one does not agree withwhat is said, and keeps silent, one lies."

"Then people offer up to good form, withoutwhich no social intercourse can exist."

"Perhaps more correctly a little of their vanity,an opportunity of exhibiting some bright and shiningtalent; that tempts young men greatly, I believe."

"Do you see?" But then aunt said, for she neverabandons her text: "A little good manners is notout of place; and when I see a bright young studentstand talking with his hands in his pockets, or riding76backwards on a chair, then, whether the oneconcerned takes my motherly candor ill or not, Ialways try by a little hint to adjust the defects inhis education."

You should have seen him! Hands out of hispockets, and at once he sat up before her, as straightas a candle.

"If all were like your ladyship, I would recommendmaking calls," said he, "for you are an honestwoman."

"I mean an honest governor's lady; besides, Idon't at all say a good-natured!" and then he shookthat great brown lock of hair down over his forehead.

I do not need to wish for any portrait of you,for I lie thinking, in the evenings, that I am athome. I see father so plainly, walking up and downthe room whistling, and then starting off up theoffice stairs; and I pull your hair, Jörgen! and pokeyour head down into the geography, so that I getyou after me, and we run round, in one door andout another, up and down in the house. Nay, Ilong horribly at times. But I must not let aunt seethat; it would be ungrateful. She does not believethat one can exist anywhere but in a city.

And then there are a lot of things which I havebeen obliged to draw a black mark through, becauseI don't at all understand them. Only think,77mother! Aunt says, that it may at most be allowableto say that we have cows at home; but I mustnot presume to say that any one of them has a calf!I should like to know how they think we get newcows, when we kill the old ones for Christmas?

Here the captain interpolated some inarticulatenoises. But an expression of anxiety came overMa's face, and she said faintly:

"That is because, unfortunately, we have notbeen able to keep the children sufficiently away fromthe servants' room, and from everything they hearthere."

"You see, madam," declared the doctor, "in thecity people are so proper that a hen hardly dares tolay eggs—It is only the products of the efforts ofthe land that they are willing to recognize, I cantell you."

"No," the captain put in, "it is not advisable fora poor mare to be so indiscreet as to have a foalthere."

Ma had been gone upstairs for more than an hour,and the clock was getting on towards twelve.

The captain and the doctor were now sittingsomewhat stupidly over the heeltaps in their mugs,a little like the dying tallow candles, which stood78with neglected wicks, almost burned down into thesockets and running down.

"Keep your bay, Rist. Depend on me—he hasgot to get up early who takes me in on a horse—withmy experience, you see. All the cavalry horsesI have picked out in my time!"

"You are thinking of the cribber," said the captain,getting into a passion; "but that was the mostrascally villainy—pure cheating. He might havebeen taken into court for that—But, as I tell you,keep your bay."

"See there, see there,—but that is your own faultand not the bay's, my boy. You are always tired ofthe beast you have. If you should count all thehorses you have swapped, it would be a rare stable."

"That's all bosh. I should cure him of that ina fortnight, with a little breaking to harness."

"Oh, I am tired of sitting and pulling and haulingon one rein to keep him out of the side of theditch; if it were not for that, the beast should nevergo out of my hand. No, had it been only that hemade a few splinters in the crib."

The captain assumed a thoughtful expression;he leaned against the back of the sofa, and gave twoor three deep, strong pulls on his pipe.

"But my Brunen is nothing at all to talk about—alittle gnawing only—with the one eye-tooth."

"Besides, my Brunen is a remarkably kind animal—thundersa little on the crib down in the stall—ahorse can hardly have less of a fault, and thenso thoroughly easy on the rein—knows if one onlytouches it—so extremely sensitive in his mouth—aregular beauty to drive on the country road."

"Look here, Rist! All things considered, thatwas a driving horse for you—stands so obediently,if one just lays the rein over his back."

"Swap off the bay, do you mean?" pondered thedoctor, in a doubting tone,—"hadn't really thoughtof that." He shook his head—"Only I can't understandwhy he is so stiff on one rein."

"I cheated? Ha, ha, ha!" The captain shookwith laughter and with quiet consciousness. "Done,boy! We will swap."

"Always my nature, you see—to get the thingclosed up at once, on the nail. And so we will takea drink to close the bargain," shouted the captaineagerly; he pulled his wig awry, and sprang up.

The captain was wholly absorbed in breaking thebay to harness. The horse turned his head to theright, and kept over on the side of the road just asfar as he could for the rein. It was impossible tofind any reason for it.

This morning he had broken off one of the trace-pinsby driving against the gate-post. Was it possiblethat he was afraid of a shadow? That was anidea!—and the captain determined to try him inthe moonlight that evening.

Great-Ola had taken the bay out of his stall, andwas standing shaking his fist against the horse'sforehead.

"Well, I have tried him every way, Captain, buthe wouldn't wink, not even if I broke his skull with81the back of an axe—he doesn't move! And nowsee how he jumps!" He raised his hand towardsthe other side of the horse's head. "But in his lefteye he is as blind as a shut cellar door."

The captain stood awhile without saying a word;the veins on his forehead swelled up blue, and hisface became as red as the collar on his uniform coat.

"Well, then." In a rage he gave Ola a box onhis ears. "Are you standing there threatening thehorse, you dog?"

When Ola was feeding the horse at night, thecaptain went into the stall. He took the lanternand let it shine on the bay. "No use to cure youof going into the ditch—See there, Ola, take thatshilling, so that you at all events may profit by it."

Ola's broad face lighted up with cunning. "Thedoctor must provide himself with planks, for theone he got ate up three two-inch boards while wehad him."

"Look here, Ola," nodded the captain, "it is notworth while to let him hear anything but that thebay can see with both eyes here with us."

When Great-Ola, in breaking-up time in spring,was driving a load of wood home from the Giljeridge, he was obliged to turn out on a snow-driftfor Dr. Rist, who was coming in a sleigh from thenorth.

"Driving with the bay, I see. Has the captain82got him so that he's all right? Does he cling just ashard to the side of the road?"

"No, of course not. The captain was the man tomake that all right. He is no more one-sided nowthan I am."

"As if I was going to believe that, you liar,"mumbled the doctor, while he whipped his horseand drove on.

At dinner time there was a sultry breathing spell,during which Jörgen and Thea sat with their eyeson their plates, extremely cautious not to give anyoccasion for an explosion.

The fruit of Jörgen's best exertions to keephimself unnoticed was nevertheless, as usual, lesshappy. During the soup he accidentally made aloud noise in eating with his spoon which led to athundering "Don't slobber like a hog, boy."

After dinner the captain all at once felt the necessityof completing certain computations on achart and surveying matter that had been left sincethe autumn.

And now it was not advisable to come too nearthe office! He had an almost Indian quickness ofhearing for the least noise, and was absolutely wildwhen he was disturbed.

It became quiet, a dead calm over the wholehouse. The spinning-wheel alone could be heardhumming in the sitting-room, and they went gentlythrough the doors below, in genuine terror whenin spite of all they creaked or some one happenedto let the trap-door into the cellar fall or make theporch door rattle.

How could that foolish Torbjörg hit upon scouringthe stairs now? When she hurriedly retreatedwith her sand and pail, her open mouth and staringeyes showed plainly that she did not comprehendthe peculiar inward connection between herscouring and the captain who was sitting safely upthere in his office: it was enough that he would fallat once like a tempest down from the upper story.

What had become of the old blue portfolio ofdrawings? It had been lying on the table in the hallupstairs—

There—there on the table—there! it had beenlying for five months! Was it the intention to makehim entirely miserable with all this putting in orderand cleaning?

"But dear, dear Jäger, we shall find it, if you willonly have a little patience—if we only look for it."

And there was a search round about everywhere;even in the garret, under old window-panes, andamong tables, reels, chests, and old trumpery theyransacked. In his anxious zeal, Jörgen stood on hishead, digging deep down into a barrel, when Ma atlength sagaciously turned the investigation into theoffice again. "On top of the cabinet in the office85there is a large blue portfolio, but you have lookedthere, of course."

He flung down his ruling-pen; he really was notin a mood to work any longer! He sat lookinggloomily out before him with his elbows leaningagainst his writing-desk. "It is your fault I say, Ma!—orwas it possibly I who had the smart idea ofsending her to Ryfylke?" He struck the desk. "Itis blood money—blood money, I say! If it is togo on in this way, what shall we have to get Jörgenon with?—Huf, it goes to my head so—eighteendollars actually thrown into the brook."

"She must have a Sunday dress; Thinka hasnow worn the clothes she brought from home overa year and a half."

"Even new laced cloth shoes from Stavanger.Yes, indeed, not less than from Stavanger—it is putdown so—" he snatched the bill from the desk—"anda patent leather belt, and for half-soling andmending shoes two dollars and a quarter—andthen sewing things! I never heard that a young girlin a house bought sewing things—and postage adollar and a half—it is wholly incredible."

"For the year and a half, you must remember,Jäger, fifteen cents for each letter."

"A miserly judge, I say, who does not even payfor the letters which go from the office! Now, whydid she write last when she had just before sent messagesin the letter from your sister-in-law? But thereit comes with a vengeance—four and a half yardsof silk ribbon! Why didn't she make it ten, twentyyards—as long as from here to Ryfylke? Then shemight have broken her father at once; for I see whatit leads to."

"Remember they go on visits and to parties atthe sheriffs, the minister's, and the solicitor's, veryoften; we must let her go decently dressed."

"Oh, I never heard before that daughters mustcost money. It is a brand-new rule you have hit upon;and what is it coming to?"

"Yes, don't you think it looks like a fine harvest—thiscountry Adonis there in the office, whocasts sheep's eyes at her—a poor clerk who doesnot have to pass an examination! But he is so quickat the partition of inheritances, ha, ha."

"Ye-es, Thinka wrote that; he is so quick inthe partition of inheritances, he is! Don't you thinkthat was rather a nice introduction by her for him?"He hummed. "It is clear as mud that she is takenwith him; otherwise your sister-in-law would nothave written about it as she did."

"Thinka has a gentle nature," came the answersomewhat slowly and thoughtfully, "and is certainlyso easily hoodwinked, poor thing, warm and susceptibleas she is; but still she has now seen enoughof the world about her!"

"Yes, the world does not move in verse! AsLieutenant Bausback said when he paid his debtswith old Mother Stenberg; she was exactly threeand a half times as old as he when they were married."

"She has always been pliable—we may hope thatshe is amenable to a word from her parents. I willwrite and represent to her the prospects."

"The prospects! Don't meddle with that, Ma!Marriages don't grow on trees. Or what kind ofa match do you think Thinka can make up here?When I am old and retired on a pension, it is a nicelookout with all our daughters on our hands! Don'tlet us be mad with pride, Ma, stark mad! That runsin your blood and that of all the Zittows."

Ma's lips stiffened a little and her eyes lookedkeenly black; but it was over in a moment. "Ithink that after all we might economize on porkand butter here in the house; it is not half so saltas it is used in many places for servants, and then,when the pigs—only the hams, I mean—can gowith the load to the city, then we can very likelyfind some way to get the money in again. Otherwise,I should be entirely disheartened. But if weare to send the money, I think you ought to send88it to the post-office at once, Jäger. They ought notto see anything but that you pay cash down."

The captain rose and puffed. "Ten and five arefifteen—and three are eighteen." He counted themoney out of a drawer in his desk. "We shall neversee the money again. Where are the scissors, thescissors, I say?"

He began to cut the envelope for the moneyletter out of an old gray wrapper of an officialletter, which he turned.

"Your coat and comforter are lying here, by thestove," said Ma, when she came in again.

"There. Put the sealing-wax and seal in the insidepocket, so that I shall not forget them; otherwiseI must pay for sealing."

It was as if the captain's bad humor had beenswept away when he came back hastily from thepost-office. He had found a letter from Inger-Johanna,and immediately began to peep into it; butit became too dark.

His coat was off in a trice, and, with his hat stillon, he began eagerly to read by the newly lightedcandle.

He could not see any more, as the candle madea halo of obscurity, and they had to wait till thewick burned up again.

That such a ball cannot last longer! Aunt wouldlike to be one of the first to leave, so during thecotillion I sit in constant anxiety lest she shall orderthe sleigh. Then I am examined; but then, it is nowno longer as it was the first two or three times wedrove home, when I chattered and blabbed outevery possible thing, turned my soul and all myfeelings inside out as a pocket into aunt's bosom.

Yesterday I was at my seventh, and am alreadyengaged way into the ninth; which still will not bemy last, I hope, this winter (I led five times). Yesterday,also, I happily escaped Lieutenant Mein,the one with Jörgen's bridle in his mouth, who hasbegun to want to make sure of me for the cotillion,as he says. He sits and stands in the companies athome at aunt's (which is all he does, as there is nota word in his mouth), and only looks and glowersat me.

Well, you should see my dancing cards! I thinkI have led a third part of all the dances this winter.Aunt has made me a present of a sash buckle whichis beautiful, and, with all the dark yellow stones, improvesthe dress wonderfully. Aunt has taste; stillwe never agree when I dress. Old Aunt Alette was90up here yesterday, and I got her on my side. So I wasrelieved from having earrings dangling about myears; they felt as if two bits of a bridle rein werehanging behind me, and then I must be allowed tohave sleeves wide enough to move my arm if I amnot to feel like a wooden doll.

You must know that I have grown three inchessince I left home. But never in my life have I reallyknown what it is to exist, I believe, till this winter.When I shut my eyes, it is as if I can see in a dreama whole series of balls, with chandeliers under whichmusic is floating, and I am dancing, and am ledthrough the throng, which seems to make way forme.

I understand how Aunt Eleonore must have felt,she who was so beautiful, and whom they say I resembleso; she died after a ball, Aunt Alette says;it must have been of joy. There is nothing likedancing; nothing like seeing them competing forengagements, kneeling, as it were, with their eyes,and then becoming confused when I answer themin the way they don't expect.

And how many times do you really think nowI have heard that I have such wonderful black hair,such wonderful firm eyes, such a superb bearing;how many times do you think it has been said inthe most delicate manner and in the crudest? Aunthas also begun to admire; I could wish that thewhole winter, my whole life (so long as I am beautiful,91no longer), were one single ball, like the Polishcount who drove over sugar.

And then I have always such a desire to die afterevery time, when I am lying and thinking of it, and,as it were, hear the music in my ears, until I cometo think of the next one.

For that I am going to have a new dress, lightyellow with black; that and white are most becomingto me, aunt says, and then again, new yellow silkshoes, buttoned up to the ankles; aunt says that myhigh instep betrays race, and that I feel I have;truly, I don't mind speaking right out what I think;and it is so amusing to see people open their eyesand wonder what sort of a person I am.

I really begin to suspect that several of our gentlemenhave never seen a living pig, or a duck, ora colt (which is the prettiest thing I know). Theybecome so stupid as soon as I merely name somethingfrom the country; it might be understood ifI said it in French—un canard,un cheval,un cochon,une vache.

Student Grip contends that of those who havebeen born in the city not one in ten has ever seena cow milked. He also provokes aunt by saying thateverything which happens in French is so muchfiner, and thinks that we like to read and cry overtwo lovers who jump into the water fromPont Neuf;but only let the same thing happen here at home,from Vaterland's bridge, then it is vulgar; and indeed92I think he is often right. Aunt has to smile.And however much she still says he lacks in polishedmanners and inborn culture, she is amusedat him. And so they are everywhere, for he is invitedout every single day in the week.

He generally comes Sunday afternoons and forcoffee, for then he is sure that both aunt and I arebored, he says (yes, horribly; now, how can he knowthat?), and that he is not obliged to walk on stilts,and tell lies among the blue teacups.

And then he and aunt are amusing with a vengeance,when he speaks freely, and aunt opposes himand takes him down. For he thinks for himself always;that I can see when he is sitting with his headon one side and gently stirring his spoon in his cup.It makes one smile, for if he means No, you can seeit from the top of his head long before he says it.

He is not a little talked about in the city as oneof the worst of the Student Society in being zealousfor all their wild ideas. But aunt finds him piquant,and thinks that youth must be suffered to sow itswild oats. On the contrary, uncle says that this kindis more ruinous for a young man's future than theworst transgressions, since it destroys his capacityfor discipline.

What he thinks of me I should like to know.Sometimes he asks, impertinently, "You are goingto the ball this evening, I suppose, Miss Jäger?"

But I have it out with him to the best of my ability,93ask aunt for advice about some fancy work, andyawn so comfortably, and look out of the windowjust when he is most excited. I see very well it provokeshim, and the last time he asked if Miss Jägerwould not abstract her thoughts from the next ballfor a moment.

Uncle is often cross at his perverseness, and contendsthat he is a disagreeable person; but I don'tbelieve he would readily let him go from the office,since he is so capable.

Uncle lives only in his work; he is so tremendouslynoble. You should hear how he can go andworry for the least fault or want of punctuality in hisoffice.

"I think the devil is in the fellow—now heis governor,"the captain declared. "He has reached thehighest grade and can't be removed, and has noneed to worry."

"Poor Josiah," sighed Ma, "he was always themost sensitive of my brothers; but the best head."

A fortnight later they were surprised by a letterfrom the governor's wife, with one from Inger-Johannaenclosed.

The governor's lady must, in any event, be allowed94to keep her dear Inger-Johanna at least a yearlonger; she had become indispensable both to herand the governor, so that it was even difficult forthem to realize that she could have another home.

She has spoiled her uncle by the young life she hasbrought into the house. My dear Zittow with hisscrupulous conscientiousness is overburdened withanxieties and responsibilities in his great office, andis sadly in need of amusements and recreation afterso many wakeful nights. Nay, so egotistical are we,that I will propose that we divide her in the mostunjust manner—that she shall make a visit homethis summer, but only to come down to us again.Anything else would be a great disappointment.

But do not let us bring a possibly unnecessaryapple of discord upon the carpet too easily; itmight turn out like the treaty between the greatpowers about the beautiful island in the Mediterranean;during the diplomatic negotiations it vanished.And indeed I lack very little of being readyto guarantee that our dear subject of dispute willin a short time herself rule over a home, which willbe in proportion to what she with her nature andbeauty can lay claim to.

That I, as her aunt, should be somewhat blindlypartial to her, I can hardly believe; at least I cancite an experienced, well-informed person of thesame mind in our common friend, Captain Rönnow,95who last week came here with the royal familyfrom Stockholm, and, in parenthesis be it said—itmust be between us—is on the point of havingan extraordinary career. He was thoroughlyenthusiastic at seeing Inger-Johanna again, anddeclared that she was a perfect beauty and a bornlady, who was sure to excite attention in circleswhich were even above the common, and muchmore which we ought not to let our dear childhear. I can only add that on leaving he warmly,and with a certain anxiety, recommended me tokeep and still further develop her.

If not just in his first youth, he is at least perhapsthe, or at any rate one of the, most elegantand most distinguished men in the army, and itwould not be difficult for him to win even the mostpretentious.

"No, I should say that, by George. Well, Ma,"said he, winking, "what do you say now? Now, Ithink it is all going on well."

The captain took a swinging march over thefloor, and then fell upon Inger-Johanna's letter.

Dear Parents,—Now I must tell you something.Captain Rönnow has been here. He camejust as aunt had a reception. He looks twice ashandsome and brave as he did when he was at ourhouse at Gilje, and I saw plainly that he started a96little when he got his eye on me, even while hestopped and paid his respects to aunt.

My heart beat rapidly, you must know, as soonas I saw him again; for I was really half afraid thathe would have forgotten me.

But he came up and took both my hands andsaid very warmly, "The bud which I last saw atGilje is now blossomed out."

I blushed a little, for I knew very well that it washe who from the first brought it about that I camehere.

But I call that finished manners and an easy,straightforward way of conducting himself. Entertainingas he was, he never lost a particle of hisgrand manly dignity, and there was hardly a questionof paying attention to any other person thanto him in particular the whole evening. I mustadmit that hereafter I shall have another standardfor a real gentleman whom I would call a man,and there are certainly many who do not come upto it.

Aunt has also expatiated on his manner; I believeshe was flattered because he was so kind andcordial to me, she has ever since been in such excellenthumor.

After that he was here daily. He had so muchto tell us about life in Stockholm and at the court,and always talked to me about you at home, aboutfather, who although he was older—

"Much, much older, yes," put in the captaineagerly, "about four or five years, at least."

You can believe those were pleasant evenings.Aunt understands such things. There is a great voidsince he is gone. Aunt thinks so, too. We have sattalking about him, and hardly anything else thanhim, these two evenings since he went away.

Yesterday evening Grip came again. We havenot seen him at all since the first time CaptainRönnow was here. And can any one imagine sucha man? He seems to see nothing in him. He satand contradicted, and was so cross and disagreeablethe whole evening that aunt was quite tired ofhim. He argued about living externally, hollowdrum, and some such things, as if it were not justthe genuine manliness and naturalness that onemust value so much in Captain Rönnow.

Oh, I lay half the night angry. He sat playingwith his teacup and talked about people who couldgo through the world with a silk ribbon of phrasesand compliments: that one could flatter to deatha sound understanding, so that at last there wasleft only a plucked—I plainly heard him mumble—wildgoose. Dreadful insolence! I am sure hemeant me.

When he had gone aunt also said that hereaftershe should refuse to receive him, when there was98no other company present; she was tired of hisperformancesen tête-à-tête; that sort of men musthave a certain restraint put upon them. He willnever have any kind of a career, she thought, hecarries his own notions too high.

However, it will be very tiresome if he staysaway; for with all his peculiarities he is very oftena good war comrade for me against aunt.

The captain had kept the cover of his oldlarge meerschaum pipe polished with chalkfor three days, without being willing to take itdown from the shelf; he had trimmed and put innew mouthpieces, and held a feast of purificationon the remainder, as well as on all the contents ofthe tobacco table, the ash receiver, the tobaccostems, and lava-like scrapings from the pipe. Hehad let the sexton do his best at tuning the clavichord,and put two seats, painted white, on thestoop. The constantly neglected lattice-work aroundthe garden now glistened here and there with freshwhite palings, like single new teeth which are stuckbetween a whole row of old gray ones. The walksin the garden must be swept and garnished, theyard was cleaned up, and, finally, the cover put onthe well, which was to have been done all theyears when the children were small.

It was the captain who, in an almost vociferousgood humor, was zealously on the move everywhere.

Sometimes he took a kind of rest and stoodpuffing on the steps or in the window of the largeroom which looked down toward the countryhighway; or in the shades of the evening he tooka little turn down to the gate and sat there on thestone fence with his pipe. If any one passed by100going south, he would say, "Are you going tothe store to buy a plug of tobacco, Lars? If youmeet a fine young lady in a cariole, greet her fromthe captain at Gilje; it is my daughter who is comingfrom the city."

If the person was some poor old crone of theother sex, to her astonishment a copper coin felldown on the road before her: "There, Kari; there,Siri: you may want something to order a crutchcarriage with."

A surprise which was so much the greater as thecaptain at other times cherished a genuine likingfor flaying old beggar women. The whole stock oftempestuous oaths and of abusive words coined inthe inspiration of the moment, which was in hisblood from the drill-ground and military life, mustnow and then have an outbreak. The old womenwho went on crutches were long accustomed to thistreatment, and knew what to expect when they weregoing away from the house, after having first got agood load in their bags in the kitchen. It was likea tattoo about their ears, accompanied by Pasop'swild barking.

But in these days, while he was going about injoyful expectation and awaiting his daughter's returnhome, he was what made him a popular manboth in the district and among his men, straightforwardand sportive, something of the old gay PeterJäger.

The captain had just been in again in the afternoonand tried the concert pitch on the clavichord,which was constantly lowering, and compared hisdeep bass with its almost soundless rumbling G,when Jörgen thought he saw, through the window,a movable spot on one of the light bits of thehighway, which was visible even on the other sideof the lake.

The captain caught up his field-glasses, rushedout on the steps and in again, called to Ma—andafterwards patiently took his post at the open window,while he called Ma in again every time theycame into the turns.

Down there it did not go so quickly. Svartenstopped of his own accord at every man he met onthe way; and then Great-Ola must explain.

A young lady with a duster tightly fastenedabout her waist, parasol and gloves, and such afine brass-bound English trunk on the back of thecariole, was in itself no common thing. But that itwas the daughter of the captain at Gilje who wascoming home raised the affair up to the sensational,and the news was therefore well spread overthe region when, toward evening, the cariole hadgot as far as the door at home.

There stood mother and father and Jörgen andThea and the sub-officer, Tronberg, with his smallbag yonder at the corner of the house, and the farm-handsand girls inside the passageway—and Great-Ola102was cheated out of lifting the young lady downon the steps, for she herself jumped from the cariolestep straight into the arms of her father, and thenkissed her mother and hugged Thea and pulledJörgen by the hair a little forced dance around onthe stairs, so that he should feel the first impressionof her return home.

Yes, it was the parasol she had lost on the stepsand which a bare-footed girl came up with; Ma hada careful eye upon it—the costly, delicate, fringedparasol with long ivory handle had been lying therebetween the steps and the cariole wheel.

The captain took off her duster himself—Thehair, the dress, the gloves; that was the way shelooked, a fine grown lady from head to foot.

"I have been sitting and longing all day for thesmell of thepetum and to see a little cloud of smokeabout your head, father—I think you are a littlestouter—and then your dress-coat—I alwaysthought of you in the old shiny one. And mother—andmother!" She rushed out after her into thepantry, where she stayed a long time.

A hot fire was blazing in the kitchen. There stoodMarit, a short, red-cheeked mountain girl, withwhite teeth and small hands, stirring the porridge sothat the sweat dropped from her face; she knew verywell that Great-Ola would have it so that fifteen103men could dance on the surface, and now she got thehelp of the young lady. After that Inger-Johannamust over and spin on Torbjörg's spinning-wheel.

The captain only went with her and looked onwith half moistened eyes, and when they came inagain Inger-Johanna got the bottle from the sideboard,and gave each of them out there a dram inhonor of her return.

The supper-table was waiting in the sitting-roomon a freshly laid cloth—red mountain trout and herfavorite dish, strawberries and cream.

They must not think of waking her, so tired as shewas last night, father had said.

And therefore Thea had sat outside of thethreshold from half-past six, waiting to hear anynoise, so that she could rush in with the tray andlittle cakes, for Inger-Johanna was to have hercoffee in bed.

Jörgen kept her company, taken up with studyingthe singular lock on her trunk, and then withscanning the light, delicate patent leather shoes. Herubbed them on his forehead and his nose, afterhaving moistened them with his breath.

Now she was waking up in there, and open flewthe door for Jörgen, Thea, and Pasop, and afterwardsTorbjörg with the cup of coffee.

The fragrance of the hay came in through the104open window, and she heard them driving the rumblingloads into the barn.

And when she saw, from the window, the longnarrow lake in the valley down below, and all themountain peaks which lifted themselves so precipitouslyup towards the heavens over the light fog onthe other side, she understood some of her mother'sfeeling that here it was cramped, and that it wastwo hundred long miles to the city. But then it wasso fragrant and beautiful—and then, she was reallyhome at Gilje.

She must go out and lie in the hay, and let Jörgenhold the buck that was inclined to butt, so shecould get past, and then look at his workshop andthe secret hunting gun he was making out of thebarrel and lock of an old army gun.

It was a special confidence to his grown-up sister,for powder and gun were most strictly forbiddenhim, which did not prevent his having his arsenalsof his father's coarse-grained cartridge powder hiddenin various places in the hills.

And then she must be with Thea and find outall about the garden, and with her father on hiswalks here and there; they went up by the cow-path,with its waving ferns, white birch stems, andgreen leaves, over the whole of the sloping ridgeof Gilje.

It was like a happy, almost giddy, intoxicationof home-coming for three or four days.

It came to be more like every-day life, when Mabegan to talk about this and that of the householdaffairs and to make Inger-Johanna take part in herdifferent cares and troubles.

What should be done with Jörgen? They mustthink of having him go to the city soon. Ma hadthought a good deal about writing to Aunt Aletteand consulting with her. Father must not be frightenedabout spending too much money. If AuntAlette should conclude to take him to board, thenit wouldn't involve the terrible immediate outlayof money. They could send many kinds of provisionsthere, butter and cheese,fladbröd, dried meat,and bacon as often as there was an opportunity.

She must talk with father about this sometimelater in the winter, when she had heard what AuntAlette thought.

And with Thinka they had gone through a greatdeal. Ma had had all she could do to keep fatherout of it—you know how little he can bear annoyances—andshe had found it a matter almost of lifeand death on Wednesdays to intercept Jörgen, whenhe brought the mail, to get hold of Thinka's letters.This spring Ma had written time after time,and represented to her what kind of a future shewas preparing for herself, if she, in weakness andfolly, gave way to her rash feelings for this clerk,Aas.

But in the beginning, you see, there came some106letters back, which were very melancholy. One couldlive even in poorer circumstances, she wrote,—itseems that there was a rather doubtful prospect ofhis getting a situation as a country bailiff that shehad set her hopes on.

Ma had placed it seriously before her how sucha thing as that might end. Suppose he was sick ordied, where would she and perhaps a whole flockof children take refuge?

"It depends on overcoming the first emotion ofthe fancy. Now she is coming home in the autumn,and it could be wished that she had gotten over herfeelings. My brother Birger is so headstrong; butmaybe it was for the best that, as my sister-in-lawwrites, as soon as he got a hint of the state of affairs,he gave Aas his dismissal and sent him packingthat very day. The last two or three letters showthat Thinka is quieter."

"Thinka is horribly meek," exclaimed Inger-Johannawith flashing eyes. "I believe they couldpickle her and put her down and tie up the jar; shewould not grumble. If Uncle Birger had done soto me, I would not have stayed there a day longer."

"Inger-Johanna! Inger-Johanna!" Ma shookher head. "You have a dangerous, spoiled temper.It is only the very, very smallest number of uswomen who are able to do what they would like to."

The captain did not disdain the slightest occasion107to bring forward his daughter just come home fromthe city.

He had turned the time to account, for in thebeginning of the next week he would be obliged togo on various surveys up on the common land andthen to the drills.

They had made a trip down to the central partof the district, to Pastor Horn's, and on the waystopped and called on Sexton Semmelinge and BardonKleven, the bailiff. They had been to Dr. Bauman,the doctor of the district; and now on Sundaythey were invited to Sheriff Gülcke's—a journeyof thirty-five miles down the valley.

It was an old house of acalêche, repaired a hundredtimes, which was drawn out of its hiding-place,and within whose chained together arms Svartenand the dun horse—the blind bay had long sincebeen sent away—were to continue their three-months-longattempt to agree in the stall.

If the beasts had any conception, it must mostlikely have been that it was an enormously heavyplough they were drawing, in a lather, up and downhill, with continual stoppings to get breath and letthose who were sitting in it get in and out.

If there was anything the captain adhered to, itwas military punctuality, and at half-past four inthe morning the whole family in full dress, the captainand Jörgen with their pantaloons turned up,the ladies with their dresses tucked up, were wandering108on foot down the Gilje hills—they were someof the worst on the whole road—while Great-Oladrove the empty carriage down to the highway.

The dun horse was better fitted for pulling thanholding back, so that it was Svarten that must bedepended on in the hills, and Great-Ola, the captain,and Jörgen must help.

It was an exceedingly warm day, and the carriagerolled on in an incessant dense, stifling dust ofthe road about the feet of the horses and the wheels.But then it was mainly down hill, and they restedand got breath every mile.

At half-past one they had only to cross the ferryand a short distance on the other side again up tothe sheriff's farm.

On the ferry a little toilet was temporarily made,and the captain took his new uniform coat out ofthe carriage box and put it on. Except that Jörgenhad greased his pantaloons from the wheels, not asingle accident had happened on the whole trip.

As soon as they came up on the hill, they sawthe judge's carriage roll up before them through thegate, and in the yard they recognized the doctor'scariole and the lawyer's gig. There stood the sheriffhimself, helping the judge's wife out of the carriage;his chief clerk and his daughters were on the steps.

So far as the ladies were concerned, there must,of course, be a final toilet and a change of clothesbefore they found themselves presentable. One of109the two daughters of the lawyer was in a red and theother in a clear white dress, and of the three daughtersof the judge, two were in white and one inblue.

That a captain's daughter, with his small salary,came in brown silk with patent leather shoes, couldonly be explained by the special circumstances, suggestedMrs. Scharfenberg in the ear of old MissHorn of the parsonage; it was, in all probability,one of the governor's lady's, which had been madeover down in the city.

The fact was that young Horn who, it was expected,would be chaplain to his father, the minister,treated Inger-Johanna in a much more complimentarymanner than he showed toward Mrs.Scharfenberg's daughter, Bine, to whom he was asgood as engaged; and the chief clerk did not seemto be blind to her. They both ran to get a chair forher.

The sofa was assigned to the judge's wife and toMa, as a matter of course. Mrs. Scharfenberg didnot think this quite right either, since her husbandhad been nominated second for the judgeship ofSogn; and that the sheriff had to-day also invitedthe rich Mrs. Silje was, her husband said, only a bidfor popularity: she was still always what she was—widowof the country storekeeper, Silje.

It was a long time to sit and exchange compliments,before the mainstay of the dinner, the sheriff's110roast, was sufficiently and thoroughly done, andhe got a nod from his wife to ask the company outto the table in the large room.

The only one who laughed and talked beforethe ice was fairly broken was Inger-Johanna, whochatted with the judge and then with Horn and thearmy doctor.

Ma pursed her lips a little uneasily, as she sat onthe sofa and pretended to be absorbed in conversationwith Mrs. Brinkman; she knew what they allwould say about her afterwards.

It had been a rather warm dinner. Through theabundant provision of the sheriff, the fatigue andhunger after the journey had given place to an extremelylively mood spiced with speeches and songs.

They had sat a long time at the table before thescraping of the judge's chair finally gave the signalfor the breaking up.

The sheriff now stood stout and beaming duringthe thanks for the meal, and demanded and receivedhis tribute as host—a kiss from each one of theyoung ladies.

The masculine part of the company distributedthemselves with their coffee-cups out in the coolhall and on the stairs, or went with their tobaccopipes into the yard, while the ladies sat around thecoffee-table in the parlor.

The judge talked somewhat loudly with the sheriff,111and the captain, red and hot, stood a little wayout in the yard, cooling himself.

The doctor came up and clapped him on theshoulder. "The sheriff really took the spigot out ofthe bung to-day: we had excellent drink."

"Oh, nonsense, Peter; your cribber ate himselfhalf out of my stall—That Madeira was strong."

"Yes, you see, Peter, I forgive you that you area little cracked about her; she may make strongerheads than yours whirl round."

"She is beautiful—beautiful." His voice was assumingan expression of serious pathos.

The two military men, at a sedate, thoughtfulpace, walked back to one of the sleeping-rooms inthe second story.

In the hall, tall Buchholtz, the judge's chiefclerk, was standing, stiff and silent, against the wall,with his coffee-cup in his hand; he was pondering112whether anyone would notice anything wrong abouthim. He had been in the coffee room with theladies and tried to open a conversation with MissJäger.

She turned from him, and began to talk with hermother. The same questions had now been askedher by all the gentlemen.

The irreproachable Candidate Horn stood bythe door enjoying his coffee and the defeat of thechief clerk. He was lying in wait for an opportunityto have a chat with Inger-Johanna, but found an insurmountableobstacle in the judge's well-read wife,who began to talk with her about French literature,a region in which he felt he could not asserthimself.

At the request of the sheriff, a general exit tookplace later. The ladies must go out on the porchand see the young people playing "the widowerseeking a mate."

Mrs. Silje sat there, broad and good-natured afterall the good eating, and enjoyed it.

"No, but he did not catch her this time, no.Make the strap around your waist tighter, next113time, sir!" She smiled when the chief clerk's attemptto catch Inger-Johanna failed; "she is sucha fine young lady to try for."

Mrs. Scharfenberg found that there was a draughton the stairs, and as she moved into the hall, wherethe sheriff's wife, always an invalid, sat wrapped upin her shawl, she could not but say to her and thejudge's wife that the young lady's reckless mannerof running—so that you could even see the stockingsabove her shoes—smacked rather much of beingfree. But she was sure Mrs. Silje did not find it inthe least unbecoming. She remarked sharply, "Shehad herself gone so many times on the sunny hillsidewith the other girls, raking hay in her smockbefore she was married to the trader."

"You must not run so violently, child. It doesnot look well—you must let yourself be caught."

They kept on with the game till tea time, whenthose who had been missing after dinner againshowed themselves in a rested condition, ready tobegin a game of Boston for the evening.

In obedience to the call, somewhat pale and ina cold perspiration, but with a bold front, he camedown from the office building, where he had been114sitting, smoking tobacco on the sly with the sheriff'sclerk and "the execution horse," whose racy designationwas due to his unpopular portion of thesheriff's functions.

The game of Boston was continued after supperwith violent defeats and quite wonderful exposedhands, between the judge, the captain, the sheriff,and the attorney.

In the other room Ma sat uneasy, wonderingwhen father would think of breaking up—they hada very long journey home, and it was already teno'clock. The sheriff had urged them in vain toremain all night; but it didn't answer this time;Jäger had definite reasons why they must be homeagain to-morrow.

She sat in silence, resting her hopes on the sharplittle Mrs. Scharfenberg, trusting she would soondare to show herself in the door of the card room.

She nodded to Inger-Johanna. "Can't you goin," she whispered, "and remind your father a littleof the time—but only as if of your own accord?"

Finally at eleven o'clock they were sitting in thecarriage—after the sheriff had again asserted, on thesteps, his privilege of an old man towards the youngladies. He was a real master in meeting all the playfulways they had of escaping in order to be savedfrom the smacking good-by.

He was driving, but turned incessantly in orderto hear the talk in the carriage, and throw in anobservation with it. Jörgen and Thea, who hadkept modestly quiet the whole day, but had mademany observations, nevertheless, were now on ahigh horse; Thea especially plumed herself as theonly soul who had succeeded in escaping thesheriff.

And now they were on the way home in thelight, quiet July night, up hill and up hill—inplaces down, foot by foot, step by step, exceptwhere they dared to let the carriage go faster asthey came to the bottom of a hill.

A good level mile or two, where they could allsit in the carriage, was passed over at a gentle jog-trot.It was sultry with a slightly moist fragrancefrom the hay-cocks, and a slight impression of twilightover the land—Great-Ola yawned, the captainyawned, the horses yawned, Jörgen nodded,Thea slept, wrapped up under Ma's shawl. Nowand then they were roused by the rushing of amountain brook, as it flowed foaming under abridge in the road.

Inger-Johanna sat dreaming, and at last saw ayellowish brown toad before her, with small, curious116eyes and a great mouth—and then it rose up, sopuffed up and ungainly, and hopped down towardsher.

"Oh, I believe I was dreaming about the sheriff!"said Inger-Johanna, as she woke up shivering.

"We must get out here," came sleepily from thecaptain, "on the Rognerud hills; Ma can stay inwith Thea."

The day was beginning to dawn. They saw thesun bathe the mountain tops in gold and the lightcreep down the slopes. The sun lay as it were still,and peeped at them first, till it at once boundedover the crest in the east like a golden ball, andcolored red the wooded mountain sides and hillson the west side, clear down to the greenswardshining with dew.

On the Gilje lands the people had already beena long time at work spreading out the hay, whenthey saw them coming.

"It is good to be home again," declared Ma. "Iwonder if Marit has remembered to hang the troutin the smoke."

Marit came rushing out of the door of theporch: "There was a fine city traveller came thisway last night! He who was here two years ago, andhad his shoes mended. I did not know anythingbetter than to let him sleep in the blue chamber."

Ma looked at once at Inger-Johanna; she fellinto a reverie. She stepped hurriedly out of thecarriage.

"Jäger is going surveying to-morrow a long distanceinto the mountains,—clear over to the Grönnelidsaeters," Ma said to him, when he came outof his room in the morning, "and there is so muchthat must be done."

"So—oh—and to-morrow early." The studenthesitated. "My plan is to go home over the mountain,as I did last time—to get a little really freshair, away from the stuffy town air and the lawbooks."

"But then you could go with Jäger? It will bethirty-five to forty miles you could go togetherup in the mountains—and for Jäger, it would be areal pleasure to have company. You won't have anyobjection, I suppose, to my putting up somethingfor you to eat by the way?"

"She will not have me, that is plain," he muttered,while he wandered about the yard during theforenoon; they were all asleep except the mistress.But he did not come here to escort the captain.

In the afternoon, when it began to grow a littlecool, the captain, Inger-Johanna, Jörgen, and118Student Grip took the lonely road to the mill.Great-Ola and Aslak, the crofter, went with them—somethingwas to be done to the mill-wheel,now that the stream was almost dry.

They stood there studying eagerly how thewheel could best be raised off the axis.

"That Jörgen, that Jörgen, he has got the hangof the wheel!" exclaimed the captain. "You canget Tore, the joiner, to help, Ola, as soon as youcome back with the horses from the mountain—andlet Jörgen show you how: he understands it,he does—if it is only not a book, he is cleverenough."

"You will have to take hold of your forelock andtry and cram, Jörgen; do as you did with the rye-pudding—thesooner it is eaten, the sooner it isover," said Grip, to comfort him.

"Look here, I came near forgetting the fish-linesfor to-morrow. You will have to go down tothe store this evening, Jörgen. We catch the troutourselves up there, as you will see," said the captain,turning to Grip.

"Oh—oh—yes," he puffed, while they weresauntering toward home together. "I certainly needto go to the mountains now, I always come downagain three or four pounds lighter."

"I have wandered about that part of the countryfrom the time I was a schoolboy," remarked Grip."We must put Lake Bygdin into the geography—that119it was discovered only a few years ago, inthe middle of a broad mountain plateau, which onlysome reindeer hunter or other knew anythingabout."

"Not laid down on any map, no—as blank as inthe interior of Africa, marked out as unexplored,"the captain pointed out. "But then there is trafficgoing on between the districts, both of people andcattle, and the mountains have their names fromancient times down among the common people."

"True, the natives also knew the interior of Africa,but on that account it is not called discovered bythe civilized world," said Grip, smiling. "I alwayswondered what could be found in such a mysteriousregion in the middle of the country. There mightbe a great deal there: valleys entirely deserted fromancient times—old, sunken timber halls, and thenwild reindeer rushing here and there over thewastes."

"Yes, shooting," agreed the captain; "we getmany a tender reindeer steak from over there."

"It was that which attracted me, when I met thereindeer hunter two years ago: I wanted to explorea little, to see what there was there."

"You ought to go with your father part of theway over the mountains, Miss Inger-Johanna—seeif you could find some lofty bower."

"That is an idea, not at all stupid," broke in thecaptain, "not impossible, not at all! You could rideall the way to the Grönnelidsaeters."

"Ah, if you could carry that through, father!"she exclaimed earnestly. "Now I have also takena fancy to see what there is there—I believe wealways thought the world ended over there at ourownsaeter pastures."

"I have some blankets on the pack-saddle, andwhere they can get a roof over my head there will beroom enough for you too.—Come, come, Morten,will you let people alone!" The captain took outa roll of tobacco and held a piece out to the stablegoat, that was coming, leaping, towards them fromthe yard. "There, mumble-beard—he will havehis allowance, the rascal.—Ma," he called, when hesaw her coming from the storehouse, "what wouldyou say if I should take Inger-Johanna with meto-morrow? Then they will have company homeon Friday with Ola and the horses—she and Jörgen."

"Such a fatiguing trip! It is absolutely withouta path and wild where you must go."

"She can ride the horse a good ways beyond thesaeter. Svarten will go as steady as a minister withher and the pack-saddle—both on the mountainand in the bog. I will take the dun horse myself."121He had become very eager at the prospect of takingher with him. "Certainly, you shall go. Youmust put a good lot in the provision bag, Ma. Wemust be off early to-morrow at five o'clock. Tronbergwill join us with a horse farther up, so therewill be a way of giving you a mount also, Grip."

Grip started on a run with Jörgen towards theyard, finally caught him, and drove him in throughthe open kitchen window.

The captain, with his neck burned brown, toiled,red and sweating in his shirt-sleeves, in the mountainfields up under Torsknut.

The packhorses went first with Inger-Johannaand all the equipment, and by the side of the captainwalked some farmers who carried their coats onsticks over their shoulders on account of the heat,and eagerly pointed out bounds and marks, everytime they stopped and he was to draw some lineor other as a possible connection.

They had passed the night at the Grönnelidsaetersand been out on the moors making a sketchsurvey at five o'clock in the morning, had riddenover flat mountain wastes among willow thickets,while the horses, step by step, waded across windingsof the same river.

Now they stopped again after a steep ascent towait for Tronberg, whom they had seen below onthe hills.

The captain took out his spy-glass, and after acursory glance over the shining icy fields which laylike a distant sea of milk, turned it farther andfarther down.

The perspiration rolled in great drops off hisforehead and eyelids, so that the glass was blurred,and he was obliged to wipe it again with his large,worn silk handkerchief.

Then he rested the spy-glass on the back of thepackhorse, and held it still a long time. "Thatmust be the Rognelid folk, after all, who are movingthere west of Braekstad heights. What do you say?"

The people to whom he turned needed only toshade their eyes to agree with him that it was theopposite party whom they were to meet the nextmorning at Lake Tiske. But they were too politefellows to express it otherwise than by saying in a flatteringmanner, "What a spy-glass the captain has!"

During this surveying business he was borne,so to speak, on a royal cushion by the anxious interestsof both parties to the contest; it contributedto the pleasure he took in his trips in the mountainsin summer to feel himself in that way liftedup by their hands.

"Have you been fishing, Tronberg?" he shoutedwhen the head of the subaltern's "Rauen" appearednodding down in the steep path. "Trout! Caughtto-day?"

The captain took up the string and looked atthe gills. "Yes, they are to-day's."

The subaltern took off his hat, and dried hisforehead and head. "One could easily have friedthe fish on the rocky wall in the whole of that panof a valley over there that I came through," Tronbergsaid.

"Goodness sake, the young lady here!" exclaimedthe subaltern, involuntarily bringing himselfup to a salute when Inger-Johanna turned herhorse round and looked at the shiny speckled fishwhich hung on the pack-saddle.

But old Lars Opidalen, the one who had askedfor the survey, gently passed his coarse hand overhers, while he counted the trout on the willowbranch. "Can such also be of the earth?" he said,quietly wondering.

"Help the young lady, Lars, while she dismounts:it is not well to ride any longer on thissmooth bare rock."

The path ascended, steeper and steeper, withoccasional marshy breathing places in between—itwas often entirely lost in the gray mountain.

The mournful cry of a fish eagle sounded overthem. It circled around, cried, and went off whenJörgen shouted at it. It must have had a nest somewhereup on that rocky wall.

The captain's shotgun was brought out, andTronberg attempted a shot, but could not get withinrange. If he could only lie in wait for it behind thegreat stones up here!

Suddenly there was a report up above on theslope strewn with stones, and the eagle made somevigorous, flapping strokes with its wings; it struggledso as not to fall down.

The shot had gone through one wing, so thatdaylight could be seen through the hole in thefeathers. The bird evidently found it difficult topreserve its equilibrium.

"Jörgen! He can't make me believe it was hisfirst shot, the rogue! But he shot himself free froma thrashing that time—for it was a good shot,Tronberg. The rascal! He has been most strictlyforbidden to meddle with guns."

"Forbidden indeed," murmured Grip. "Is it notremarkable, Miss Inger-Johanna, it is always theforbidden thing in which we are most skilful? Itis exactly these prohibitions that constitute ourmost potent education—But that is going the way125of villains in growth, and leaves its marks behind—makesmen with good heads but bad characters."

Grip and Inger-Johanna walked ahead with thehorses. A strange, hazy warm smoke lay below overthe marshes in the afternoon: it veiled the linesthere. Up here on the mountain the air was sosparkling clear.

Foot by foot, the animals picked their way overthe piles of stony débris between the enormous fallenmasses which lay, scattered here and there, like moss-coveredgray houses, with now and then a fairy forelockof dwarf birch upon them, while on the mountainledges still hung yellow tufts of saxifrage.

"Only see all this warped, twisted, fairy creation.You could say that life is really turned to stone here,—andyet it bubbles up."

He stopped. "Do you know what I could wish,Miss Inger-Johanna?" There was no longer anytrace of the strain of irony which usually possessedhim. "Simply to be a schoolmaster!—teach thechildren to lay the first two sticks across by theirown plain thoughts. It is the fundamental logs thatare laid the wrong way in us. They ought to be allowedto believe just as much and as little as theycould really swallow. And to the door with thewhole host of these cherished, satisfactory prohibitions!I should only show the results—mix powderand matches together before their eyes till itwent into the air, and then say, 'If you please,126Jörgen, so far as I am concerned, you can go withthe two things in your pocket as much as youlike: it is you, yourself, who will be blown into theair.' It is the sense of responsibility that is to becultivated while the boy is growing up, if he is tobe made a man."

"Crotchets, you mean? If I had any talent withthe pen,—but I am so totally dependent on wordof mouth. You see, there are only four doors, andthey are called theology, philology, medicine, andlaw, and I have temporarily knocked at the last.What I want there, I don't know. Have you heardof the cat which they put into a glass ball andpumped the air out? It noticed that there was somethingwrong. It was troubled for breath; the airwas constantly getting thinner and thinner; and soit put one paw on the hole. I shall also allow myselfto put one paw on the draught hole—for hereis a vacuum—not up in the skies with the poets,of course. There it lightens and shines, and theywrite about working for the people and for freedomand for everything lofty and great in as manydirections as there are points on a compass—butin reality, down on the earth—for a prosaic personwho would take hold and set in motion a littleof the phrases—there it is entirely closed. Thereis no use for all our best thoughts and ideas in thepractical world, I can tell you; not even so much127that a man can manage to make himself unhappyin them.

"And so one lives as best he can his other lifewith his comrades, and re-baptizes himself in punchwith them every time he has been really untrue tohimself in the tea parties. But taste this air—everyblessed breath like a glass of the finest, finest—nay,what shall I call it?"

"No, life! With this free nature one does notfeel incited to dispute. I am in harmony with themountain, with the sun, with all these crookedtough birch-osiers. If people down there only werethemselves! But that they never are, except in agood wet party when they have got themselvessufficiently elevated from the bottom of the well.There exists a whole freemasonry, the membersof which do not know each other except in thatform, or else in Westerman's steam baths whenWesterman whips us with fresh birch leaves in atemperature of eighty degrees. The bath-house wasour fathers' national club, did you know that?"

"No, indeed; I am learning a great many newthings, I think," she said, with half concealed humor.

"Did you ever hear anything so tremendouslyquiet," said Grip, "after a single little peep. Thereare such peeps here and there in the country. Abel,he died, he did—of what? Of drink, they said"—heshook his head—"of vacuum."

He was walking in his shirt-sleeves, and flungthe willow stick, which he had broken off whilehe was talking, far down over the rocky incline.

"There, Captain, see the line, as it has been fromancient times for Opidalen," shouted old Lars—"straight,straight along by the Notch, where weshall go down and across the lake—straight towardRödkampen on Torsknut—there where you seethe three green islands under the rocks, Captain."He shook his stick in his eagerness. "For that Ishall bring witnesses—and if they were all livinghere who have fished on our rights in the lake,both in my father's and grandfather's time, therewould be a crowd of people against their villainiesin Rognelien."

The afternoon shadows fell into the Notch,where the ice-water trickled down through thecracks in the black mountain wall. Here and therethe sun still shone on patches of greenish yellowreindeer moss, on some violet, white, or yellow littleclusters of high mountain flowers, which exemplifiedthe miracle of living their tinted life of beautyup here close to the snow.

The boat, which was to carry them over to theshelter, crept like an insect far below them on thegreen mirror of the lake.

The going down was real recreation for the captain'srather stout body, short of breath as he was,and the prospect of being able to indulge in his favoritesport, fishing, contributed greatly to enliveninghis temper.

When they embarked in the square trough,which was waiting for them down by the fishing-hut,he had the line ready. He had already, withgreat activity, taken care of the bait, carried in agoat's horn.

Those of the train who could not be accommodatedin the boat went around the lake with thehorses. They saw them now and then on the crags,while they rowed out.

"What do you say to a trial along the shore therein the shade, Mathis? Don't you think they willtake the hook there?—We are not rowing sostraight over at once, I think," said the captain slyly.

Under the thwarts Mathis's own line was lying;and Inger-Johanna also wanted to try her hand at it.

The captain put the bait on for her. But shewould not sit and wait till they reached the fishing130place; she threw the line out at once and let it trailbehind the boat, while, as they rowed, she, off andon, gave a strong pull at it.

"See how handy she is," exclaimed the captain;"it is inborn—you come from a race of fishermen,for I was brought up in the Bergen district, and myfather before me. If I had a dollar for every codfishI have pulled out of Alverströmmen, there wouldbe something worth inheriting from me—What!what!"

A swirl was heard far behind in the wake. Inger-Johannagave a vigorous pull; the yellow belly of afish appeared a moment in the sunlight above thesurface of the water.

She continued, after the first feverish jerk uponthe line, in a half risen position, to pull it in.

When she lifted the shining fish high upon theedge of the boat, she burst out into a triumphantcry, "The first fish I have ever caught!"

Grip took the fish off the hook, and threw it faroff. "Then it shall also be allowed to keep its life!"

The captain angrily moved his heavy body, sothat it shook the boat. But that the ill-timed offeringto the deep was made for the honor of the appleof his eye greatly mitigated the stupidity.

And when they got in under the knoll, wherehe cast his line, he suddenly sang a verse from hisyouthful recollections of the Bergen quarter, whichhad slumbered in him for many a long year.

Torsknut, with patches and fields of snow onthe summit, stood on its head deep down belowthem, so that it almost caused a giddy feeling whenthey looked out over the boat-rail. And when theyarrived under the cattle station, the steep greenmountain side, with all the grazing cattle, was reproducedso clearly that they could count the hornsin the water.

"Nay, here the cows walk like flies on the wall,"said the captain. "If the milk-bucket falls up there,it will roll down to us into the boat."

The shelter was, in fact, nothing more than a littlemud hut on the rocky slope, and a little woodenshed, with boulders on the roof, and a hole in it.There the captain was to be quartered, and Inger-Johannawas to sleep till the sun rose, and she,with Jörgen, Great-Ola, and Svarten, should goback again to the Grönnelidsaeters.

They had eaten supper—the trout and an improvisedcream porridge—and were now standing,watching the sun set behind the great mountains.

The captain was going about on the turf, inslippers and unbuttoned uniform coat, smoking hispipe with extreme satisfaction. He stopped now andthen and gazed at the sun playing on the mountainpeaks far away.

Then a range of hitherto dark blue peaks tookfire in violet blushing tints, until they seemed anentire glowing flame. And now the snow-fields becamerose-red in the east—wonderful fairy tales intowers and castles gleamed there—the three snowypeaks then were turned to blood, with a burning,shining flash on top of the middle one. And againin the distance, still unlighted, blue peaks, snow-drifts,and glens, on which the shadows were playing.

Jörgen was lying, with his father's spy-glass,watching the reindeer on the ice-fields.

"Good-by, Miss Inger-Johanna," said Grip."I am going over the mountains to-night, with oneof the men to guide me. There are more peoplehere than the hut will accommodate. But first letme say to you," he added in a subdued tone, "thatthis open-hearted day on the high mountain hasbeen one of the few of my life.... I have not foundit necessary to say a single cowardly, bad witticism—norto despise myself," he added roughly."Yes, just so—just as you stand there, so fine and133erect and haughty, under the great straw hat, I shallremember you till we meet in the city again."

"It is a good ten miles to Svartdalsbod," suggestedthe captain, when he took leave—"alwayswelcome to Gilje, Grip."

He was already giving his farewell greetings agood distance up the steep ascent of Torsknut.

She stood looking at him. The last rays of thesun cast a pale yellow tinge in the evening with thistransparent mirroring. There was such a warm lifein her face!

Some kind of an insect—a humble-bee or awasp—buzzed through the open window into theroom newly tinted in blue—hummed so noisily onthe window-pane that the young girl with the luxuriantblack hair and the slightly dark, clear-cutface, who was lying sleeping into the morning, wasalmost aroused.

She lay sound asleep on her side, after havingcome home in the night. The impressions of themountains' summits were still playing in her brain.She had another trout on the line—it flashed andfloundered there in the lake—Grip came up withtwo sticks, which were to be placed crossways.

There on the toilet table with white hangingsabove it surrounding the glass which had been putthere for her return home, was the violet soap insilver paper.

It was plainly that which attracted all the inexperiencedinsects to ruin: they had found the way toan entirely new world of flowers there and plungedblindly headlong, believing in the discovery, withoutany conception of the numerous artificial productsof the age outside of the mountain region—thatthe fragrance of violets did not produce violets, butonly horrid, horrid pains in the stomach. Thereplainly existed an entire confusion in their ideas, tojudge by all the disquiet and humming in and outof those that had recently come and possibly beganto suspect something wrong and took a turn or twoup and down in the room first, before the temptationbecame too great for them, and by the earlierarrivals that slowly crept up and down on the wallwith acquired experience in life, or were lying stupefiedand floundering on the window-sill.

At the same time it opened a new train of thoughtwhile she smelled it two or three times.

She quickly threw it out of the window, and with135a towel carefully wiped those that had fallen on thefield of battle off the sill.

Later in the forenoon, Ma and Inger-Johannastood down in the garden, picking sugar peas fordinner.

"Only the ripest, Inger-Johanna, which are becomingtoo hard and woody, till your father comeshome. What will your aunt say when she hears thatwe have let you go with your father so far up in thewilderness—she certainly will not think such a tripvery inviting, or comprehend that you can be soeloquent over stone and rocks."

"No, she thinks that nothing can compete withtheir Tulleröd," said Inger-Johanna, smiling.

"Pass the plate over to me, so that I may emptyit into the basket," came from Ma.

"Rönnow, yes—but I shall amuse myself verywell by reading aloud to her this winterGedecke'sTravels in Switzerland,—and then give her smalldoses of my trip."

"Now you are talking without thinking, Inger-Johanna.There is always a great difference betweenthat which is within the circle of culture and desolatewild tracts up here in the mountain region."

"Father says that it is surely because they want136to use him at Stockholm that he is going to perfecthimself in French."

"Yes, he is certainly going to become somethinggreat. You can believe we find it ever so snug andpleasant when we are sometimes at home alone andI read aloud to aunt."

Ma's large bonnet, spotted with blue, rose up, andwith a table knife in her hand she passed the emptyplate back. "And he has the bearing which suits, thehigher he gets."

"Quite perfect—but I don't know how it is, onedoes not care to think about him up here in thecountry."

"That will do," she said, as she took up the basket,somewhat troubled—"We shan't have many peasthis year," she added, sighing.

There was a cold draught from the porch, an odorin the air of mace, ginger, and cloves—a roar ofchopping-knives, and dull rumbling and beatingso that the floor shook from the wooden mortar,where Great-Ola himself was stationed with a whiteapron and a napkin around his head.

At the head of the long kitchen table Ma was sitting,with a darning-needle and linen thread, sewingcollared beef, while some of the crofter women andThea, white as angels, were scraping meat for thefine meat-balls.

There, on the kitchen bench, with bloody, murderousarms, sat Thinka, who had recently returnedhome, stuffing sausages over a large trough. Itwent with great skill through the filler, and she fastenedup the ends with wooden skewers, and struggledwith one dark, disagreeable, gigantic leech afteranother, while their brothers or sisters were boilingin the mighty kettle, around which the flamescrackled and floated off in the open fireplace.

The captain had come into the kitchen, andstood surveying the field of battle with a sort ofpleasure. There were many kinds of agreeable prospectshere for the thoughts to dwell upon, andsamples of the finished products were continually138being sent up to the office for him to give his opinionon.

"I'll show you how you should chop, girls," hesaid sportively, and took the knives from Torbjörg.

The two chopping-knives in his hands went upand down in the chopping-tray so furiously thatthey could hardly be distinguished, and awakenedunmistakable admiration in the whole kitchen, whileall paused in bewilderment at the masterpiece.

It is true, it continued for only two or three minutes,while Torbjörg and Aslak must stand withlinen towels on their heads and chop all day.

But victory is still victory, and when the captainafterwards went into the sitting-room, hummingcontentedly, it was not without a little amused recollectionof his strategy,—for, "yes, upon my soul,"he could feel that his arms ached afterwards, nevertheless.And he rubbed them two or three timesbefore he tied a napkin around his neck and seatedhimself at the table in order to do justice to thewarm blood-pudding, with raisins and butter on it,which Thinka brought in to him.

"The plate might have been warmer for thiskind of thing—it really ought to be almost burninghot for the raisins and butter."

The always handy Thinka was out by the chimneyin a moment with a plate. She came in againwith it in a napkin; it could not be held in any otherway.

One of the happy domestic traits which Thinkahad disclosed since her return home was a wonderfulknack of managing her father; there was hardly anytrace of peevishness any longer.

Thinka's quiet, agreeable pliancy and cool, evenpoise spread comfort in the house. The captainknew that he only needed to put her on the trackof some good idea or other in the way of food, andsomething always came of it. She was so handy,while, when Ma yielded, it was always done soclumsily and with difficulty, just as if she creakedon being moved, so to speak, that he became fretful,and began to dispute in spite of it, notwithstandingshe knew very well he could not bear it.

A very great deal had been done since Mondaymorning, and to-morrow evening it was to be hopedthey would be ready. Two cows, a heifer, and a hog,that was no little slaughtering—besides the sheepcarcasses.

"The sheriff—the sheriff's horse is in the yard,"was suddenly reported in the twilight into the bustleof the kitchen.

"Hurry up to the office and get your fatherdown to receive him, Jörgen," said Ma, composingherself. "You will have to take off the towelsand then stop pounding, Great-Ola, exasperating asit is."

"They smell it when the pudding smokes in thekettle, I think," exclaimed Marit, in her livelymountain dialect. "Isn't it the second year he hascome here just at the time of the Christmas slaughtering?So they are rid of the menfolk lying in theway at home among themselves."

"Your tongue wags, Marit," said Ma, reprovingly."The sheriff certainly does not find it anytoo pleasant at home since he lost his wife, poorman."

But it was dreadfully unfortunate that he camejust now—excessively unfortunate. She must keepher ground; it wouldn't do to stop things out herenow. The captain came hastily out into the kitchen."The sheriff will stay here till to-morrow—it can'tbe helped, Ma. I will take care of him, if we onlyget a little something to eat."

"Some minced meat—fried meat-balls—a littleblood-pudding. That is easy enough. I told himthat he would have slaughter-time fare—and then,Thinka," he nodded to her, "a little toddy as soonas possible."

She was naturally so unassuming, and was notaccustomed to feel embarrassed. Therefore shebrought in the toddy tray like the wind, stoppingonly to put a clean blue apron on; and, after havingspoken to the sheriff, went to the cupboard afterrum and arrack, and to the tobacco table after somelighters, which she put down by the tray for thegentlemen before she vanished out through thekitchen door again.

"You must wash your hands, Torbjörg, andput things to rights in the guest-chamber; and thenwe must send a messenger for Anne Vaelta to helpus, little as she is fit for. Jörgen, hurry!" came fromMa, who saw herself more and more deprived ofher most needed forces.

Great-Ola had put up the sheriff's horse, andnow stood pounding again at the mortar in his whitesurplice—thump, thump, thump, thump.

"Are you out of your senses out here? Don'tyou think?" said the captain, bouncing in; he spokein a low voice, but for that reason the more passionately."Aren't you going to mangle, too? Thenthe sheriff would get a thundering with a vengeance,both over his head and under his feet. It shakes thefloor."

A look of despair came over Ma's face; in thesudden, dark, wild glance of her eye there almost142shone rebellion—now he was beginning to driveher too far—But it ended in a resigned, "You cantake the mortar with you out on the stone floor ofthe porch, Great-Ola."

And Thinka had to attend to the work of puttingthings in order and carrying in the supper, sothat it was only necessary for Ma to sit there a littlewhile, as they were eating, though she was on pinsand needles, it is true; but she must act as if therewas nothing the matter.

When Ma came in, there was a little formal talkin the beginning between her and the sheriff aboutthe heavy loss he had suffered. She had not methim since he lost his wife, three months ago. It waslonesome for him now that he had only his sister,Miss Gülcke, with him. Both Viggo and Baldrian,which was a short name for Baltazar, were at theLatin school, and would not come home again tillnext year, when Viggo would enter the university.

The sheriff winked a little, and made a mournfulgesture as if he wanted to convey an idea ofsadly wiping one eyelash, but no more. He hadgiven an exhibition of grief within nearly everythreshold in the district by this time, and here hewas in the house of people of too much commonsense not to excuse him from any more protractedoutburst just before a spread table with hot plates.

It developed into a rather long session at thetable—with ever stronger compliments, as often143as there was opportunity during the meal-time tocatch a glimpse of the hostess, for every new dishthat Thinka brought in smoking deliciously straightfrom the pan—actually a slaughtering feast—witha fine bottle of old ale in addition—for the newChristmas brew was too fresh as yet—and two orthree good drams brought in just at the right time.

The sheriff also understood very well what wasgoing on in the house, and how the hostess andThinka were managing it.

The grown-up daughter cleared off the table andtook care of everything so handily and comfortablywithout any bother and fuss—and so considerately.They had their pipes and a glass of toddyby their side again there on the sofa, with a freshsteaming pitcher, before they were aware of it.

The small inquisitive eyes of Sheriff Gülckestood far apart; they looked into two corners atonce, while his round, bald head shone on the onehe talked to. He sat looking at the blond, ratherslender young lady, with the delicate, light complexion,who busied herself so silently and gracefully.

"Have a little taste, Sheriff," said the captainconsolingly, and they touched glasses.

"Nay, you who have a house full of comfortcan talk—cushions about you in every corner—so144you can export to the city—But I, you see,"—hiseyes became moist—"sit there in my officeover the records. I was very much coddled, youknow—oh, well, don't let us talk about it. I musthave my punishment for one thing and another,I suppose, as well as others.

"Isn't it true, Miss Kathinka," he asked whenshe came in, "it is a bad sheriff who wholly unbiddenfalls straight down upon you in slaughtering-time?But you must lend him a little homecomfort, since it is all over with such things at hisown home.

"Bless me, I had almost forgotten it," he exclaimedeagerly, and hastened, with his pipe in hismouth, to his document case, which hung on achair near the door. "I have the second volumeofThe Last of the Mohicans for you from BineScharfenberg, and was to get—nay, what was it?It is on a memorandum—A Capricious Woman,by Emilie Carlén."

He took it out eagerly and handed it over toher, not without a certain gallantry.

"Now you must not forget to give it to me to-morrowmorning, Miss Kathinka," he said threateningly,"or else you will make me very unhappydown at Bine Scharfenberg's. It won't do to offendher, you know."

Even while the sheriff was speaking, Thinka'seye glided eagerly over the first lines—only to145make sure about the continuation—and in a twinklingshe was down again from her room with theread-through book by Carlén and the first volumeof the Mohicans done up in paper and tied witha bit of thread.

"You are as prompt as a man of business, MissThinka," he said jokingly, as with a sort of slowcarefulness he put the package into his case; histwo small eyes shone tenderly upon her.

Notwithstanding there had been slaughteringand hubbub ever since early in the morning,Thinka must still, after she had gone to bed, allowherself to peep a little in the entertaining book.

It was one chapter, and one more, and still onemore, with ever weakening determination to endwith the next.

Still at two o'clock in the morning she lay with hercandlestick behind her on the pillow, and steadilyreadThe Last of the Mohicans, with all the vicissitudesof the pursuits and dangers of the noble Uncas.

Ma wondered, it is true, that so many of theslender tallow candles were needed this winter.

And now he took leave, and thanked them forthe hours that had been so agreeable and cheering,although he came so inconveniently—oh, madame,he knew he came at an inconvenient time. "Althoughnow you have certainly got a right hand146in household matters. Yes, Miss Thinka, I havetested you; one does not have the eye of a policemanfor nothing.

"Invisible, and yet always at hand, like a quietspirit in the house—is not that the best that canbe said of a woman?" he asked, complimenting herfervently, when he had got his scarf around hisfur coat, and went down to the sleigh with beamingeyes and a little grayish stubble of beard—forhe had not shaved himself to-day.

"Pleasant man, the sheriff. His heart is in theright place," said the captain when, enlivened andrubbing his hands from the cold, he came in againinto the sitting-room.

The army doctor advised him to drink waterand exercise a good deal; a toddy spree now andthen would not do him any harm.

And it did not improve the rush of blood to hishead that Christmas came so soon after.

Father was depressed, but was reluctant to bebled, except the customary twice a year, in thespring and autumn.

After the little party for Buchholtz, the judge'schief clerk, on Thursday, he was much worse. Hewent about unhappy, and saw loss and neglect anderroneous reckonings in all quarters.

There was no help for it, a messenger must gonow after the parish clerk, Öjseth.

What he was good for in the first named directionshall be left unsaid; but in the last it couldsafely be said that he had very much, nay, barrels,of the blood of the district on his conscience, andnot least that of the full-blooded captain, whomhe had bled regularly now for a series of years.

The effect was magnificent. After the sultry andoppressive stormy and pessimistic mood, whichfilled, so to speak, every groove in the house andoppressed all faces, even down to Pasop—a brilliantfair weather, jokes with Thinka, and wild plansthat the family should go down in the summer andsee the manoeuvres.

It was at the point of complete good humor thatMa resolutely seized the opportunity to speakabout Jörgen's going to school—all that AuntAlette had offered of board and lodging, and whatshe thought could be managed otherwise.

There was a reckoning and studying, with demonstrationand counter-demonstration, down tothe finest details of the cost of existence in the city.

The captain represented the items of expenditureand the debit side in the form of indignantquestions and conjectures for every single one, asto whether she wanted to ruin him, and Ma stubbornly148and persistently defended the credit side,while she went over and went over again all theitems to be deducted.

When, time after time, things whirled round andround in the continual repetition, so that she gotconfused, there were bad hours before she succeededin righting herself in the storm.

The captain must be accustomed to it slowly,until it penetrated so far into him that he beganto see and think. But, like a persistent, untiringcruiser, she always had the goal before her eyesand drew near to it imperceptibly.

"This ready money"—it was for Ma to toucha sore, which nevertheless must be opened. Theresult was that the captain allowed himself to beconvinced, and now became himself the most zealousfor the plan.

Jörgen was examined in all directions. He wasobliged to sit in the office, and the captain subjectedhim to the cramming process.

"That's as old as the hills," read the captain."If you swing a hen round and put her down backwardswith a chalk mark in front of her beak, shewill lie perfectly still; will not dare to move. She certainlybelieves it is a string that holds her. I havetried it ever so many times—that you may safelytell her, Thinka."

Thinka had yesterday received her own letter,enclosed in that to her parents; it was a letter inregard to Ma's approaching birthday, which wasunder discussion between the sisters. And Inger-Johannahad given her a lecture in it, somethingalmost inciting her to rebellion and to stick to herflame there in the west, if there really was any firein it. That about the hen and the chalk mark wassomething at second-hand from Grip. Womencould be made to believe everything possible, andgladly suffered death when they got such a chalkmark before their beaks!

That might be true enough, Thinka thought.But now, when all were so against it, and she sawhow it would distress her father and mother, then—shesighed and had a lump in her throat—thechalk mark was really thicker than she could manage,nevertheless.

Inger-Johanna's letter had made her very heavyhearted. She felt so unhappy that she could havecried, if any one only looked at her; and as Ma didthat several times during the day, she probablywent about a little red-eyed.

At night she readArwed Gyllenstjerna, by Vander Velde, so that the bitter tears flowed.

Her sister's letter also contained something on150her own account, which was not meant for her fatherand mother.

For you see, Thinka, when you have gone throughballs here as I have, you do not any longer skipabout blindly with all the lights in your eyes. Youknow a little by yourself; one way or another, thereought to be something in the manner of the person.Oh, this ball chat! I say, as Grip does: I amtired, tired, tired of it. Aunt isn't any longer soeager that I shall be there, though many timesmore eager than I.

There I am now looked upon as haughty andcritical and whatever else it is, only because I willnot continually find something to talk away about!Aunt now thinks that I have got a certain coldnessof my own in my "too lively nature," a reservedcalm, which is imposing and piquant—that is whatshe wants, I suppose! In all probability just like theice in the steaming hot pudding among the Chinese,which we read about, you remember, in theBee.

Aunt has so many whims this winter. Now wetwo must talk nothing but French together! Butthat she should write to Captain Rönnow that Iwas so perfect in it, I did not like at all; I have nodesire to figure as a school-girl before him when hereturns; neither is my pronunciation so "sweet,"as she says!

I really don't understand her any longer. If there151was any one who could and ought to defend Gripat this time, it should be she; but instead of that,she attacks him whenever she can.

He has begun to keep a free Sunday-school orlecture for those who choose to come, in a hall outon Storgaden. It is something, you know, whichcreates a sensation. And aunt shrugs her shoulders,and looks forward to the time when he will vanishout of good society, although she has always beenthe first to interest herself in him and to say thathe came with something new. It is extremely meanof her, I think.

Jörgen must start on his journey before thesleighing disappeared, for the bad roads whenthe frost was coming out might last till St. John'sDay, and to harness the horses in such going wouldbe stark madness. If he were not to lose a wholeyear, he must go early and be prepared privatelyfor admission to school.

Jörgen was lost in meditations and thoughtsabout all that from which he was about to be separated.The gun, the sleds, the skis, the turning-lathe,the tools, the wind-mill, and the corn-millleft behind there on the hills, all must be devisedwith discretion—naturally to Thea first and foremost,on condition that she should take care ofthem till he came home again.

If he had been asked what he would ratherbe, he would doubtless have answered "turner,""miller," or "smith;" the last thing in the worldwhich would have presented itself to his range ofideas, to say nothing of coming up as a bent ora longing, would have been the lifting up to theloftier regions of books. But Greece and Latiumwere lying like an unalterable fate across his path,so that there was nothing to do or even to thinkabout.

On the day of his departure, the pockets of hisnew clothes, which were made out of the captain's153old ones, were a complete depository for secret despatches.

First, a long letter of fourteen pages, writtenin the night, blotted with tears, from Thinka to Inger-Johanna,in which with full details she gavethe origin, continuation, and hopeless developmentof her love for Aas. She had three keepsakes fromhim—a little breastpin, the cologne bottle whichhe had given her on the Christmas tree, and thenhis letter to her with a lock of his hair on themorning he had to leave the office. And even if shecould not now act against the wishes of her parents,but would rather make herself unhappy, still she hadpromised herself faithfully never to forget him, tothink of him till the last hour.

The second despatch was from Ma to AuntAlette, and contained—besides some economicalpropositions—a little suggestion about soundingInger-Johanna when Captain Rönnow returnedfrom Paris. Ma could not quite understand her thislast time.

The captain had never imagined that there wouldbe such a vacuum after Jörgen was gone. In hisway he had been the occasion of so much mentalexcitement, so many exertions and anxieties, andso much heightened furious circulation of blood,that now he was away the captain had lost quite astimulating influence. He had now no longer any154one to look after and supervise with eyes in theback of his head, to exercise his acuteness on, ortake by surprise—only the quiet, unassailable Theato keep school with.

And now when the spring came—dazzling light,gleaming water everywhere, with melting patchesof snow and its vanguards of red stone broken onthe steep mountain sides—Thinka, with a case-knifein her numb hands, was out in the meadowgathering dandelion roots. They were small, young,and still tender, but they were becoming strongerday by day.

The captain, with military punctuality, at seveno'clock every morning emptied the cup preparedfor him and stormed out.

To-day a fierce, boisterous, icy cold blast of rainwith hail and snow met him at the outer door andblew far in on the floor. The sides of the mountainswere white again.

These last mornings he was accustomed to rundown over the newly broken-up potato field, whichwas being ploughed; but in this weather—

"We must give up the field work, Ola," heannounced as his resolution in the yard—"it looksas if the nags would rather have to go out with thesnow-plough."

He trudged away; it was not weather to stand155still in. The rain drove and pounded in showersdown over the windows in the sitting-room withgreat ponds of water, so that it must be continuallymopped up and cloths placed on the window-seats.

Ma and Thinka stood there in the gray daylightover the fruit of their common work at the loomthis winter—a roller with still unbleached linen,which they measured out into tablecloths and napkins.

The door opened wide, and the captain's stoutform appeared, enveloped in a dripping overcoat.

"I met a stranger down here with somethingfor you, Thinka—wrapped up in oil-cloth. Canyou guess whom it is from?"

Thinka dropped the linen, and blushing red advanceda step towards him, but immediately shookher head.

"Rejerstad, that execution-horse, had it with himon his trip up. He was to leave it here." The captainstood inspecting the package. "The sheriff'sseal—Bring me the scissors."

"A para-sol!—A beautiful—new—" Thinkaburst out. She remained standing and gazing at it.

"Don't you see that here is 'philopena' on theseal, Jäger?" Ma put in, to afford a cover.

"I won a philopena from him—on New Year'sDay, when father and I took dinner at Pastor Horn's—afterchurch. I had entirely forgotten it," shesaid in a husky tone. Her eyes glanced from thefloor halfway up to her parents, as she quietlywent out, leaving the parasol lying on the table.

"I guess you will use your linen for a weddingoutfit, Ma," said the captain, slapping his hands andswinging his hat with a flourish. "What would yousay to the sheriff for a son-in-law here at Gilje?"

"You saw that Thinka went out, Jäger." Ma'svoice trembled a little. "Very likely she is thinkingthat it is not long since his wife was laid in thegrave. Thinka is very good, and would like to submitto us; but there may be limits to what we canask." There was something precipitate in her movementsover the linen, which indicated internal disturbance.

"The sheriff, Ma; is not he a catch? Fine, handsomeman in his best years. Faith, I don't knowwhat you women will have. And, Gitta," he remindedher, a little moved, "it is just the men who havelived most happily in their first marriage who marryagain the soonest."

Time flew with tearing haste towards St. John'sDay. Spring was brewing in the air and over thelakes. The meadow stood moist and damp, hillockon hillock, like the luxuriant forelocks of horses.The swollen brooks sighed and roared with freshly157shining banks. They boiled over, as it were, withthe power of the same generating life and sap thatmade the buds burst in alder, willow, and birch almostaudibly, and shows its nature in the bouncing,vigorous movements of the mountain boy, inhis rapid speech, his lively, shining eyes, and hiselastic walk.

At the beginning of summer a letter came fromInger-Johanna, the contents of which set the captain'sthoughts into a new flight:

Dear Parents,—At last a little breath to writeto you. Captain Rönnow went away yesterday, andI have as yet hardly recovered my balance fromthe two or three weeks of uninterrupted sociabilitywhile he was here.

It will be pleasant to get out to Tilderöd nextweek on top of all this. It is beginning to be hotand oppressive here in the city.

There did not pass a day that we were not ata party, either at dinner or in the evening; but thepearl of them was aunt's own little dinners, whichshe has a reputation for, and at which we spokeonly French. The conversation ran on so easily, oneexpresses one's self so differently, and our thoughtscapture each other's already half guessed. Rönnowcertainly speaks French brilliantly.

A man who carries himself as he does makes a158certain noble, masterly impression; you are transportedinto an atmosphere of chivalric manly dignity,and hear the spurs jingle, I had almost saidmusically; you almost forget that there are thosewho stamp their feet.

When I compare the awkward compliments atballs, which may come smack in your face, withCaptain Rönnow's manner of saying and not sayingand yet getting a thing in, then I do not denythat I get the feeling of a kind of exhilarating pleasure.He claimed that he had such an illusion fromsitting opposite me at the table. I resembled somuch a portrait of a historic lady which he had seenat the Louvre; naturally she had black hair andcarried her neck haughtily and looked before her,smiling, with an expression which might have beencharacterized, "I wait—and reject—till he comes,who can put me in my right place."

Well, if it amuses him to think of such things,then I am happy to receive the compliments. It istrue there are such godfathers and uncles who areutterly infatuated with their goddaughters, and spoilthem with nonsense and sweets. I am afraid thatRönnow is a little inclined to this so far as I amconcerned, for, sensible and straightforward as healways is, he continually launches out into superlativesin relation to me; and I really cannot helpthinking that it is both flattering and pleasant whenhe is continually saying that I am made for presiding159where ladies and gentlemen of the highercircles are received. He really must think moreof me than I deserve, because he sees that I amperhaps a little more open and direct than others,and have no natural gift at concealing what I mean,when I am in society.

Yes, yes, that is the thanks you get because youhave continually spoiled me; in any case, I do notimmediately creep under a chair, but try to sit whereI am sitting as long as possible.

But, now, why hasn't such a man married? Ifhe had been younger, and I just a little vainer, hemight almost have been dangerous. He still has fineblack hair—a little thin, and perhaps he takes alittle too much pains with it. There is one thing Icannot understand, and that is why people try toconceal their age.

The captain gave a poke at his wig: "When onegoes a-courting, Ma," he said, smiling.

Two mail days later he came home from the post-officewith a long letter from Aunt Alette to Ma.She was not a favorite of his. In the first place shewas too "well read and cultured;" in the secondplace she was "sweet;" lastly, she was an old maid.

He seated himself in an armchair, with his armsfolded before him, to have it read to him. He plainlyregarded it as a bitter document.

My dear Gitta,—It is no easy task, but really arather complicated and difficult one, you have laidupon the shoulders of an old maid, even if she isyour never failing, faithful Aunt Alette. If we couldonly have talked together, you would have soonguessed my meaning; but now there is no other wayfor me to free my conscience than to write and write,till it has all come out that I have on my mind.

Now you know well enough that the governor'swife is not in my line, and if it had not been forwhat you wrote me when you sent Inger-Johannahere, I certainly should not have moved my oldlimbs so far out of the old town where I have mycircle of firm friends, and gone in to make formalcalls at the governor's, notwithstanding she is alwaysexcessively friendly and means it, too, I daresay.

First and foremost, I must tell you that Inger-Johannais a lady in every respect, but still withmore substance to her, if I may express myself so, andstronger will than our poor Eleonore. It is certainthat she in many ways overawes, not to say domineersover, your sister-in-law, strict and domineeringas she otherwise has the reputation of being.And, therefore, she must resort to underhand meansin many things, when she finds that it won't do toplay the game openly before Inger-Johanna, which,according to my best convictions, has been the casewith regard to the captain. He certainly came here161this time from his trip to Paris with the full intentof completing his courting, after, like a wise andprudent general, having first surveyed the groundwith his own eyes. Simply the manner in which healways addressed and paid his respects to her wouldhave convinced a blind person of that.

The only one, however, who does not understandit, notwithstanding she is besieged in a thousandways, is the object of his attentions herself.She sits there in the midst of the incense, truly protectedagainst the shrewdness of the whole world byher natural innocence, which is doubly surprising,and, old Aunt Alette says, to be admired in her whois so remarkably clever.

I will not, indeed, absolve her from being a littlegiddy at all the incense which he and your sister-in-lawincessantly burn before her (and what elderly,experienced person would not tolerate and forgivethis in a young girl!) But the giddiness does nottend to the desired result, namely, the falling inlove, but only makes her a little puffed up in herfeeling of being a perfect lady, and is limited toher doing homage to him as the knightly cavalierand—her father's highly honored friend.

It is this, which he, so to speak, is for thepresent beaten back by, so he is going abroad again,and this evidently after consultation with your sister-in-law.Inger-Johanna, if my old eyes do not deceiveme,—and something we two have seen and162experienced, both separately and together, in thisworld, dear Gitta,—is not found ready for the matrimonialquestion, inasmuch as her vanity and pridehave hitherto appeared as a feeling entirely isolatedfrom this.

She may, indeed, and that tolerably earnestly,wish to rule over a fine salon; but she has not yetbeen brought clearly to comprehend that with it shemust take the man who owns it. There is somethingin her open nature which always keeps thedistance between these two questions too wide foreven a captain of cavalry to leap over it. God blessher!

Love is like an awakening, without which weneither know nor understand anything of its holylanguage; and unhappy are they who learn to knowit too late, when they have imprisoned themselvesin the so-called bonds of duty. I am almost absolutelysure that love has not yet been awakened inInger-Johanna—may a good angel protect her!

"Ouf!—such old maids," said the captain, wakingup. "Go on, go on—is there any more?"

How far the young student who has a position in163the office is in any degree a hindrance to these plans,I don't dare to say, either pro or con. But thegovernor's wife thinks or fears something, I amfirmly convinced from her whole manner of treatinghim lately, although she is far too bright to let Inger-Johannaget even the slightest suspicion of her realreason.

I heard it plainly when I took coffee there onSunday, before they went away to Tilderöd, andshe had the maid tell him that she could not seehim. There was a not very gracious allusion to his"Sunday professorship of pettifogging ideas," asshe called it.

I suppose these must be something of the samesort of ideas that I was enthusiastic about when Iwas young and read Rousseau'sÉmile, which absorbedme very much, nay, which can yet occupysome of my thoughts. For she stated, as one of hisleading ideas, that he, in his headlong blindness,thought that he could simplify the world, and firstand foremost education, to a very few natural propositionsor so-called principles. And you know, we—still,that is going to be quite too long. To bebrief, when Inger-Johanna with impetuosity rushedto the defence of Grip, she saw in him only the sonof the idiotic "cadet at Lurleiken," as he is called,one of the well-known, amusing figures of the country;but this one, in addition to his father's distractedideas, was also equipped with a faculty of164using that fearful weapon, satire—voilà the phantomGrip!

Youthful student ideas could perhaps be usedgracefully enough as piquant topics of conversation;but instead of that, to set them in motion in a headlongand sensational manner, without regard to theopinion of older people, was a great step, was pretentious,and showed something immature, somethingraw, which by no means ought to be relished.

I have reported this so much at length in orderto show you by the very expressions that there maybe here a "good deal of cotton in the linen," as thesaying is.

And since I am going to bring my innermostheart to light, I shall have to tell you that he appearsto me to be a trustworthy, truthful young man,whose natural disposition is as he speaks and nototherwise, and he carries a beautiful stamp on hiscountenance and in his whole bearing. If possiblyhe is a little forgetful of "My son, if you want toget on in the world, then bow," that is worst forhim and not to his dishonor, we know.

It was also a truly refreshing enjoyment for me,as if looking into the kingdom of youth, awakeningmany thoughts, to talk with him, the two eveningsthis winter when he accompanied me, an old woman,home from the governor's (for him, I have no doubt,a very small pleasure), all the way out to the old165town, when otherwise I should have been obligedto go anxiously with my servant-girl and a lantern.

The captain had had a genuine drive in theservice ever since summer, when he and thelieutenant inspected the storehouse for the tents,together with the arsenal and the guns in the levyingdistricts. Then the military exercises, and finallynow the meeting of the commissioners of conscription.There had been tolerably lively goings-on atthe inn in the principal parish the last two or threeevenings with the army doctor, the solicitor Sebelow,tall Buchholtz, Dorff the sheriff's officer, andthe lieutenants.

But the result was splendid in so far that, insteadof the bay horse, he was now driving home witha fine three or four-year-old before the cariole, witha white star on the forehead and white stockingsthat almost promised to be a match for Svarten if—if—itwere not a bolter.

It had just now, when the old beggar woman roseup from the ditch by the wayside, shown somethingin the eyes and ears which it certainly had concealedduring all the three days of the session. He had atlast even shot over its head to test it, without somuch as the horse giving a start.

It would be too mean, after the doctor and FirstLieutenant Dunsack had been unanimous in thesame opinion as he about the beast, and he, besides,167had given the horse-dealer twenty-five dollars toboot.

But now it trotted off with the cariole very steadilyand finely. The little inclination to break into acanter was only unmannerliness and a little of coltishbad habits which stuck to it still, and woulddisappear by driving.

Great-Ola had not had a steadier horse in the stallby the side of Svarten, nevertheless—"You shallgrow old in my barn; do you understand, youyoung Svarten? shall go to the city in pairs withyour uncle—before the carriage for Inger—Therenow, you beast—of a—dog"—swip—swish—swip—swish—"Ishall teach you to drop yourbad habits, I shall. Whoa!" he thundered. "There!there!"

There was a whole train of gay fellows who werestanding, talking, shouting, and drinking in the roadoutside the gate to the Bergset farm.

At the sight of the captain's well-known formthey made way for him, greeting him politely. Theyknew that he had been far away, and the men whohad gone to the mustering had just returned to thefarms round about, yesterday and to-day.

"So, so, Solfest Staale!" he said, winking toa young man, "do you believe there is anythingin the story that Lars Överstadsbraekken is courtingthe widow here? Their lands lie very fine."

There came an ill-concealed amusement on thecountenances of those standing about. They guessedwhat the captain was at. It was the rival he wasspeaking to.

"Hold my horse a little while, Halvor, while Igo and talk a little with the bailiff about it."

There was a crowd of people in the house and thecaptain was greeted by one knot after another ofnoisy talking folk, men and women, girls and boys,among whom the brandy bottle was diligently circulating,until he got into the room where the salewas going on.

There sat Bardon in the crowded, steaming room,calling over and over again, with his well-known,strong, husky voice, threatening with the hammer,giving utterance to a joke, finally threateningfor the last, last time, until with the law's blowshe nailed the bid firmly forever down on the top169of the table. They made way for the captain as hecame.

"Are you also so crazy as to allow your wife togo to the auction, Martin Kvale?" he said, joking,to an important fellow with silver buttons on hiscoat, as he passed by.

Out in the hall stood the handsome Guro Granlienwith a crowd of other young girls.

"Oh, Guro!" he said, chucking her under thechin, "now Bersvend Vaage has come home fromthe drill. He was in a brown study and wholly losthis wits, the fellow, and so I came near putting himin arrest: you are too hard on him, Guro." Henodded to the snickering girls.

The captain knew the district in and out, forwardsand backwards, as he expressed it. He hadan inconceivably keen scent for contemplated farmtrades, weddings, betrothals, and anything of thekind that concerned the young conscripts. GuroGranlien was not the first girl who opened her eyeswide on that account. He got a great deal out of hisfive subalterns, but by no means the least was tobe found in his own always alert interest in thesethings.

And when, to-day, he made the little turn upto the place of auction, the reason was far less the"autumn cow," than his lively curiosity for the new170things that might have happened during his longabsence.

Therefore it was not at all unwelcome to himwhen the widow came out and invited him into the"other room," where he must at least have a dropof ale before he left the farm.

He was curious to get her on the confessional asto the possibility of a new marriage, and also hadthe satisfaction, after a half hour's confidential chat,of having won from her confidence the whole ofthe real and true condition of her thoughts aboutherself and the farm.

No one cheated him any longer about that affair,—thewidow of Bergset was to retain undividedpossession of the estate of the deceased and—notmarry. But she was anxious not to let it come out;she wanted to be courted, of course—as a goodmatch in the district, naturally.

Something must also be said about somethingelse at last, and so Randi, in the spirit of what hadbeen said, added: "And the sheriff, who is going tomarry again."

"They say he is a constant visitor at the houseof Scharfenberg, the solicitor. Very likely it is theyoungest daughter, eh?"

He went quickly, so that his spurs rattled, and171his sabre flapped under his coat, down to his horsewithout looking to the right or left or speaking toany one. He pressed his shako more firmly downon his forehead before he got into the cariole.

He gave young Svarten, who began with somecapers, a taste of the whip, and off he went withtight reins at full trot, so that the fence-posts flewlike drumsticks past his eyes.

"See there! there is a beast of a cow lying in themiddle of the road," he broke out, with his lipsfirmly pressed together.

"Well, if you won't get up, then you are welcometo stay! If you please—I am stupid also—I'lldrive on."

His bitterness took full possession of him, andhe would have firmly allowed the wheel to go overthe animal's back if the latter had not risen upquickly at the last moment, so near that the captain'scariole was half raised up, while it grazed andwas within an ace of being upset.

"Hm, hm," he mumbled, somewhat broughtto his senses as he looked back upon the object ofhis missed revenge.

"So, so—off, I say, you black knacker—if youonce peep back again in that way, I will kill you! Ha,ha, ha! If you run, you will still find a hill, my goodfriend."

He had had a tremendous headache all day;but it was not that which annoyed him—that heknew.

And when he came home, where they were expectingfather to-day in great suspense after his longabsence, his looks were dark.

"There, Ola! Curry the horse—dry him with awisp of straw first—take good care of him—put ablanket on his back; do you hear? I only drove thefellow a little up the hill."

Great-Ola looked at the captain and nodded hishead confidently, as he led the horse and carriageaway from the steps; there was surely somethingthe matter; the captain had got cheated again withthis new nag.

He took off his cloak and shako. "Oh, can't youlet Marit take the trunk and the travelling-bag sothat they needn't stand there on the steps anylonger?—Oh, yes; it has been tiresome enough,"as he evaded rather coldly Thinka's attentions.173"Put the sabre on the peg, and carry the bag up tomy chamber."

He himself went first up to the office to look atthe mail, and then down to the stable to see howGreat-Ola had treated Svarten.

Ma's face, anxiously disturbed, followed him hereand there in the doorways, and Thinka glided inand out without breaking the silence.

When he came in, the supper-table was spread—herringsalad, decorated with red beets and slicesof hard boiled eggs, and a glass of brandy by theside of it—and then half salted trout and a goodbottle of beer.

Father was possibly not quite insensible, but extremelyreticent. You could absolutely get onlywords of one syllable in answer to the most ingeniouslyconceived questions!

"The sheriff is going to marry again, they say; itis absolutely certain!" he let fall at last, as the firstagreeable news he knew from the outer world;"Scharfenberg's youngest."

The remark was followed by deep silence, evenif a gleam of perfect contentment glided overThinka's face, and she busied herself with eating.They both felt that his ill-humor came from this.

"That man can say he is lucky with his daughters—Binesoon in a parsonage, and now Andrea the174sheriff's wife! Perhaps you can get a position there,Thinka, when you need it some day, as governessfor the children, or housekeeper; she won't beobliged to do more in the house than just what shepleases; she can afford it."

No more was said before Thinka cleared off thetable, when Ma apologetically exclaimed, "PoorThinka!"

The captain wheeled towards her on the floorwith his fingers in the armholes of his vest andblinked indignantly at her.

"Do you know! After the parasol and the oneattention after another which he has taken the painsto show all summer, if she could have given the mana bit of thanks and friendliness other than she has—Itwould not have gone so at all, if I had been athome!"—his voice rose to something like a pealof thunder—"But I think it is a flock of geese thatI have here in the house, and not grown-up womenwho look out a little for themselves. Andrea Scharfenbergdidn't let herself be asked twice, not she!"he said, walking out again when Thinka came in;he did not care if she did hear it.

Ma gazed somewhat thoughtfully at him, and in the175days that followed, they petted and coddled fatherin every way to make him a little more cheerful.Thinka, in the midst of her quiet carefulness, casther eyes down involuntarily, when he groaned andpanted in this way.

The horse had fever in one hoof to-day afterthe new shoeing. It was a nail which had beendriven in too far by that blockhead of a smith. Itmust come out.

The captain stood silently looking on in hisfavorite position, with his arms on the lower halfof the stable door, while Great-Ola, with the hindleg of young Svarten over his leg, was performingthe operation of extraction with the tongs. Theanimal was good-natured and did not so much asmove his leg.

"Good Lord!" if the captain did not sink slowlydown, while he still held onto the stable door,right on the dung!

Ola looked a moment irresolutely at his master,dropping the horse's foot. Then he took the stablepail and spattered some water into his face untilhe once more manifested a little life and consciousness.

"Drink, drink, Captain! Don't be afraid. It isonly the result of all that drilling and pleasuring.It is just as it is when one has kept up a weddingfestivity too long. My brother—"

"Help me out, Ola! There, let me lean onyou—gently, gently. Ah, it does one good tobreathe—breathe," as he stopped. "Now it's over,I believe. Yes, entirely over, nothing more thana half fainting spell. Just go with me a little bit,Ola, as a matter of precaution. Hm, hm, that goeswell enough. Yes, yes, I have no doubt it is theirregular life the whole of the autumn. Go and callmy wife. Say I am up in the chamber. I can managethe stairs bravely."

This time it was the captain who was at easeand turned it off, and Ma who without authoritydispatched a messenger. If the army surgeon wasnot at home, then he must go to the district doctor.

When the army surgeon, Rist, came, and hadreceived at the door Ma's anxious explanationsthat Jäger had had a slight shock, for the calming ofthe house he delivered a humorous lecture.

It was wholly a question of degree. The manwho drank only so much that he stammered sufferedfrom paralytic palsy of the tongue—and inthis way every blessed man that he knew was aparalytic patient. This was only a congestion notuncommon among full-blooded people.

Jäger himself was in fact so far over it that hedemanded the toddy tray in the evening—trueenough, only an extremely light dose for his part!But cock and bull stories from the encampmentand about Svarten were told in the clouds of smoke,and with constant renewals of the thin essence, tillhalf-past one in the morning.

There was a roaring in the stove on one of thefollowing forenoons, while the captain sat in hisoffice chair, and wrote so that his quill-pen sputtered.

As usual at this time of the year, after his longabsence, there was a great multitude of things tobe disposed of. Thea's Norwegian grammar waslying on the green table by the door; she had justfinished reading, and was heard humming outsidein the hall.

There was a noise on the stairs, and Ma showingsome one the way up, "That way—to thecaptain."

It was an express from the sheriff—in Sundaydress—with a letter. It was to be given to thecaptain himself.

"What? Is there to be an answer? Well, well!Yes, go down to the kitchen and get a little somethingto eat and a dram.—Hm, hm," he mumbled178and threw the letter, written on letter-paper andfastened with a seal, down on his desk, while inthe mean time he took a turn up and down thefloor. "Notice of the betrothal, I suppose—orperhaps an invitation to the wedding."

Opening it, he read it, standing up—eagerlyrunning it over hastily—a cursed long introduction!—Overthat—over that—quite to the thirdpage.

He struck the back of the hand in which heheld the letter with a resounding whack into theother, and then seated himself—"Yes, yes, yes,yes, yes, yes, yes!"

He snapped his fingers, once, twice, three times,in a brown study, scratched his head behind hisear, and then slyly up under his wig.

"Now, we shall see—we shall see!—And thatnonsense about Scharfenberg." He rushed to thedoor and jerked it open; but bethought himselfand walked on tiptoe to the stairs. "Who is therein the hall—you, Thea?"

When Ma came in, he walked about with theletter behind his back, clearing his throat. There179was the suitable deliberate seriousness about himwhich the situation demanded.

He stood leaning against the desk, and wentthrough its three pages, period by period, withgreat moderation, till he came to the point, thenhe hurled it out so that it buzzed in the air, andhugged Ma wildly.

"Well, well!—what do you say, Ma? Take atrip when we want to go down to our son-in-law!"He rubbed his hands. "It was a real surprise,Ma,—hm, hm," he began, again clearing his throat."It is best that we ask Thinka to come up andtell her the contents—don't you think?"

"Ye-es," said Ma huskily, having turned to thedoor; she could see no help or escape for her anymore, poor girl!

The captain walked up and down in the office,waiting. He had the high-spirited, dignified, paternalexpression which is completely absorbed in theimportance of the moment.

"Well, then, don't you see her?" he mildlyasked two or three times through the door.

At last Thea found her in the garret. She had180taken refuge up there and hid herself, when shesaw the express and heard that it was from thesheriff, in anticipation of the contents. And nowshe was sitting with her head on her arms and herapron over her head.

She had not been crying; she had been seizedwith a sort of panic; she felt an irresistible impulseto hide herself away somewhere and shut her eyes,so that it would be really dark, and she would notbe obliged to think.

She looked a little foolish when she went downwith Thea to her father and mother in the office.

"Thinka," said the captain, when she came in,"we have received to-day from the sheriff an importantletter for your future. I suppose it is superfluousto say—after all the attention you have allowedhim to show you during the year—what itis about, and that your mother and I regard it asthe greatest good fortune that could fall to your lot,and to ours also. Read the letter and consider itwell. Sit down and read it, child."

Thinka read; but it did not seem as if she gotfar; she shook her head dumbly the whole timewithout knowing it.

"You understand very well, it is not any youthfullove fancy, and any such exalted nonsense thathe asks of you. It is if you will fill an honoredposition with him that you are asked, and if you181can give the good will and care for him which hewould naturally expect of a wife."

But Ma whispered, with a blaze of lightning inher eyes, "You see plainly, she cannot think, Jäger.—Don'tyou think as I do, father," she said aloud,"that it is best we let Thinka take the letter, sothat she can consider it till to-morrow? It is sucha surprise."

"Of course, if Thinka prefers it," came afterthem, from the captain, who was greatly offended, asMa went with her, shutting her up in her chamber.

"No place to turn to, you see, when one willnot be a poor, unprovided-for member of a family.Sew, sew your eyes out of your head, till at lastyou lie in a corner of some one's house. Such anhonorable proposal would seem to many people tobe a great thing."

"God knows, child, that if I saw any other wayout, I would show it to you, even if I should haveto hold my fingers in the fire in order to do it."

Thinka slipped her hand onto her mother's thinhand and sobbed gently into her pillow.

"Your father is no longer very strong—doesnot bear many mental excitements,—so that theoutlook is dark enough. The attack when he camehome last—"

Late in the evening Ma sat and held her daughter'shead so that she could get some sleep; she wascontinually starting up.

And now when Thinka finally slept, withoutthese sudden starts any longer—quietly and peacefully,with her fair young head regularly breathingon the pillow—Ma went out with the candle. Theworst was over.

If the captain was in an exalted mood after havingseen from the office window Aslak, who went asexpress messenger to the sheriff, vanishing throughthe gate, then in certain ways he was doubly setup in the kingdom of hope by a little fragment ofa letter from Inger-Johanna, dated Tilderöd:

We are all in a bustle, packing up and movingto the city, therefore the letter will be short thistime.

There have been guests here to the very last;solitude suits neither uncle nor aunt, and so theyhad said "Welcome to Tilderöd" so often that we183had one long visit after another all through thesummer—in perfect rusticity, it was said. But Ibelieve indeed they did not go away again withoutfeeling that aunt preserves style in it. With perfectfreedom for every one, and collations both in thegarden room and on the veranda, there is, after all,something about it which makes the guests feelthat they must give something and be at their best.People don't easily sink down to the level of thecommonplace when aunt is present. She flattersme that we are alike in that respect.

And I don't know how it is, I feel now that Iam almost as much attracted by assemblies as formerlyby balls. There certainly is much more of anopportunity to use whatever little wit one has, andthey may be a real influential circle of usefulness:aunt has opened my eyes to that this summer.When we read of the brilliant Frenchsalons, wherewoman was the soul, we get an impression that hereis an entire province for her. And to be able to liveand work in the world has possessed me since Iwas little, and mourned so that I was not a boywho could come to be something.

I had got so far, dear parents, when Miss Jörgensencalled me to go down into the garden toaunt. The mail had come from the office in thecity, and on the table in a package lay a flat, redmorocco leather box and a letter to me.

It was a gold band to wear in my hair, with a184yellow topaz in it, and in the letter there was only,"To complete the portrait.Rönnow."

Of course aunt must try it on me at once—takedown my hair, and call in uncle. Rönnow's tastewas subtly inspired when it concerned me, she declared.

But with the letter and all the fantastical overvaluation,there is that which makes me feel thatthe gold band pinches my neck. Gratitude is a tiresomevirtue.

Aunt lays so many plans for our social life nextwinter, and is rejoicing that Rönnow may possiblycome for another trip.

The more quickly and quietly the weddingcould be arranged, the better, said the sheriff.It had its advantage in getting ahead of explanationsand gossip. People submitted to an accomplishedfact.

The third day of Christmas was just the rightone to escape too much sensation; and it suitedthe sheriff exactly, so that he could enter upon hisnew state of household affairs with the new year.

Naturally, Kathinka was asked about every oneof these points; and she always found everythingthat her father thought right.

The decision that the wedding should be arrangedspeedily and promptly was exactly after thecaptain's own heart. On the other point, on thecontrary, that everything should be kept so quietand still, he was in agreement with the sheriff andMa, of course; but it really did not lie in his naturethat the whole joyful affair should take placesmothered with a towel before his mouth, andwhispering on tiptoe, as if it were a sick-room theywere having at Gilje instead of a wedding.

Some show there must be about it; that he owedto Thinka, and to himself also a little.

And thus it came about that before Christmashe took a little sleighing trip, when it was goodgoing, down to the lieutenant's and to the solicitors,186Scharfenberg and Sebelow, with whom he had somemoney settlements to get adjusted in regard to themap business that had been done in the last twosuits.

And then, when he met the report that the bannshad been published in church for his daughter andthe sheriff, he could answer with a question if theywould not come and convince themselves. Confidentially,of course, he invited no one but the armysurgeon and those absolutely necessary. "But"—winking—"oldfellow, how welcome you shall be,the third day of Christmas, not the second and notthe fourth, my boy, remember that!"

And he took care that provisions as well as batteriesof strong liquors should be stored up insidethe ramparts at home, so the fortress could holdits own.

On Christmas Eve there came a horse expressfrom the sheriff with a sleigh full of packages—nothingbut presents and surprises for Thinka.

First and foremost, his former wife's warm furcloak with squirrel-skin lining and muff, which hadbeen made over for Thinka by Miss Brun in thechief parish; then her gold watch and chain withearrings, and rings, all like new, and burnished upby the goldsmith in the city, and a Vienna shawl,and, lastly, lavender water and gloves in abundance.

In the letter he suggested to his devotedly lovedKathinka that his thoughts were only with her187until they should soon be united by a strongerbond, and that she, when once in her new home,would find several other things which might possiblyplease her, but which it would not be practicalto send up to Gilje, only to bring them rightback again.

He had not brought Baldrian and Viggo homefor Christmas—and in this he hoped she wouldagree with him; he had sent them down to hisbrother, the minister at Holmestrand.

Never in Great-Ola's time had there been sucha festive show in horses and vehicles, as when, onthe third day of Christmas, they started down thehill to the annex-church; the harnesses and bellsshone, and both the black horses glistened beforethe double sleighs, as if they had been polished up,both hair and mane.

Under the bearskin robe in the first sat the captainin a wolf-skin coat and Thinka adorned withthe chains and clothes of the sheriff's first wife,with young Svarten. In the second Ma and Thea,with Great-Ola on the dickey seat behind and oldSvarten.

There stood the subalterns in uniform payingtheir respects at the church door; and inside, in thepew, Lieutenants Dunsack, Frisak, Knebelsberger,and Knobelauch rose up in full uniform. So thesheriff could see that there was some style aboutit, anyway.

And when they turned towards home, after theceremony was over, now with the captain and hiswife in the first sleigh and the wedded couple inthe other—there was such a long cortège that thesheriff's idea of celebrating the wedding quietlymust be regarded as wholly overridden.

During this the powers of the battalion from theyoungest lieutenant up to the captain developeda youthful courage in their attack on the strongwares, so wild and so regardless of the results, thatit could only demand of the sheriff a certain degreeof prudence.

The sheriff sat contented and leaning forwardwith his great forehead thinly covered with hair,taking pains to choose his words in the cleverestand most fitting manner for the occasion.

And so long as it was confined to the speeches,he was the absolute master, unless he might possiblyhave a rival in the army surgeon's sometimesmore deeply laid satire, which became more problematicaland sarcastic after he had been drinking.

But now the small twinkling eyes, shining moreand more dimly and tenderly veiled, devoted themselvesexclusively to the bride.

She must taste the tower tart and the wine custard,for his sake! He would not drink any more,189if he could avoid it, for her sake. "I assure you,"for your—"only for your sake."

An inroad was made on the wares at Gilje withprolonged hilarity till far into the night, when someof the sleighs in the starlight and in the gleam ofthe Northern lights reeled homewards with theirhalf unconscious burdens drawn by their soberhorses, while as many as the house would holdremained over in order to celebrate the weddingand Christmas the next day.

By New Year's the house was finally emptied ofits guests, the sheriff and Kathinka were installedin their home, and the captain travelled down on avisit to them with Thea in order to have his NewYear's Day spree there.

She felt, now the wheel of work had stopped allat once, and she sat there at home alone, on the dayafter New Year's, how tremendous a load it hadbeen to pull. The trousseau all through the autumnand the household affairs before the holidays,Christmas, and the wedding, and all the anxieties.

It had gone on incessantly now, as far back asshe could think. It was like ravelling out the yarnfrom a stocking, the longer she thought, the longerit was, clear back to the time when it seemed to herthere was a rest the days she was lying in childbed.

She was sitting in the corner of the sofa halfasleep in the twilight, with her knitting untouchedbefore her.

Aslak and two of the girls had got leave to goto a Christmas entertainment down at the Skrebergfarm, and except old Torbjörg, who was sittingwith her hymn book and humming and singingin the kitchen, there was no one at home.

Bells jingled out in the yard. Great-Ola hadcome home with the two-seated sleigh and oldSvarten, after having driven the captain and Thea.

"No, not at all! We were down there in goodtime before supper. Ever so many messages fromthe young wife; she was down in the stable andpatted and stroked Svarten last night. It was kindof a separation."

Old Svarten, still harnessed to the sleigh, stoodin the stable door and neighed impatiently.

"It only lacked that you should turn the keyalso," growled Ola, while he took off the harness,191and, now with the harness and bells over his arm,let the horse walk in before him.

"Why, if young Svarten isn't neighing also!That was the first time you have said a decent goodday here in the stable, do you know that? But youwill have to wait, you see."

He curried and brushed and rubbed the newarrival like a privileged old gentleman. Theyhad been serving together now just exactly nineyears.

In the kitchen the spruce wood crackled andsnapped on the hearth, casting an uncertain reddishglow over Ma's newly polished copper and tindishes and making them look like mystical shieldsand weapons hung on the walls.

Great-Ola was now sitting there making himselfcomfortable with his supper, Christmas cheer andentertainment—butter, bread, bacon, wort-cakes,and salt meat; and Torbjörg had been ordered todraw a bowl of small beer for him down in the cellar.Ola had heard one thing and another down there.

Thinka, she had gone out into the kitchen andwould take charge of the housekeeping immediately.But there she found some one who meant to holdthe reins.

Old Miss Gülcke wouldn't hear of that. Shewent straight up to the office, they said, and twistedand turned it over with her brother the whole forenoontill she got what she wanted.

And in the evening the sheriff sat on the sofaand talked so sweetly to the young wife. Beret, thechamber-maid, heard him say that he wanted herto have everything so extremely nice and be whollydevoted to him, so that—Horsch, the old graybeard!We can see now what he was doing here lastyear.

"And thereby," said Ola, with a mouthful betweenhis teeth, while he cut and spread a new sliceof bread, "she got rid of the trouble and the managementtoo."

"It is of no use to pull the noose when one hashis head in a snare, you see, Ola."

In the sitting-room Ma had examined the mailthat had come, sitting by the stove door. Besidesa number ofHermoder,The Constitutional, and a freeofficial document, there was a letter from AuntAlette.

In certain respects it was a piece of good fortunethat Jäger was not at home. He ought to havenothing to do with this.

Dear Gitta,—I have taken the second Christmasday to write down for you my thoughts concerningInger-Johanna. I cannot deny that she has cometo interest me almost more than I could wish; but,if we can feel a certain degree of anxiety for thesmallest flower in our window, which is just going193to blossom, how much more then for a human bud,which in the developing beauty of its youth is readyto burst out with its life's fate. This is more thana romance, it is the noble art work of the Guide ofall, which in depth and splendor and immeasurablewealth surpasses everything that human fantasy isable to represent.

Yes, she interests me, dear Gitta! so that my oldheart almost trembles at thinking of the life pathwhich may await her, when rise or fall may dependon a single deceptive moment.

What can Nature mean in letting such a host ofexistences, in which hearts are beating, succumband be lost in this choice, or does it thereby in itsgreat crucible make an exact assay, without whichnothing succeeds in passing over into a more completedevelopment—who can unriddle Nature'srunes? My hope for Inger-Johanna is that the fundor the weight of personality, which she possessesin her own nature, will preponderate in the scalesof her choice in the decisive moment.

I premise all this as a sigh from my innermostheart; for I follow with increasing dread how thepath is made more and more slippery under her feet,and how delicately your sister-in-law weaves thenet around her, not with small means to whichInger-Johanna would be superior, but with moredeep-lying, sounding allurements.

To open up the fascinating prospect of making194her personal qualities and gifts count—what greaterattraction can be spread out before a nature so ardentlyaspiring as hers? It is told of Englishmenthat they fish with a kind of counterfeited, glitteringflies, which they drag over the surface of thewater until the fish bites; and it appears to me thatin no less skilful manner your sister-in-law continuallytempts Inger-Johanna's illusions. She nevermentions the name of the one concerned, so thatit may dawn upon her of itself.

Only the careless hint to me, in her hearing,the last time I was there, that Rönnow had certainlyfor some time been rather fastidiously lookingfor a wife among theélite of our ladies—whywas not that calculated to excite, what shall I callit, her ambition or her need of having a field ofinfluence?

Perhaps I should not have noticed this remarkto that extent if I had not seen the impression itmade on her; she was very absent-minded and lostin thoughts.

And yet the question of whether one shouldgive her heart away ought to be so simple anduncomplicated! Are you in love? Everything elseonly turns on—something else.

The unfortunate and fateful thing is if she imaginesshe is able to love, binds herself in duty tolove, and thinks that she can say to her immatureheart: You shall never awaken. Dear Gitta, suppose195it did awaken—afterwards—with her strong,vigorous nature?

It is that which hovers before me so that I havebeen compelled to write. To talk to her and makeher prudent would be to show colors to the blind;she must believe blindly in the one who advisesher. Therefore it is you, Gitta, who must take holdand write.

Ma laid the letter down in her lap; she sat in thelight, looking paler and sharper even than common.

It was easy for Aunt Alette, the excellent AuntAlette, to think so happily that everything shouldbe as it ought to be. She had her little inheritance tolive on and was not dependent on any one. But—Maassumed a dry, repellent expression—withoutthe four thousand, old and tormented in MissJörgensen's place at the governor's, she would nothave written that kind of angelic letter.

I must also advance here some further doubts, sothat you will certainly think this is a sad Christmasletter. This, then, is about dear Jörgen, who findsit so hard at school. That he has thus far been ableto keep up with his class, we owe to Student Grip,who, persistently and without being willing ever tohear a word about any compensation, has gone overwith him and cleared up for him his worst stumbling-blocks,196the German and the Latin grammar.

And if I now express his idea in regard to Jörgen,it is with no small degree of confidence that it maybe well founded. He says that so far from Jörgen'shaving a poor head, it is just the opposite. Onlyhe is not made for the abstract, which is the requisitefor literary progress, but all the more for thepractical.

In connection with a sound, clear judgment, heis both dexterous and inventive. Jörgen would bean excellent mechanic or even a mechanical engineer,and would come to distinguish himself just ascertainly as he will reap trouble, difficulty, and onlyextremely moderate results by toiling from examinationto examination in his studies.

To be sure, I cannot subscribe to Student Grip'ssomewhat youthful wild ideas about sending him tobe an apprentice in England (or even so far as tothe American Free States!) inasmuch as a mechaniccannot here obtain a respected rank in society, suchas is said to be the case in the above named lands.

I sometimes almost doubt whether, old as I am,nevertheless I might be too young. Call it the fruitof inner development or simply an attraction, butthe thoughts of the young always exert an enliveningand strengthening influence on my hope oflife. Still, I never reconcile myself to the thought197that our ideals must inevitably, by a kind of naturallaw, become exhausted and weakened and breakfrom age like any old earthenware.

And when I see a young man like Grip judgedso severely by the so-called practical men—not, sofar as I understand, for his ideas of education, butbecause he would sacrifice himself and put them inoperation—I cannot avoid giving him my wholesympathy and respect.

Now he has abandoned law and devoted himselfto the study of philology; for, he says, in this countryno work is of any use without a sign-board, andhe will now try to get a richly gilded one in an excellentexamination, seize hold of untrodden soil,like the dwarf birches upon the mountain, and notlet go, even if a whole avalanche comes over him.

When it is considered that he must work hardand teach several hours daily only to be able to exist,I cannot but admire his fiery courage and—true,I have not many with me—wish him good luck.

Then she cut out the page which spoke ofJörgen. It might be worth while, if opportunity offered,to show it to Jäger. In the simplicity of herheart, she really did not know what to think.

Everything was white now in the veryheart of winter, white from the window-panesin the sitting-room to the garden, the fields, andthe mountain slopes, white as the eye glided overthe mountain-tops up to the sky, which lay like asemi-transparent, thickly frosted window-pane andshut it all in.

It was cold here, the warm-blooded captain maintained.He began to amuse himself with feeling andtracing out where there was a draught, and thenwith pasting long strips of paper with cloth andoakum under it. And then he used to go out fromhis work, with only his wig, without his hat, andchat with the people in the stable or at the barn,where they were threshing.

They were lonely there now with only Ma, Thea,and himself; no one understood what Thinka hadbeen for him!

At last he ended in pondering on laying out fox-trapsand traps and spring-guns for wolves and lynxin the hill pastures.

Ma was obliged a hundred times a day to answerwhat she thought, even if she had just as much ideaabout it as about pulling down the moon.

"Yes, but do you believe it will pay—that is what199I am asking about—to go to the expense of fox-traps?"

Then he would saunter thoughtfully out of thedoor, to come back an hour later and again and againfill her ears with the same thing.

Ma's instinct told her that the object of his firstcatch was really she; if she allowed herself to befooled into giving positive advice, he would not forgetto let her feel the responsibility for the result,if it should be a loss.

To-day he had again been pondering and goingover the affair with her, when they were surprised bythe sheriff's double sleigh driving up to the steps.

The hall door, creaking with the frost, flew openunder the captain's eager hand.

The sheriff was on a business trip farther up, andasked for hospitality for Thinka for two or threedays, till he came back; he would not omit to claimher again promptly. And, in the next place, he mustask of his father-in-law the loan of a small sleigh forhis further journey; he should be way up in Nordal'sannex this evening.

Thinka already had Torbjörg and Thea competingeach for one of her snow-stockings to getthem off, and Marit was not free from eagerlypeeping in at the door.

"You shall, in any event, have a little somethingto eat and some tea-punch, while the horse gets itsbreath, and they make the sleigh ready."

The sheriff did not have much time to waste, butthe sun of family life shone too mildly here for himnot to give a half hour, exactly by the clock.

"You have tied the knot in my silk handkerchiefso well that you will have to undo it yourself.Thanks, thanks, my dear Thinka.—She spoils mecompletely. Nay, you know her, Captain."

"You see what she has already begun to be forme," he said later, appealing with a pleasant smileto his father-in-law and mother-in-law at the hastilyserved collation—he must have his tea-punchpoured out by Thinka's hand.

When the sheriff, carefully wrapped up by his201young wife, was followed out to the sleigh, Thinka'stea stood there almost untouched and cold; but Macame now with a freshly filled hot cup, and theycould sit down to enjoy the return home in peace.

"The sheriff is really very considerate of you,Thinka, to let you come home so soon," she said.

"Fine man! Would have to hunt a long time forhis like!" exclaimed the captain with a full, strongbass. "Treats you like a doll, Thinka."

"He is as good as he can be. Next week MissBrun is coming to make over a satin dress for me;it has only been worn once. Gülcke will have me sofine," said Thinka, by way of illustration. The tonewas so quiet that it was not easy for Ma to tell whatshe meant.

Besides his wish to meet his wife's longing forhome, the sheriff may possibly also have determinedto take her with him from a little regard forthe younger powers in the principal parish—Buchholtzand Horn. They had begun to visit at hishouse somewhat often and evidently to feel at homethere, after a young, engaging hostess had come tothe house.

It seemed as if comfort accompanied Thinka.Her mediatorial and soothing nature had come tothe house again; it was felt both in parlor andkitchen.

Father came again in the forenoon for a littleportion of oat cake and whey cheese when they werecooking salt meat and peas in the kitchen, and Mafound first one thing and then another done for herand was anticipated in many handy trifles, notwithstandingthat Thinka also had to finish a pair ofembroidered slippers that Gülcke had expressed awish for. But there was plenty of time for that. Shegot well along on the pattern while her father wastaking his noonday nap, and she sat up there andread him to sleep.

The captain found it so comfortable when he sawthe needle and worsted flying in Thinka's hand—itwas so peacefully quiet—it was impossible not togo to sleep.

While her fingers were moving over the canvas,Kathinka sat having a solitary meditation—

Aas had sent her a letter when he heard of hermarriage. He had believed in her so that he couldhave staked his life on her constancy, and even ifmany years were to have passed, he would haveworked, scrimped, and scraped in order at last tohave been able to reach her again, even if they should203then both have left their youth behind them. It hadbeen his joyful hope that she would keep firm andwait for him even through straits and poor circumstances.But now that she had sold herself for goodsand gold, he did not believe in any one any more.He had only one heart, not two; but the misfortunewas, he saw it more plainly, that she also had—

"Huf! I thought I heard you sighing deeply,"said the captain, waking up; "that comes from lyingand struggling on one's back. Now we shall havesome coffee."

Even if Thinka could not answer Aas, still shewould try to relieve her heart a little to Inger-Johanna.She had brought her last letter with herto answer in this period of calm at home, and wassitting up in her room with it before her, in theevening.

"Inger-Johanna is fortunate, as she has nothingelse to think of," she said to herself, sighing andreading:

And you, Thinka, you also ought to have youreye on your part of the country, and make somethingout of the place into which you have nowcome; it is indeed needed up there, for there is nodoubt that society has its great mission in the refinementof customs and the contest against thecrude, as aunt expresses it.

I am not writing this for nothing, nor wholly204in the air; I stand, indeed, too near to many conditionsto be able to avoid thinking of the possibilityof sometime being placed in such a position.If I said anything else, I should not be sincere.

And I must tell you, I see a great many thingsI should like to help in. It must be that a placecan be found for a good many ideas which now,as it were, are excommunicated.

Society ought to be tolerant, aunt says; why,then, cannot such views as Grip's be discussedpeacefully? The first thing I would do would beto go in for being extravagant and defending them.In a woman, nevertheless, this is never anythingmore than piquancy. But ideas also must fighttheir way into good society.

I ponder and think more than you can imagine;I feel that I ought to put something right, you see.

And I am not any longer so struck with thewisdom of men altogether. A woman like auntkeeps silent and pulls the strings; but you cannever imagine how many are led by her strings.She is, between ourselves, a little diplomatic, in anold-fashioned way, and full of flourishes, so thatshe almost makes it a pleasure to have it go unobservedand by a roundabout way. Straight outwould many times be better, I believe; at any rate,that is my nature.

And still a little warning with it, Thinka (oh, howI feel I speak as if I were in aunt's skin!) Remember205that no one ever rules a room except from aplace on the sofa; I know you are so modest thatthey are always getting you off on the chairs. Youare not at all so stupid as you imagine; only youought not to try to hide what you think.

If I should sometime meet Grip again, I shouldconvince him that there may be other ways toRome than just going head foremost at it! I havegot a little notion of my own since he last domineeredme, with his contempt for society, and wasalways so superior. But I have not had more thanone or two glimpses of him on the street the wholewinter. He is so taken up by his own affairs; andit isn't proper, uncle says, to invite him tosoirées,since he has pledged himself to certain strong ideas,which one does not dare to hint at without provokinga very serious dispute. In one or two gentlemenparties he has been entirely too grandiloquent—dranktoo much, uncle thought. But Iknow so well why. He must hit upon something, heused to say, when he gets tired and bored too much,and at the Dürings there is a dreadful vacuum.

Thinka had read the letter through; there mightbe much to think of, but she was so taken up byAas—she was never done with rolling that millstone.

During the monotony of winter, in the middle ofFebruary, a letter was received, which the captainat first weighed in his hand and examined two orthree times—white, glossy vellum paper, C. R. inthe seal—and he tore it open.

Yes, to be sure, it was from Rönnow!—hisbrilliant, running hand with the peculiar swing,which brought him to mind, as his elegant form,with a jaunty tread, moved up and down.

I shall not preface this with any long preludesabout position in life, prospects, etc., but go straighton with my prayer and request.

As you have seen that my cards are lucky—reallymore as they have been dealt than as I haveplayed them—you will certainly understand thatin the last two or three years I have found it properto look about for a wife and a partner for life whowould be suitable for my condition. But duringthe whole of my seeking there was hidden in themost secret corner of my heart a black-haired, dark-eyedgirl, whom I first saw by the card-table onewinter evening up at Gilje, and whom I have sinceseen again and again with ever more fascinationduring her development into the proud woman andlady whose superior nature was incontestable.

Now, with my round six-and-forty years, I shall207not hold forth with any long tale of my love for her,although, perhaps, there might be a good deal to sayon that point also. That I am not old inwardlyI have at all events fully found out on this occasion.

It goes without saying that I do not address myprayer to you without having first satisfied myselfby a close and long acquaintance that your daughteralso could cherish some feelings responsive tomine.

That the result has not been to my disadvantageis apparent from her precious reply to me, receivedyesterday, in which I have her yes and consent.

In the hope that a sincere conduct and intentionwill not be misconstrued, I herewith address theprayer and the question to you and your dear wife—whetheryou will trust to me the future of yourprecious Inger-Johanna?

What a man can do to smooth and make easyher path of life, that I dare promise, on myparoled'honneur, she shall never lack.

I will also add that when the court, towards theend of May or the early part of June, goes to Christiania,I shall be on duty and go too. I shall thenbe able again to see her on whom all my hope andlonging are placed.

Here was something better to think about thanto talk with Ma about fox-traps and spring-guns.

He rushed out into the yard with great force:another man must thresh in the barn; the manuremust be drawn out; they must hurry!

He came in and seated himself on the sofa andlighted a lamplighter, but jumped up again whilehe held it to his pipe. He remembered that a messagemust be sent to the smith to mend the harrowsand tools for spring.

There was no help for it, he must go down andtell the news to the sheriff himself.

This comes so close upon my former, because Ihave just received a letter from Rönnow aboutsomething on which I would gladly, dear parents,have you stand on my side, when you, as I foresee,receive aunt's explicit and strong representationand reasons in the opposite direction.

Rönnow already writes as if it were somethingcertain and settled that we should have the weddingin the summer, in June or July. Aunt wantsit at her house, and hopes that, in any event, you,father, will come down.

Rönnow urges so many amiable considerationswhich speak for it, and I do not at all doubt thataunt in her abundant kindness will take care tomake it doubly sure with a four-page letter full ofreasons.

But against all this I have only one thing to say,that I, at the time I gave my consent to Rönnow,did not at all foresee such haste without, as it were,a little time and breathing-space for myself.

It is possible that others cannot understand thisfeeling of mine, and especially it seems that auntthinks it does not exactly show the degree of heartinessof feeling that Rönnow could expect.

But to the last, which is certainly the only oneof the whole number she can urge that is worthanswering, I will only say, that it cannot possiblybe Rönnow's intent to offend my innermost sensibilitieswhen he learns how I feel about it.

I only ask for suitable time—for instance, tillsome time next winter. I should so much like tohave this year, summer and autumn at least, a littlein quiet and peace. There is so much to think over,among other things my future position. I want firstto study the French grammar through, and Ishould prefer to do it at home alone, and generallyto prepare myself. It is not merely like jumpinginto a new silk dress.

Oh, I wish, I wish, I wish I could be at Gilje thissummer! I sat yesterday thinking how delightfulit was there last year on the high mountains!

No, aunt and I would not agree permanently.Her innermost, innermost peculiarity (let it benever so well enveloped in amiability and gentleways of speech) is that she is tyrannical. Thereforeshe wants now to manage my wedding, and therefore—whichcan now vex and disturb me, so that Ihaven't words for it!—she has in these days got mygood-natured (but not especially strong-minded,it would be a pity to say that!) uncle to commit theact, which is far from being noble, of dismissingGrip from his position in the office. It is just likerobbing him of half of what is needed to enable him211to live and study here, and that only because shedoes not tolerate his ideas.

I let her know plainly what I thought about it,that it was both heartless and intolerant; I was somoved.

But why she pursues him to the seventh and last—forwith aunt there is always something for theseventh and last—that I should still like to know.

Regard must naturally be paid to Inger-Johanna'swish to postpone the wedding. And so there waswriting and writing to and fro.

But then came Rönnow's new promotion andwith it the practical consideration, which weighedon the scales, that housekeeping must be begun onmoving-day in October.

There was a general brushing up at Gilje fromtop to bottom, inside and out. The rooms upstairsmust be whitened and everything put in order forthe arrival of the newly married couple to remainthis summer, the whole of July, after thewedding.

And when Inger-Johanna should come she wasto meet a surprise—the whole of the captain'sresidence, by order of the army department, newlypainted red with red-lead and white window sashes.

The captain's every-day coat had a shower of212spots at all times in the day, as he stood out by thepainter's ladder and watched the work—first thepriming and now the second coat; then came thecompletion, the third and last. The spring windsblew, so that the walls dried almost immediately.

He was a little dizzy off and on during all this,so that he must stop and recover his balance; butthere was good reason for it, because the parishclerk this year had not taken enough blood, sincehe had become so much stouter!—and then perhapshe pushed on too hard and eagerly; for he didlong for Inger-Johanna's return.

He talked of nothing but Inger-Johanna, of herprospects, beauty, and talents, and how Ma couldnot deny that he had seen what there was in herfrom the time when she was very small.

But Ma still thought privately, while he was goingabout boisterous and happy, that he had beenless stout and more healthy when he had moreanxieties and had to take the world harder. She hadlet him into the secret of Aunt Alette's misgivingsin respect to Jörgen's capacities for scholarship.

"I have not been able to avoid thinking, Jäger,that Jörgen might not find happiness in that line."

"In what line, then?—Be a shoemaker and lieon one knee and take the measure of us others, perhaps—Oh-ho,no," stretching himself with superabundantconviction, "if we can afford to keep himat his studies, he can easily learn. There are many213more stupid than he who have attained the positionof both minister and sheriff."

One day the captain hastily separated a letterfrom Aunt Alette from his official mail, and threwit on the table for Ma to read through at her convenience.If there was anything in it, she could tellit to him, he shouted back, as he went up the stairsto his office; he had become a great deal heavierand more short of breath lately, and took a firmerhold on the stair rail.

My dearest Gitta,—It is with a certain sad, subduedfeeling that I write to you this time; nay, Icould even wish to characterize it by a strongerexpression. It comes to my old ears as if there wasa lamentation sounding over so many bright hopesbowing their heads to the ground; and I can onlyfind consolation in the firm faith, cherished througha long life, that nothing happens save as a link ina higher wisdom.

Just as I have hitherto tried to present everythingrelating to Inger-Johanna as clearly beforeyou as I could see it myself, so I find it most propernot to conceal from you the struggle which sheplainly is going through against a feeling, fromwhose power I hope there may yet be salvation inthe fortunate circumstance that it has not yet hadfull time to come into being and ripen in her.

It is there, and it produces pain, but more, is myhope, as a possibility, which has not put out sufficientroots, than as a reality, a living growth, whichcould not, without injury to her innermost being,coldly be subdued and stifled again.

But never has shrewd calculation celebrated amore sorry triumph than when the governor's wifebelieved that she could find a remedy by keepingthe person concerned at a distance and at last evenby persecuting him, in order to make it impossiblefor him to support himself here. When it is consideredthat Inger-Johanna, during all the treatmentthat Grip has endured for his ideas, hasplainly sympathized with, almost championed them,the result should not have been difficult to foresee.

And one cold, frosty morning early this winter,Inger-Johanna came here in great mental excitementto make an examination into his conditionthrough Jörgen. It was then also at her appealthat Jörgen asked him to teach him four hours aweek.

On this occasion I saw clearly what before I hadonly suspected, but which had not escaped yoursister-in-law's sharp eye, that Student Grip, withoutInger-Johanna's having any idea of it, had engrossedher as a personality that drew her more andmore.

It is of no use to conceal it; it is a crisis whichmust be fought through, before she finally becomes215any other person's, if her position is not to be a falseone, and if she is not to support a lifelong sorrow.

That the news of her betrothal has fallen likea saddening disappointment of a hope (even if aremote one) on this young man, I regard as farfrom improbable.

I certainly cannot forget the two serious youngfaces, which for a moment stood looking at eachother, when they met in my room one afternoon.There was not much said.

"Possibly, Miss Jäger," he said harshly, whilehe took hold of the door-knob. "So many soap-bubblesburst."

Inger-Johanna remained standing and lookingdown on the floor. It was as if an entire change hadcome over her; I am sure it dawned upon her whathe felt.

The discharge from the governor's bureau hasplainly enough been welcome to many of the familieswhich immediately after with singular quicknessseized the opportunity to dismiss him as tutor.A man of such strangely discordant ideas hadlong been thought not quite desirable to receive.And the example had been given.

From an honest heart I offered him a loan, sothat he might live in peace for two or three monthsand study, until he could again get places to teach;216but either he was too sore and proud, or else hethought that Inger-Johanna had a hand in it.

He has certainly taken it very much to heart thatthe total want of means of existence has now compelledhim to give up the school, which was hispride, so that he is now in a certain way an objectof ridicule, and this has capped the climax.

He goes about unoccupied, so Jörgen reports,and asks for credit at eating-houses and restaurants,where he sits out the evening and night.

I understood well enough that it was not just forthe sake of her old aunt or for the thing itself, butto hear about him, that Inger-Johanna sat with meso often and learned the old-fashioned stitch withpearls and gold thread. She was in such an excitedcondition and so abstracted, and jumped up whenJörgen came home towards evening and, more's thepity, as often as not had been looking for him invain to read with him.

That pale, darkly brilliant face stands so beforeme, Gitta, with which she one evening broke out:"Aunt—Aunt—Aunt Alette!"

Where he is living now, Jörgen has not succeededin finding out; possibly for want of meanshe has been turned out of his lodgings.

I narrate all this so much in detail, because itis to be believed and hoped that the severest partof the crisis, so far as she is concerned, is over now.

Since that evening, when she felt that she hadforgotten herself, she has at least not talked abouthim, nor, as I know certainly, addressed a word toJörgen. She has evidently esteemed his charactervery highly, and has now suffered a disappointment.

It is not well to be young and have a great dealof life that can suffer. I tell you, it is as with yourteeth; there is no peace until you have them all inyour table drawer.

Great-Ola was standing with a crowbar. There wasa stone which was to be placed in the wall. But thefrozen crust of earth was hard, up there on themeadow, although the sun was so roasting hot thathe was obliged to wipe his forehead with his pointedcap every time he rested.

The non-commissioned officers had returned tothe office during the forenoon with their pay intheir pockets, one after the other; and that it waspretty bad going with holes in the highway was evidentfrom their splashed carts, which were as ifthey had been dipped in the mud.

He had just got ready to put the crowbar underagain, when he suddenly stopped. There was something218which attracted his attention—a cariole witha post-boy walking by the side and a little yellowhorse covered with mud up to its belly.

With pieces of rope for reins and wound aroundthe cariole thills, the horse toiled up along the Giljehills in zigzag, incessantly stopping to get breath.The sun was burning hot down there on the frozenearth.

It was not that which would have taken his attentionso seriously; but some one was sitting in it—alady with hat and veil. He did not understand—thatway of carrying the head—wasn't it—

He took two or three slow, thoughtful steps,then started on the jump, and over the wall witha leap which would have touched the roof-beamin a high room.

"Why, in the Lord's name, if it isn't Inger-Johannaherself!" he ejaculated, as he suddenlystood by the side of the horse. "What will thecapt—"

At the sight of her he suddenly had a misgivingthat perhaps everything might not be so well.

"And such a rattle-trap!" he said, recoveringhimself, "is that fit for Inger-Johanna?"

"Good morning, Great-Ola, is father at home,and mother? No, I am not so very well, but shallbe better now."

Great-Ola walked on, leading the horse by thereins, when Inger-Johanna drove into the yard.

There stood her father under the painting-ladder,looking up. He suddenly shaded his eyes, andwas at once with her by the cariole.

She hugged him tightly out there, and the captain,dreadfully perplexed, drew her into the hallto Ma, who was standing there dumb.

"Go in—go into the room a little, Jäger." Sheknew how little he could bear. "Let her talk withme first, and then we will come in to you—it issurely not anything irreparable."

"Come, come, child," the captain made haste tosay; he had hardly any voice left.

And she sat down there in the sitting-room withher father by her side on the sofa and her motheron a chair, and told them how she had fought andstriven to make herself fancy that her life's task laywith Rönnow.

But then, on one day—and she also knew whichone—they became like extinguished lights for her—black220as coal and empty, wherever she looked—notwhat she had thought, not what she meant—likethrowing herself into a desert.

"And aunt insisted that I should choose thepattern of my wedding dress. I think I should havegone into it blindly, with my eyes shut, nevertheless;for I thought of you, father, what you wouldsay, and of you, mother,—and of the whole worldoutside, what it would say, if I thus, without anytrace of reason, broke my engagement. And thenI considered that everything was settled. I hadthrown myself into the water and was only sinking,sinking—I had no right now to do anythingelse than drown. But then—"

"Well," a short ominous cough; the captain satlooking on the floor with his hands on his knees.

"Then," resumed Inger-Johanna with a lowvoice, still paler, and violently impressed with hersubject—"Nay, there need not be any secret fromyou, father, and you, mother, since you otherwisewould not understand me;—it came almost likea flash of lightning upon me, that for wholly oneyear, and perhaps for two, I had had my wholesoul bound up with another."

The captain had sat patiently and listened—entirelypatiently—till the last word. But now heflew up and placed himself before her; he struck221his hands together on the backs, and stretchedthem out, utterly without self-control.

"But, kingdom of heaven!" he broke out at last."Where are you!—What are you thinking of?You can't for a single moment ever think of comparingsuch a—Grip with a man like Rönnow?—Itell you, Inger-Johanna, your father is absolutely,totally—you—you might just as well riseup and strike me dead at once."

"Listen, father!" came from Inger-Johanna; atthe same moment she sprang up and stood beforehim. "If Thinka and the others have not savedthemselves, no one shall trample on me."

"Such pure insanity!" The captain struck hisfist against his forehead and walked up and downthe floor disconsolately. "But now I see it;" hestopped again, nodding to himself. "You have beenspoiled, dreadfully spoiled—spoiled, since youwere little—And then we get it again, only becauseI think so much of you."

"The whole world could contradict me, father.I have only my right way to go—to do as I havedone—write to Rönnow, give full explanation, andtell it to aunt. And," she leaned against the sofa andlooked down bitterly, as the remembrance cameover her, "aunt has done what she could, I can assureyou—thought, as you do, father, that it was222pure insanity. She was so fond of me that she didnot care how much wretchedness it was for me if thematch only came off. So vain and young as I was,she thought, all she had to do was to get Grip crieddown and pursued, so that he should stand withoutmeans, hemmed in on all sides without any wayout, a man made an object of ridicule, who wasobliged to give up his purpose—only his fatherover again. It was so easily done, as he fought forhis opinions unsupported, and it would be taken upso readily, as she knew." She stood there so self-assured,tremblingly lost in her own thoughts, withdowncast eyes and dark brows. She had becomethin and slim. "And now I have come home herewith more sorrow than I can tell you or explain—sofull of fear—"

There was a silence during which strange emotionswere working in the captain. "Do you saythat we are not fond of you—will do you harm?Well, then, perhaps, I might not consider it soright hereafter, what you have done. I say perhaps;but now I tell you that, if you must do it, then weshall stand by it, just as you yourself wish inthe affair. You understand it, at all events. Why,you have not even sat down, child. Let her havesomething to eat, Ma, at once."

He started up. There was a good deal to be gotout of the way in her room, so she should not seethat repairs were going on.

The captain's house, freshly painted red, stoodthere on the hillside through the summer, andlooked out over the country; it had become anornament to the district.

But Great-Ola did not see how it was. Since thepainting the captain was not like himself, some wayor other. It did not have the right good luck with it.He came out there one time after another, and forgotwhat he came after, so that he must turn backagain. Not a bad word to be heard from his mouth anylonger, far from that, and he did not box one's ears.

The captain did not feel safe from dizziness thisyear. He went about continually making stops, andthe one who must always go with him on his differenttrips over the grounds, stop when he stoppedand go when he went, was Inger-Johanna. It was asif he seemed to find strength for himself in her erectcarriage, and besides wanted to make sure that shewas not going about grieving.

"Do you believe that she will ride or drive?"he asked Ma out in the pantry. "She stands thereplanting here and there and taking up and puttingdown in the garden; she is not accustomed to thatnow, Ma, you see. It seems to me, she is so serious.But can you imagine what will become of her?Huh," he sighed. "Nay, can you imagine it?" Hetook a ladle of whey out of the tub—"Drink224plenty of whey, that thins the blood and prolongslife, Rist says—so that she can be the captain'sdaughter the longer here at Gilje—I have beenthinking, Ma, that I am not going down to thesheriff's birthday on Thursday. Thinka is sooncoming up, and—Oh, it is good to drink whenone is thirsty."

On that same above named Thursday, the captainwent about more than commonly silent andtaciturn. Not a syllable at the dinner table, from thetime he sat down till he rose again and peevishly,heavily, trudged up the stairs in order to take hisafter-dinner nap as it now should be, sitting and onlyfor a moment.

He rushed out of the office door—"Supposethey are now talking among themselves, Scharfenbergand the others. Just as amusing as to run thegauntlet through the whole country to travel downthere." He stood absorbed before the great clothes-pressout in the hall, when Inger-Johanna came up."Will you see something?" said he—"your longboots when you were small."

She did not like to go into the housekeeping,but developed a great activity in outside affairs. Forthe present, the garden must be enlarged, the bedsmust be measured and spaded, and the hedge plantedfor Thinka's coming visit.

With a straw hat on, she was in the garden fromearly morning. There was such peace in being ableto work in the fresh air and escaping from sittingover the sewing and thinking.

Ma had several times proposed to send for Rist;but now she and Inger-Johanna in consultation determinedreally to do so.

Of course he should go to the drill-ground. Alittle lively marching in rank and file took off thefat so effectually and made the blood circulate as itshould. "You have never yet talked about yourhead swimming when you were in camp, Jäger. Itis just the right treatment, if you want to be alloweda glass of punch again on this side of Christmas."

The sisters were at home again together, talkingas in the old time; but neither of them wonderedany longer what there might be in the outsideworld.

He felt so comfortable, the captain said, whenhe saw Thinka sitting there with her knitting-workand a novel, either out on the stairs or in the sitting-room.

He came back to it so often; it was as if he hada secret disquietude on that point. By getting aninsight into the matter through Inger-Johanna, hehad to a degree got his eyes opened, at least to theextent of a suspicion, as to the possibility that awoman could be unhappy in a good match.

Then, on the other hand, his constant consolationwas that such as Inger-Johanna must be exceptionalexamples of humanity—with her commandingnature and intolerance of living under any one'sthumb.

But ordinary girls were not endowed with suchlofty feelings and thoughts—and Thinka was, as itwere, made for giving way and submitting to someone.

"Inger-Johanna!" said Thinka out on the stairs,"notice father, how unnerved he looks now, he iswalking down there by the garden fence—and he isall the time forgetting his pipe; it is not halfsmokedup before it goes out."

"So you think he is changed," said Inger-Johanna,musing and resuming the conversation, upin their room in the evening. "Poor father; it is soabsolutely impossible for him to get over it; I was227destined to be a parade horse. But do you believe hewould now demand it again of any of us?"

"You are strong, Inger-Johanna, and I supposeyou are right. But he has become so good," Thinkasaid, sighing; "and it is that which makes me uneasy."

As the time drew nearer, he went about, dreadingmore and more to go to the camp, so that Ma finallybegan to believe that perhaps it was not advisablefor him to go, since he had himself so little courageor desire for it. During the day, he would walk aboutquite alone, so that he might come to shun peoplealtogether.

And the first real gleam of light she had seen fora long time on his countenance was when she, notwithstanding,proposed that he write to the armysurgeon for a certificate of sickness.

It went on smoothly enough after it was first setin motion. And yet he seemed to repent it, so tospeak, when his leave of absence actually lay uponhis desk.

He went about annoyed and thought about themall down there. Now Captain Vonderthan wouldnaturally spoil the men on the drill-ground; andthis one and that one was speculating, he supposed,even now, on whether he would not possibly goupon half pay. But he would disappoint them bylasting as long as possible, if he should drink wheythe year round.

The time, which was so absorbing and disturbingto his mind, when the drill was taking place, wasover at last, and he had already, through Ma's persuasion,by degrees reconciled himself to a possibletrip to the principal parish, when a scrap of a letterfrom Jörgen was brought in the mail, which putthem all in great distress.

He could not endure any longer to sit there asthe poorest in his class, and had shipped on boarda vessel which was going to sail that evening forEngland. From there he hoped to find some meansof getting over to America, where he would try tobecome a blacksmith or a wheelwright or somethingelse. He would not fail to write home to his dearparents what his fate was.

"There, Ma," said the captain with a deep, tremblingvoice, when at last he had got over his stupefactiona little, "that Grip has been expensive forus. It is nothing but his teaching."

The autumn was already far advanced. The snowhad come and gone twice, and had now been sweptoff by the wind from the slippery, hard frozen road.The slopes and mountains were white, with redand yellow tones of the frost-touched leaves of theleafy forest still showing in many places, and thelake down below was shining coldly blue, ready tofreeze over.

There was a thundering over the country roadhard with frost, so it waked the echoes in the quietOctober day; one crow was standing, and anotherstarted up from the hedge-post at the sound.

It was the wheels of a cariole, and in it was sitting,with a long whip hanging down behind hisback, in cloak and large overshoes, the Captain ofGilje.

It is true, the bailiff had not been willing to lethim go out of the house without compelling him totaste a little brandy in a small tumbler, with a littleale in addition, and a little something to eat. But hehad been prudent. It was almost the only trip hehad made away from home for a long time, excepthis visit to the sheriff.

Old Svarten ran over the long, flat stretches inthe heavy, strong trot to which he was accustomed;the road showed that he was sharp shod with fullcaulks. He knew that he was not to stop till he haddone the three miles to the foot of the steep ascentup the Gilje hills.

It was probably because he was newly shod, andthe lumps of mud were so large and were frozenhard; but now he stumbled.

It was the first time it had happened. Perhaps hefelt it himself, for he kept on at a brisker trot—butthen slackened up by degrees. He felt that the reins230were loose and slack; their folds fell longer andlonger down over his shoulders.

The whip-lash hung down as before over thecaptain's back, only still more slantingly.

He had begun to feel such cold shivers, just as ifhe had suddenly got cold all over—and now he hadbecome so sleepy—had such a longing for a nap.

He saw the reins, the ears, and the hanging maneover the neck of Svarten nodding up and downbefore him, and the ground beneath him flyingaway—

It was just as if a crow flew up and made it darkright over his face; but he could not get his arm upto catch it—so let it be.

And there stood the grain-poles, like crooked oldwitches, crouched down—they wanted to avengethemselves—with straw forelocks they resisted himmore and more like goblins and would forbid himto get his arms up to take the reins and drive toGilje. They were swarming between heaven andearth, as it were, swimming, dancing—were brightand dark. Then there was something like a shout ora crash from somewhere. There was Inger-Johannacoming—

Svarten had got the reins quite down over hisforelegs; a little more and he would be stepping onthem.

The whip-lash hung down as before. The captainsat there immovable with his head a little tippedback—

They were still on the level, and Svarten stoodpatiently looking toward the Gilje hill, which laya bit farther on, until he turned his head roundagain two or three times and looked into the cariole.

Now he began to paw on the ground with oneforefoot, harder and harder—so that the lumps flewabout.

A good hour later, in the twilight, there was aconversation in an undertone out in the yard, andthe sound of cariole wheels which moved slowly.

Great-Ola was called down to the gate by theman down yonder at the Sörgaard; he had met thecariole with the captain down in the road.

At the entrance of the churchyard, a week later, oldSvarten and young Svarten stood before an emptysleigh.

A salute before and after the lowering into theground informed the parish that here lay CaptainPeter Wennechen Jäger.

About twenty years had passed, and the trafficdown in the country store and inn showed anentirely different style both in building and goods.There had also begun to be a route for travellersand tourists in the summer up through the valley.

But in the little warm room behind the shopthere was jollity. He had come up again, he, the delightfulGrip; and now he was sitting there with theshopkeeper, the bailiff's man, and the execution-server.

"Your health, you old execution-horse!" camein Grip's voice—"When I think of all those whomyou have taken the skin off without ever gettingany part in the roast, I can get up a kind of sympathyfor you; we are both of us cheated souls."

"Although I have not acquired the learning andsciences"—began the gray-headed man who hadbeen spoken to, somewhat irritated—"I insiston—"

"Everything lawful, yes—oh—oh—nevermind that, Reierstad. Consider that science is thesea of infinity, and a few drops more or less do notcount either for or against. Just peep out a littleinto the starry night, and you will have a suspicion233that the whole of the planet, my friend, on whichyou parade in such a very small crevice, is only onepea in the soup—soup, I say—it is all the same.Isn't that so, Mr.—Mr. Simensen?"

He always appealed to the shop boy, who, withhis small pig's eyes, smiled very superciliously andwas evidently flattered.

"And in regard to the last information, one oughtto have a little something to reinforce the oil inthe lamp with, Sir."

It was the execution-server who had stood treatfirst—a pint and a half bottle of spirits.

The execution-server had a kind of ancient deferentialrespect for Grip. He knew that he had belongedto the higher sphere, and that he still, wheneverhe liked, might show himself in the housesboth of the sheriff and of old Rist, places which henever left without improvements in his outfit.

"I will confide a secret to you, Reierstad. If youare a little of a genius, then you must drink—atleast it was true in my time. There was great havocon that kind, you see, on account of the vacuum.Did you not notice something of that?"

"Yes, you understand what I mean, Simensen?—Agood glass of punch extract in this frost—ofyours in the shop—would taste so good now,wouldn't it? I am not at present flush of money;but if you will have the goodness to put it down."

"As you grease the wheels, the carriage goes,you know very well, my dear Simensen—and,well,—there comes the fluid.—Do you want toknow why we drink?"

"No, no; but yet it may perhaps be placed in ahigher light, which a man like you will not fail toappreciate—you know there is a great objection tonew illumination fluids, besides—you see, hm!"He seated himself comfortably—"You live in athin coat and cold, poor conditions—are ashamedof yourself at heart—feel that you are sinking as aman, day by day. If there is a discussion, you don'tdare to assert yourself; if you are placed at a table,you don't dare to speak. And then—only twodrams—two glasses of poor brandy for spectaclesto see through—andein,zwei,drei,marsch! Thewhole world is another!—You become yourself,feel that you are in that health and vigor which youwere once intended for; your person becomes independent,proud, and bold; the words fall from yourlips; your ideas are bright; people admire. The twoglasses—only two glasses—I do not refuse, however,the three, four, five, and six, your health!—makethe difference—you know what the differenceis, Simensen!—between his healthy and hissick man, while the man whom the world struck235down—well, yes—But the two glasses carry himalways farther—farther—inexorably farther, yousee—until he ends in the workhouse. That was abig syllogism."

"Yes, it certainly was," said Simensen, noddingto the execution-server; "it took half a bottle withit."

The strong drink had plainly got more and morehold on him; he had been out in the cold the wholeday. His boots were wet and in bad condition. Buthe continued to drink; almost alone he had disposedof the punch extract.

"Come, come, don't sit there so melancholy—orthere won't be any more to get," Simensen proddedhim.

"No, no—no, no—more syllogisms, you mean—somethingReierstad also can understand." Henodded his head in quiet, dull self-communion."Came across an emaciated, pale child, who was cryingso utterly helplessly down here. There is muchthat screams helplessly—you know, Reierstad!—ifone has once got an ear for the music, and hasnot a river of tears—there, you drink, drink. Giveme the bottle."

"It were best to get him to bed over in the servants'room, now," suggested Simensen.

Monday morning he was off again, before daylight,236without having tasted anything; he was shyso early, before he had got his first dram to stiffenhim up.

Grip had his own tactics. He was known oververy nearly the whole of the country south of theDovrefjeld.

As he had had fits of drinking and going on aspree, so he had had corresponding periods whenhe had lived soberly in the capital, studying andgiving instruction. Again and again he awoke themost well-grounded hopes in his few old comradesand friends who remained there. A man with such atalent for teaching and such a remarkable gift forgrasping the roots of words and the laws of language,not only in Greek and Latin, but right upinto the Sanscrit, might possibly even yet attain tosomething. Based on his total abstinence for threeand four months and his own strong self-control,they would already begin to speak of bringing abouthis installation at some school of a higher grade,when all at once, unexpectedly, it was again reportedthat he had disappeared from the city.

Then he would pop up again after the lapse ofsome weeks—entirely destitute, in one of thecountry districts, shaking and thin and worn fromdrink, from exposure, from lying in outhouses andin haylofts, seldom undressed and in a proper bed.

Gülcke was the only one of the functionaries ofhis time who still kept his office, after Rist had left.He was still there, nursed by a careful wife, whohad ever surrounded him with a padding of pillows,visible and invisible.

Grip knew what he was doing; he wanted to findthe mistress, while the sheriff was in his office.

She was sitting in an easy chair snugly behindthe double windows in the sitting-room with herknitting-work andThe Wandering Jew before her,while her clever sister Thea, an unmarried womannow in the thirties, was looking after the dinner outin the kitchen.

Thinka took the care of the house upon herselfafter Miss Gülcke's death, and was her old husband'ssupport and crutch unweariedly the wholetwenty-four hours together.

And these greasy, worn books of fiction fromthe city, with numbers on their backs, were thelittle green spot left for her to pass her own life on.

Like so many other women of those times, towhom reality had not left any other escape thanto take any man who could support her, she livedin these novels—in the midst of the most harshlycreaking commonplaces—a highly strained life offancy. There she imagined the passions she herselfmight have had. There were loves and hates, therewere two noble hearts—in spite of everything—happilyunited; or she consoled picturesque heroes,238who in despair were gazing into the billows.

There—in the clouds—was continued the lifewith its unquenchable thirst of the heart and ofthe spirit for which reality had not given any firmfoothold—and there the matronly figure which hadbecome somewhat large, cozily round and plump,and which was once the small, slender Thinka,transferred her still unforgotten Aas from oneheroic form to another—from Emilie Carlén toJames, from Walter Scott to Bulwer, from AlexanderDumas to Eugène Sue.

There in her domestic, bustling sister's place laythe sewing, with a ray of sunshine on the chair.

The dark inlaid sewing-table was Thea's inheritancefrom Ma. And the silver thimble, with theshell old and worn thin inside and out, broken andcracked at the top and on the edges, she used andsaved, because her mother had used it all her time.It stood, left behind like a monument to Ma—toall the weary stitches—and pricks—of her honorablytoiling, self-sacrificing—shall we call it life?

It was more at a pressure than by regularlyknocking that the door to the sitting-room wasopened, and Grip cautiously entered.

"You, Grip? No, no, not by the door, sit downup there by the window. Then my sister will getyou a little something to eat,—oh, you can manageto eat a little bread and butter and salt meat,can't you? Well, so you are up this way, Grip?"

"Seeking a chance to teach, I may say, Mrs.Gülcke," was the evasive reply. "I am told you haveheard from Jörgen over in America," he hastilyadded, to get away from the delicate subject.

"Yes, just think: Jörgen is a well-to-do, richmanager of a machine-shop over in Savannah. Hehas now written two letters and wants to have hiseldest sister come over; but Inger-Johanna is notseeking for happiness any more—" she added witha peculiar emphasis.

Grip, with a very trembling hand, placed the plateof bread and butter, which the maid had brought,on the sewing-table. He had drunk the dram on theside of the plate. There was a twitching about his lips.

"It gives me pleasure, exceeding great pleasure,"he uttered in a voice which he controlled withdifficulty. "You see, Mrs. Gülcke, that Jörgen hasamounted to something I count as one of the fewrare blades of grass that have grown up out of mypoor life."

Thinka hastened out into a side room and camein again with a dollar bill—"Take it, Grip—a littleassistance till you get some pupils."

His hand hesitated a little before he took it."One—must—must—" He seized his cap andwent out.

Down by the gate he stopped a little, and lookedback. The window had been thrown open there.

"Airing out after Grip," he muttered bitterly,while he took the direction of the valley, with hiscomforter high up around his neck and his cap,which down in the main parish had replaced hisold, curled up felt hat, down over his ears; in thecold east wind he protected his hands in the pocketsof his old thin coat, which was flapping about hisemaciated form.

It was not an uncommon route, whither he wentover the mountains in his widely extended ramblesin the summer, or, as now, in the short, dark midwinter,when he was obliged to confine himself tothe highway.

This country district had an attraction for him,as it were; he listened and watched everywhere hecame for even the least bit of what he could catch upabout Inger-Johanna, while he carefully avoidedher vicinity.

"The young lady of Gilje," as she was called,lived in a little house up there, which she hadbought with one of the four thousand dollars thatold Aunt Alette had given to her by will.

She kept a school for the children of the region,241and read with those of the captain, the newly settleddoctor, and the bailiff.

And now she had many boys to care for, whomshe had got places in the country round about,while in the course of years she had striven to putseveral young geniuses from the neighborhood inthe way of getting on down in the cities.

She was imperious, and gave occasion forpeople's talk by her unusually independent conduct;but to her face she met pure respect. She wasstill, at her fortieth year, delicate and slender, withundiminished, even if more quiet, fire in her eyes,and hair black as a raven.

She sought for talents in the children like four-leavedclover on the hills, as she was said to haveexpressed it; and when Grip, down at Thinka's,talked of Jörgen's happy escape from his surroundingsas one of the few green leaves in his life,he then suppressed the most secret thought hecherished, that her little school was an offshootpropagated by his ideas.

In the twilight the next afternoon a form stole upto the fence around her schoolroom—the longingto catch, if possible, a glimpse of her drove himnearer and nearer.

An uncertain gleam was playing about in therefrom the mouth of the stove. The lamp was notyet lighted, and he heard the voice of a boy recitingsomething which he had learned by heart, butdid not know well; it sounded like verse—it mustbe the children from the captain's house.

The entry door was open, and a little later hewas standing in it, listening breathlessly.

He stood as if rooted to the floor, until he heardInger-Johanna say, "I will now light the lamp, andgive you your lessons for to-morrow."

He saw her head in the glow of the lamp justlighted—that purity in the shape of her eyebrowsand in the lines of her face—that unspeakablybeautiful, serious countenance, only even morecharacteristically stamped—that old erect bearingwith the tall, firm neck.

It was a picture which had stood within him allthese years—of her who should have been his if hehad attained to what he ought to have attained inlife—if it had offered him what it should have—andif he himself had been what he ought to havebeen.

He stood there stupefied as if in a dizzy intoxication—andthen went away with long strides,when he heard the children coming out into theentry.

Now he was far down the Gilje hills, and themoonlight began to shine over the ridges. He stillhurried on; his blood was excited; he saw—almosttalked with her.

It was old Rist, who was sitting nodding in his furcoat, exhausted by what he had enjoyed at Gilje.

"If you are going over the lake, Grip, jump onbehind," he said by way of salutation, after lookingat him a little.

Before the lamp thus—it ran in Grip's thoughts—sheset the milky shade slowly down over thechimney, and a gleam passed over her delicatemouth and chin—the dark, closely fitting dress—andthe forehead, while she bowed her magnificenthead—she looked up—straight towards the window—

"And if you will only try to resist it—at the timethe fit comes on—which is the same as the verySatan himself."

Grip was not inclined to hear any more, and itwas cold to hang on over the lake.

He jumped off and let old Rist continue his talkin the idea that he was standing behind him.

For a while he saw his own shadow, with hishands in his coat pockets, moving away, while themoon sailed through the clouds—the lamp shoneso warmly on her face—

Three days afterwards, towards evening, Inger-Johannastood at the window looking out. Herbreast heaved with strong emotion.

She had been down and taken care of him till245now she had come home—talked with him, heardherself live in his wild raving, and had received hislast intelligent look before it was quenched....

The moon was so cold and clear in the heavens.The whole landscape with the mountains and allthe great pure forms shone magically white in thefrost—white as in the snow-fields of the loftymountains....

"The power of the spirit is great," she said, sighingin sorrowful, yet trembling meditation—"hegave me something to live on."

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Movatterモバイル変換

The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe Family at Gilje: A Domestic Story of the Forties

THE FAMILY AT GILJE
A DOMESTIC STORY OF THE FORTIES

BY
JONAS LIE

TRANSLATED FROM THE NORWEGIAN
BY SAMUEL COFFIN EASTMAN
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY JULIUS EMIL OLSON

NEW YORK
THE AMERICAN-SCANDINAVIAN FOUNDATION
LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1920

Preface

Introduction

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Chapter XIII

Chapter XIV

PUBLICATIONS OF
THE AMERICAN-SCANDINAVIAN FOUNDATION

Transcriber's Note

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

Movatterモバイル変換

The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe Family at Gilje: A Domestic Story of the Forties

THE FAMILY AT GILJEA DOMESTIC STORY OF THE FORTIES BYJONAS LIE TRANSLATED FROM THE NORWEGIANBY SAMUEL COFFIN EASTMANWITH AN INTRODUCTION BY JULIUS EMIL OLSON NEW YORKTHE AMERICAN-SCANDINAVIAN FOUNDATIONLONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORDOXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS1920

Preface

Introduction

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Chapter XIII

Chapter XIV

PUBLICATIONS OFTHE AMERICAN-SCANDINAVIAN FOUNDATION

Transcriber's Note

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

THE FAMILY AT GILJE
A DOMESTIC STORY OF THE FORTIES

BY
JONAS LIE

TRANSLATED FROM THE NORWEGIAN
BY SAMUEL COFFIN EASTMAN
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY JULIUS EMIL OLSON

NEW YORK
THE AMERICAN-SCANDINAVIAN FOUNDATION
LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1920

PUBLICATIONS OF
THE AMERICAN-SCANDINAVIAN FOUNDATION