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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Happy Boy, by Bjornstjerne Bjornson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Happy Boy
+
+Author: Bjornstjerne Bjornson
+
+Release Date: June 16, 2004 [EBook #12633]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HAPPY BOY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David S. Miller
+
+
+
+
+A HAPPY BOY
+
+
+BY
+
+BJORNSTJERNE BJORNSON
+
+
+
+TRANSLATED FROM THE NORSE
+
+BY
+
+RASMUS B. ANDERSON
+
+
+
+AUTHOR'S EDITION
+
+
+
+
+PUBLISHER'S NOTE.
+
+
+The present edition of Bjornstjerne Bjornson's works is published by
+special arrangement with the author.  Mr. Bjornson has designated Prof.
+Rasmus B. Anderson as his American translator, cooperates with him, and
+revises each work before it is translated, thus giving his personal
+attention to this edition.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+"A Happy Boy" was written in 1859 and 1860.  It is, in my estimation,
+Bjornson's best story of peasant life.  In it the author has succeeded
+in drawing the characters with _remarkable distinctness_, while his
+profound psychological insight, his perfectly artless simplicity of
+style, and his thorough sympathy with the hero and his surroundings are
+nowhere more apparent.  This view is sustained by the great popularity
+of "A Happy Boy" throughout Scandinavia.
+
+It is proper to add, that in the present edition of Bjornson's stories,
+previous translations have been consulted, and that in this manner a
+few happy words and phrases have been found and adopted.
+
+This volume will be followed by "The Fisher Maiden," in which Bjornson
+makes a new departure, and exhibits his powers in a somewhat different
+vein of story-telling.
+
+RASMUS B. ANDERSON.
+
+ASGARD, MADISON, WISCONSIN,
+November, 1881.
+
+
+
+
+A HAPPY BOY.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+His name was Oyvind, and he cried when he was born.  But no sooner did
+he sit up on his mother's lap than he laughed, and when the candle was
+lit in the evening the room rang with his laughter, but he cried when
+he was not allowed to reach it.
+
+"Something remarkable will come of that boy!" said the mother.
+
+A barren cliff, not a very high one, though, overhung the house where
+he was born; fir and birch looked down upon the roof, the bird-cherry
+strewed flowers over it.  And on the roof was a little goat belonging
+to Oyvind; it was kept there that it might not wander away, and Oyvind
+bore leaves and grass up to it.  One fine day the goat leaped down and
+was off to the cliff; it went straight up and soon stood where it had
+never been before.  Oyvind did not see the goat when he came out in the
+afternoon, and thought at once of the fox.  He grew hot all over, and
+gazing about him, cried,--
+
+"Killy-killy-killy-killy-goat!"
+
+"Ba-a-a-a!" answered the goat, from the brow of the hill, putting its
+head on one side and peering down.
+
+At the side of the goat there was kneeling a little girl.
+
+"Is this goat yours?" asked she.
+
+Oyvind opened wide his mouth and eyes, thrust both hands into his pants
+and said,--
+
+"Who are you?"
+
+"I am Marit, mother's young one, father's fiddle, the hulder of the
+house, granddaughter to Ola Nordistuen of the Heidegards, four years
+old in the autumn, two days after the frost nights--I am!"
+
+"Is that who you are?" cried he, drawing a long breath, for he had not
+ventured to take one while she was speaking.
+
+"Is this goat yours?" she again inquired.
+
+"Ye-es!" replied he, raising his eyes.
+
+"I have taken such a liking to the goat;--you will not give it to me?"
+
+"No, indeed I will not."
+
+She lay kicking up her heels and staring down at him, and presently she
+said: "But if I give you a twisted bun for the goat, can I have it
+then?"
+
+Oyvind was the son of poor people; he had tasted twisted bun only once
+in his life, that was when grandfather came to his house, and he had
+never eaten anything equal to it before or since.  He fixed his eyes on
+the girl.
+
+"Let me see the bun first?" said he.
+
+She was not slow in producing a large twisted bun that she held in her
+hand.
+
+"Here it is!" cried she, and tossed it down to him.
+
+"Oh! it broke in pieces!" exclaimed the boy, picking up every fragment
+with the utmost care.  He could not help tasting of the very smallest
+morsel, and it was so good that he had to try another piece, and before
+he knew it himself he had devoured the whole bun.
+
+"Now the goat belongs to me," said the girl.
+
+The boy paused with the last morsel in his mouth; the girl lay there
+laughing, and the goat stood by her side, with its white breast and
+shining brown hair, giving sidelong glances down.
+
+"Could you not wait a while," begged the boy,--his heart beginning to
+throb.  Then the girl laughed more than ever, and hurriedly got up on
+her knees.
+
+"No, the goat is mine," said she, and threw her arms about it, then
+loosening one of her garters she fastened it around its neck.  Oyvind
+watched her.  She rose to her feet and began to tug at the goat; it
+would not go along with her, and stretched its neck over the edge of
+the cliff toward Oyvind.
+
+"Ba-a-a-a!" said the goat.
+
+Then the little girl took hold of its hair with one hand, pulled at the
+garter with the other, and said prettily: "Come, now, goat, you shall
+go into the sitting-room and eat from mother's dish and my apron."
+
+And then she sang,--
+
+     "Come, boy's pretty goatie,
+          Come, calf, my delight,
+      Come here, mewing pussie,
+          In shoes snowy white,
+      Yellow ducks, from your shelter,
+      Come forth, helter-skelter.
+      Come, doves, ever beaming,
+      With soft feathers gleaming!
+          The grass is still wet,
+          But sun 't will soon get;
+      Now call, though early 't is in the summer,
+      And autumn will be the new-comer."[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Auber Forestier's translation.]
+
+There the boy stood.
+
+He had taken care of the goat ever since winter, when it was born, and
+it had never occurred to him that he could lose it; but now it was gone
+in an instant, and he would never see it again.
+
+The mother came trolling up from the beach, with some wooden pails she
+had been scouring; she saw the boy sitting on the grass, with his legs
+crossed under him, crying, and went to him.
+
+"What makes you cry?"
+
+"Oh, my goat--my goat!"
+
+"Why, where is the goat?" asked the mother, glancing up at the roof.
+
+"It will never come back any more," said the boy.
+
+"Dear me! how can _that_ be?"
+
+Oyvind would not confess at once.
+
+"Has the fox carried it off?"
+
+"Oh, I wish it were the fox!"
+
+"You must have lost your senses!" cried the mother.  "What has become
+of the goat?"
+
+"Oh--oh--oh!  I was so unlucky.  I sold it for a twisted bun!"
+
+The moment he uttered the words he realized what it was to sell the
+goat for a bun; he had not thought about it before.  The mother said,--
+
+"What do you imagine the little goat thinks of you now, since you were
+willing to sell it for a twisted bun?"
+
+The boy reflected upon this himself, and felt perfectly sure that he
+never could know happiness more in _this_ world--nor in heaven either,
+he thought, afterwards.
+
+He was so overwhelmed with sorrow that he promised himself that he
+would never do anything wrong again,--neither cut the cord of the
+spinning-wheel, nor let the sheep loose, nor go down to the sea alone.
+He fell asleep lying there, and he dreamed that the goat had reached
+heaven.  There the Lord was sitting, with a long beard, as in the
+Catechism, and the goat stood munching at the leaves of a shining tree;
+but Oyvind sat alone on the roof, and, could get no higher.  Then
+something wet was thrust right against his ear, and he started up.
+"Ba-a-a-a!" he heard, and it was the goat that had returned to him.
+
+"What! have you come back again?"  With these words he sprang up,
+seized it by the two fore-legs, and danced about with it as if it were
+a brother.  He pulled it by the beard, and was on the point of going in
+to his mother with it, when he heard some one behind him, and saw the
+little girl sitting on the greensward beside him.  Now he understood
+the whole thing, and he let go of the goat.
+
+"Is it you who have brought the goat?"
+
+She sat tearing up the grass with her hands, and said, "I was not
+allowed to keep it; grandfather is up there waiting."
+
+While the boy stood staring at her, a sharp voice from the road above
+called, "Well!"
+
+Then she remembered what she had to do: she rose, walked up to Oyvind,
+thrust one of her dirt-covered hands into his, and, turning her face
+away, said, "I beg your pardon."
+
+But then her courage forsook her, and, flinging herself on the goat,
+she burst into tears.
+
+"I believe you had better keep the goat," faltered Oyvind, looking
+away.
+
+"Make haste, now!" said her grandfather, from the hill; and Marit got
+up and walked, with hesitating feet, upward.
+
+"You have forgotten your garter," Oyvind shouted after her.  She turned
+and bestowed a glance, first on the garter, then on him.  Finally she
+formed a great resolve, and replied, in a choked voice, "You may keep
+it."
+
+He walked up to her, took her by the hand, and said, "I thank you!"
+
+"Oh, there is nothing to thank me for," she answered, and, drawing a
+piteous sigh, went on.
+
+Oyvind sat down on the grass again, the goat roaming about near him;
+but he was no longer as happy with it as before.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+The goat was tethered near the house, but Oyvind wandered off, with his
+eyes fixed on the cliff.  The mother came and sat down beside him; he
+asked her to tell him stories about things that were far away, for now
+the goat was no longer enough to content him.  So his mother told him
+how once everything could talk: the mountain talked to the brook, and
+the brook to the river, and the river to the sea, and the sea to the
+sky; he asked if the sky did not talk to any one, and was told that it
+talked to the clouds, and the clouds to the trees, the trees to the
+grass, the grass to the flies, the flies to the beasts, and the beasts
+to the children, but the children to grown people; and thus it
+continued until it had gone round in a circle, and neither knew where
+it had begun.  Oyvind gazed at the cliff, the trees, the sea, and the
+sky, and he had never truly seen them before.  The cat came out just
+then, and stretched itself out on the door-step, in the sunshine.
+
+"What does the cat say?" asked Oyvind, and pointed.
+
+The mother sang,--
+
+     "Evening sunshine softly is dying,
+      On the door-step lazy puss is lying.
+     'Two small mice,
+      Cream so thick and nice;
+      Four small bits of fish
+      Stole I from a dish;
+      Well-filled am I and sleek,
+      Am very languid and meek,'
+      Says the pussie."[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Auber Forestier's translation.]
+
+Then the cock came strutting up with all the hens.
+
+"What does the cock say?" asked Oyvind, clapping his hands.
+
+The mother sang,--
+
+     "Mother-hen her wings now are sinking,
+      Chanticleer on one leg stands thinking:
+     'High, indeed,
+      You gray goose can speed;
+      Never, surely though, she
+      Clever as a cock can be.
+      Seek your shelter, hens, I pray,
+      Gone is the sun to his rest for to-day,'--
+      Says the rooster."[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Auber Forestier's translation.]
+
+Two small birds sat singing on the gable.
+
+"What are the birds saying?" asked Oyvind, and laughed.
+
+    "'Dear Lord, how pleasant is life,
+      For those who have neither toil nor strife,'--
+      Say the birds."[2]
+
+--was the answer.
+
+[Footnote 2: Translated by H.R.G.]
+
+Thus he learned what all were saying, even to the ant crawling in the
+moss and the worm working in the bark.
+
+The same summer his mother undertook to teach him to read.  He had had
+books for a long time, and wondered how it would be when they, too,
+should begin to talk.  Now the letters were transformed into beasts and
+birds and all living creatures; and soon they began to move about
+together, two and two; _a_ stood resting beneath a tree called _b_, _c_
+came and joined it; but when three or four were grouped together they
+seemed to get angry with one another, and nothing would then go right.
+The farther he advanced the more completely he found himself forgetting
+what the letters were; he longest remembered _a_, which he liked best;
+it was a little black lamb and was on friendly terms with all the rest;
+but soon _a_, too, was forgotten, the books no longer contained
+stories, only lessons.
+
+Then one day his mother came in and said to him,--
+
+"To-morrow school begins again, and you are going with me up to the
+gard."
+
+Oyvind had heard that school was a place where many boys played
+together, and he had nothing against that.  He was greatly pleased; he
+had often been to the gard, but not when there was school there, and he
+walked faster than his mother up the hill-side, so eager was he.  When
+they came to the house of the old people, who lived on their annuity, a
+loud buzzing, like that from the mill at home, met them, and he asked
+his mother what it was.
+
+"It is the children reading," answered she, and he was delighted, for
+thus it was that he had read before he learned the letters.
+
+On entering he saw so many children round a table that there could not
+be more at church; others sat on their dinner-pails along the wall,
+some stood in little knots about an arithmetic table; the
+school-master, an old, gray-haired man, sat on a stool by the hearth,
+filling his pipe.  They all looked up when Oyvind and his mother came
+in, and the clatter ceased as if the mill-stream had been turned off.
+Every eye was fixed on the new-comers; the mother saluted the
+school-master, who returned her greeting.
+
+"I have come here to bring a little boy who wants to learn to read,"
+said the mother.
+
+"What is the fellow's name?" inquired the school-master, fumbling down
+in his leathern pouch after tobacco.
+
+"Oyvind," replied the mother, "he knows his letters and he can spell."
+
+"You do not say so!" exclaimed the school-master.  "Come here, you
+white-head!"
+
+"Oyvind walked up to him, the school-master took him up on his knee and
+removed his cap.
+
+"What a nice little boy!" said he, stroking the child's hair.  Oyvind
+looked up into his eyes and laughed.
+
+"Are you laughing at me!"  The old man knit his brow, as he spoke.
+
+"Yes, I am," replied Oyvind, with a merry peal of laughter.
+
+Then the school-master laughed, too; the mother laughed; the children
+knew now that they had permission to laugh, and so they all laughed
+together.
+
+With this Oyvind was initiated into school.
+
+When he was to take his seat, all the scholars wished to make room for
+him; he on his part looked about for a long time; while the other
+children whispered and pointed, he turned in every direction, his cap
+in his hand, his book under his arm.
+
+"Well, what now?" asked the school-master, who was again busied with
+his pipe.
+
+Just as the boy was about turning toward the school-master, he espied,
+near the hearthstone close beside him, sitting on a little red-painted
+box, Marit with the many names; she had hidden her face behind both
+hands and sat peeping out at him.
+
+"I will sit here!" cried Oyvind, promptly, and seizing a lunch-box he
+seated himself at her side.  Now she raised the arm nearest him a
+little and peered at him from under her elbow; forthwith he, too,
+covered his face with both hands and looked at her from under his
+elbow.  Thus they sat cutting up capers until she laughed, and then he
+laughed also; the other little folks noticed this, and they joined in
+the laughter; suddenly a voice which was frightfully strong, but which
+grew milder as it spoke, interposed with,--
+
+"Silence, troll-children, wretches, chatter-boxes!--hush, and be good
+to me, sugar-pigs!"
+
+It was the school-master, who had a habit of flaring up, but becoming
+good-natured again before he was through.  Immediately there was quiet
+in the school, until the pepper grinders again began to go; they read
+aloud, each from his book; the most delicate trebles piped up, the
+rougher voices drumming louder and louder in order to gain the
+ascendency, and here and there one chimed in, louder than the others.
+In all his life Oyvind had never had such fun.
+
+"Is it always so here?" he whispered to Marit.
+
+"Yes, always," said she.
+
+Later they had to go forward to the school-master and read; a little
+boy was afterwards appointed to teach them to read, and then they were
+allowed to go and sit quietly down again.
+
+"I have a goat now myself," said Marit.
+
+"Have you?"
+
+"Yes, but it is not as pretty as yours."
+
+"Why do you never come up to the cliff again?"
+
+"Grandfather is afraid I might fall over."
+
+"Why, it is not so very high."
+
+"Grandfather will not let me, nevertheless."
+
+"Mother knows a great many songs," said Oyvind.
+
+"Grandfather does, too, I can tell you."
+
+"Yes, but he does not know mother's songs."
+
+"Grandfather knows one about a dance.  Do you want to hear it?"
+
+"Yes, very much."
+
+"Well, then, come nearer this way, that the school-master may not see
+us."
+
+He moved close to her, and then she recited a little snatch of a song,
+four or five times, until the boy learned it, and it was the first
+thing he learned at school.
+
+     "Dance!" cried the fiddle;
+      Its strings all were quaking,
+      The lensmand's son making
+      Spring up and say "Ho!"
+     "Stay!" called out Ola,
+      And tripped him up lightly;
+      The girls laughed out brightly,
+      The lensmand lay low.
+
+     "Hop!" said then Erik,
+      His heel upward flinging;
+      The beams fell to ringing,
+      The walls gave a shriek.
+     "Stop!" shouted Elling,
+      His collar then grasping,
+      And held him up, gasping:
+     "Why, you're far too weak!"
+
+     "Hey!" spoke up Rasmus,
+      Fair Randi then seizing;
+     "Come, give without teasing
+      That kiss.  Oh! you know!"
+     "Nay!" answered Randi,
+      And boxing him smartly,
+      Dashed off, crying tartly:
+     "Take that now and go!"[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Auber Forestier's translation.]
+
+"Up, youngsters!" cried the school-master; "this is the first day, so
+you shall be let off early; but first we must say a prayer and sing."
+
+The whole school was now alive; the little folks jumped down from the
+benches, ran across the floor and all spoke at once.
+
+"Silence, little gypsies, young rascals, yearlings!--be still and walk
+nicely across the floor, little children!" said the school-master, and
+they quietly took their places, after which the school-master stood in
+front of them and made a short prayer.  Then they sang; the
+school-master started the tune, in a deep bass; all the children,
+folding their hands, joined in.  Oyvind stood at the foot, near the
+door, with Marit, looking on; they also clasped their hands, but they
+could not sing.
+
+This was the first day at school.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+Oyvind grew and became a clever boy; he was among the first scholars at
+school, and at home he was faithful in all his tasks.  This was because
+at home he loved his mother and at school the school-master; he saw but
+little of his father, who was always either off fishing or was
+attending to the mill, where half the parish had their grinding done.
+
+What had the most influence on his mind in these days was the
+school-master's history, which his mother related to him one evening as
+they sat by the hearth.  It sank into his books, it thrust itself
+beneath every word the school-master spoke, it lurked in the
+school-room when all was still.  It caused him to be obedient and
+reverent, and to have an easier apprehension as it were of everything
+that was taught him.
+
+The history ran thus:--
+
+The school-master's name was Baard, and he once had a brother whose
+name was Anders.  They thought a great deal of each other; they both
+enlisted; they lived together in the town, and took part in the war,
+both being made corporals, and serving in the same company.  On their
+return home after the war, every one thought they were two splendid
+fellows.  Now their father died; he had a good deal of personal
+property, which was not easy to divide, but the brothers decided, in
+order that this should be no cause of disagreement between them, to put
+the things up at auction, so that each might buy what he wanted, and
+the proceeds could be divided between them.  No sooner said than done.
+Their father had owned a large gold watch, which had a wide-spread
+fame, because it was the only gold watch people in that part of the
+country had seen, and when it was put up many a rich man tried to get
+it until the two brothers began to take part in the bidding; then the
+rest ceased.  Now, Baard expected Anders to let him have the watch, and
+Anders expected the same of Baard; each bid in his turn to put the
+other to the test, and they looked hard at each other while bidding.
+When the watch had been run up to twenty dollars, it seemed to Baard
+that his brother was not acting rightly, and he continued to bid until
+he got it almost up to thirty; as Anders kept on, it struck Baard that
+his brother could not remember how kind he had always been to him, nor
+that he was the elder of the two, and the watch went up to over thirty
+dollars.  Anders still kept on.  Then Baard suddenly bid forty dollars,
+and ceased to look at his brother.  It grew very still in the
+auction-room, the voice of the lensmand one was heard calmly naming the
+price.  Anders, standing there, thought if Baard could afford to give
+forty dollars he could also, and if Baard grudged him the watch, he
+might as well take it.  He bid higher.  This Baard felt to be the
+greatest disgrace that had ever befallen him; he bid fifty dollars, in
+a very low tone.  Many people stood around, and Anders did not see how
+his brother could so mock at him in the hearing of all; he bid higher.
+At length Baard laughed.
+
+"A hundred dollars and my brotherly affection in the bargain," said he,
+and turning left the room.  A little later, some one came out to him,
+just as he was engaged in saddling the horse he had bought a short time
+before.
+
+"The watch is yours," said the man; "Anders has withdrawn."
+
+The moment Baard heard this there passed through him a feeling of
+compunction; he thought of his brother, and not of the watch.  The
+horse was saddled, but Baard paused with his hand on its back,
+uncertain whether to ride away or no.  Now many people came out, among
+them Anders, who when he saw his brother standing beside the saddled
+horse, not knowing what Baard was reflecting on, shouted out to him:--
+
+"Thank you for the watch, Baard!  You will not see it run the day your
+brother treads on your heels."
+
+"Nor the day I ride to the gard again," replied Baard, his face very
+white, swinging himself into the saddle.
+
+Neither of them ever again set foot in the house where they had lived
+with their father.
+
+A short time after, Anders married into a houseman's family; but Baard
+was not invited to the wedding, nor was he even at church.  The first
+year of Anders' marriage the only cow he owned was found dead beyond
+the north side of the house, where it was tethered, and no one could
+find out what had killed it.  Several misfortunes followed, and he kept
+going downhill; but the worst of all was when his barn, with all that
+it contained, burned down in the middle of the winter; no one knew how
+the fire had originated.
+
+"This has been done by some one who wishes me ill," said Anders,--and
+he wept that night.  He was now a poor man and had lost all ambition
+for work.
+
+The next evening Baard appeared in his room.  Anders was in bed when he
+entered, but sprang directly up.
+
+"What do you want here?" he cried, then stood silent, staring fixedly
+at his brother.
+
+Baard waited a little before he answered,--
+
+"I wish to offer you help, Anders; things are going badly for you."
+
+"I am faring as you meant I should, Baard!  Go, I am not sure that I
+can control myself."
+
+"You mistake, Anders; I repent"--
+
+"Go, Baard, or God be merciful to us both!"
+
+Baard fell back a few steps, and with quivering voice he murmured,--
+
+"If you want the watch you shall have it."
+
+"Go, Baard!" shrieked the other, and Baard left, not daring to linger
+longer.
+
+Now with Baard it had been as follows: As soon as he had heard of his
+brother's misfortunes, his heart melted; but pride held him back.  He
+felt impelled to go to church, and there he made good resolves, but he
+was not able to carry them out.  Often he got far enough to see Anders'
+house; but now some one came out of the door; now there was a stranger
+there; again Anders was outside chopping wood, so there was always
+something in the way.  But one Sunday, late in the winter, he went to
+church again, and Anders was there too.  Baard saw him; he had grown
+pale and thin; he wore the same clothes as in former days when the
+brothers were constant companions, but now they were old and patched.
+During the sermon Anders kept his eyes fixed on the priest, and Baard
+thought he looked good and kind; he remembered their childhood and what
+a good boy Anders had been.  Baard went to communion that day, and he
+made a solemn vow to his God that he would be reconciled with his
+brother whatever might happen.  This determination passed through his
+soul while he was drinking the wine, and when he rose he wanted to go
+right to him and sit down beside him; but some one was in the way and
+Anders did not look up.  After service, too, there was something in the
+way; there were too many people; Anders' wife was walking at his side,
+and Baard was not acquainted with her; he concluded that it would be
+best to go to his brother's house and have a serious talk with him.
+When evening came he set forth.  He went straight to the sitting-room
+door and listened, then he heard his name spoken; it was by the wife.
+
+"He took the sacrament to-day," said she; "he surely thought of you."
+
+"No; he did not think of me," said Anders.  "I know him; he thinks only
+of himself."
+
+For a long time there was silence; the sweat poured from Baard as he
+stood there, although it was a cold evening.  The wife inside was
+busied with a kettle that crackled and hissed on the hearth; a little
+infant cried now and then, and Anders rocked it.  At last the wife
+spoke these few words:--
+
+"I believe you both think of each other without being willing to admit
+it."
+
+"Let us talk of something else," replied Anders.
+
+After a while he got up and moved towards the door.  Baard was forced
+to hide in the wood-shed; but to that very place Anders came to get an
+armful of wood.  Baard stood in the corner and saw him distinctly; he
+had put off his threadbare Sunday clothes and wore the uniform he had
+brought home with him from the war, the match to Baard's, and which he
+had promised his brother never to touch but to leave for an heirloom,
+Baard having given him a similar promise.  Anders' uniform was now
+patched and worn; his strong, well-built frame was encased, as it were,
+in a bundle of rags; and, at the same time, Baard heard the gold watch
+ticking in his own pocket.  Anders walked to where the fagots lay;
+instead of stooping at once to pick them up, he paused, leaned back
+against the wood-pile and gazed up at the sky, which glittered brightly
+with stars.  Then he drew a sigh and muttered,--
+
+"Yes--yes--yes;--O Lord!  O Lord!"
+
+As long as Baard lived he heard these words.  He wanted to step
+forward, but just then his brother coughed, and it seemed so difficult,
+more was not required to hold him back.  Anders took up his armful of
+wood, and brushed past Baard, coming so close to him that the twigs
+struck his face, making it smart.
+
+For fully ten minutes he stood as if riveted to the spot, and it is
+doubtful when he would have left, had he not, after his great emotion,
+been seized with a shivering fit that shook him through and through.
+Then he moved away; he frankly confessed to himself that he was too
+cowardly to go in, and so he now formed a new plan.  From an ash-box
+which stood in the corner he had just left, he took some bits of
+charcoal, found a resinous pine-splint, went up to the barn, closed the
+door and struck a light.  When he had lit the pine-splint, he held it
+up to find the wooden peg where Anders hung his lantern when he came
+early in the morning to thresh.  Baard took his gold watch and hung it
+on the peg, blew out his light and left; and then he felt so relieved
+that he bounded over the snow like a young boy.
+
+The next day he heard that the barn had burned to the ground during the
+night.  No doubt sparks had fallen from the torch that had lit him
+while he was hanging up his watch.
+
+This so overwhelmed him that he kept his room all day like a sick man,
+brought out his hymn-book, and sang until the people in the house
+thought he had gone mad.  But in the evening he went out; it was bright
+moonlight.  He walked to his brother's place, dug in the ground where
+the fire had been, and found, as he had expected, a little melted lump
+of gold.  It was the watch.
+
+It was with this in his tightly closed hand that he went in to his
+brother, imploring peace, and was about to explain everything.
+
+A little girl had seen him digging in the ashes, some boys on their way
+to a dance had noticed him going down toward the place the preceding
+Sunday evening; the people in the house where he lived testified how
+curiously he had acted on Monday, and as every one knew that he and his
+brother were bitter enemies, information was given and a suit
+instituted.
+
+No one could prove anything against Baard, but suspicion rested on him.
+Less than ever, now, did he feel able to approach his brother.
+
+Anders had thought of Baard when the barn was burned, but had spoken of
+it to no one.  When he saw him enter his room, the following evening,
+pale and excited, he immediately thought: "Now he is smitten with
+remorse, but for such a terrible crime against his brother he shall
+have no forgiveness."  Afterwards he heard how people had seen Baard go
+down to the barn the evening of the fire, and, although nothing was
+brought to light at the trial, Anders firmly believed his brother to be
+guilty.
+
+They met at the trial; Baard in his good clothes, Anders in his patched
+ones.  Baard looked at his brother as he entered, and his eyes wore so
+piteous an expression of entreaty that Anders felt it in the inmost
+depths of his heart.  "He does not want me to say anything," thought
+Anders, and when he was asked if he suspected his brother of the deed,
+he said loudly and decidedly, "No!"
+
+Anders took to hard drinking from that day, and was soon far on the
+road to ruin.  Still worse was it with Baard; although he did not
+drink, he was scarcely to be recognized by those who had known him
+before.
+
+Late one evening a poor woman entered the little room Baard rented, and
+begged him to accompany her a short distance.  He knew her: it was his
+brother's wife.  Baard understood forthwith what her errand was; he
+grew deathly pale, dressed himself, and went with her without a word.
+There was a glimmer of light from Anders' window, it twinkled and
+disappeared, and they were guided by this light, for there was no path
+across the snow.  When Baard stood once more in the passage, a strange
+odor met him which made him feel ill.  They entered.  A little child
+stood by the fireplace eating charcoal; its whole face was black, but
+as it looked up and laughed it displayed white teeth,--it was the
+brother's child.
+
+There on the bed, with a heap of clothes thrown over him, lay Anders,
+emaciated, with smooth, high forehead, and with his hollow eyes fixed
+on his brother.  Baard's knees trembled; he sat down at the foot of the
+bed and burst into a violent fit of weeping.  The sick man looked at
+him intently and said nothing.  At length he asked his wife to go out,
+but Baard made a sign to her to remain; and now these two brothers
+began to talk together.  They accounted for everything from the day
+they had bid for the watch up to the present moment.  Baard concluded
+by producing the lump of gold he always carried about him, and it now
+became manifest to the brothers that in all these years neither had
+known a happy day.
+
+Anders did not say much, for he was not able to do so, but Baard
+watched by his bed as long as he was ill.
+
+"Now I am perfectly well," said Anders one morning on waking.  "Now, my
+brother, we will live long together, and never leave each other, just
+as in the old days."
+
+But that day he died.
+
+Baard took charge of the wife and the child, and they fared well from
+that time.  What the brothers had talked of together by the bed, burst
+through the walls and the night, and was soon known to all the people
+in the parish, and Baard became the most respected man among them.  He
+was honored as one who had known great sorrow and found happiness
+again, or as one who had been absent for a very long time.  Baard grew
+inwardly strong through all this friendliness about him; he became a
+truly pious man, and wanted to be useful, he said, and so the old
+corporal took to teaching school.  What he impressed upon the children,
+first and last, was love, and he practiced it himself, so that the
+children clung to him as to a playmate and father in one.
+
+Such was the history of the school-master, and so deeply did it root
+itself in Oyvind's mind that it became both religion and education for
+him.  The school-master grew to be almost a supernatural being in his
+eyes, although he sat there so sociably, grumbling at the scholars.
+Not to know every lesson for him was impossible, and if Oyvind got a
+smile or a pat on his head after he had recited, he felt warm and happy
+for a whole day.
+
+It always made the deepest impression on the children when the old
+school-master sometimes before singing made a little speech to them,
+and at least once a week read aloud some verses about loving one's
+neighbor.  When he read the first of those verses, his voice always
+trembled, although he had been reading it now some twenty or thirty
+years.  It ran thus:--
+
+     "Love thy neighbor with Christian zeal!
+      Crush him not with an iron heel,
+          Though he in dust be prostrated!
+      Love's all powerful, quickening hand
+      Guides, forever, with magic wand
+          All that it has created."
+
+But when he had recited the whole poem and had paused a little, he
+would cry, and his eyes would twinkle,--
+
+"Up, small trolls! and go nicely home without any noise,--go quietly,
+that I may only hear good of you, little toddlers!"
+
+But when they were making the most noise in hunting up their books and
+dinner-pails, he shouted above it all,--
+
+"Come again to-morrow, as soon as it is light, or I will give you a
+thrashing.  Come again in good season, little girls and boys, and then
+we will be industrious."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+Of Oyvind's further progress until a year before confirmation there is
+not much to report.  He studied in the morning, worked through the day,
+and played in the evening.
+
+As he had an unusually sprightly disposition, it was not long before
+the neighboring children fell into the habit of resorting in their
+playtime to where he was to be found.  A large hill sloped down to the
+bay in front of the place, bordered by the cliff on one side and the
+wood on the other, as before described; and all winter long, on
+pleasant evenings and on Sundays, this served as coasting-ground for
+the parish young folks.  Oyvind was master of the hill, and he owned
+two sleds, "Fleet-foot" and "Idler;" the latter he loaned out to larger
+parties, the former he managed himself, holding Marit on his lap.
+
+The first thing Oyvind did in those days on awaking, was to look out
+and see whether it was thawing, and if it was gray and lowering over
+the bushes beyond the bay, or if he heard a dripping from the roof, he
+was long about dressing, as though there were nothing to be
+accomplished that day.  But if he awoke, especially on a Sunday, to
+crisp, frosty, clear weather, to his best clothes and no work, only
+catechism or church in the morning, with the whole afternoon and
+evening free--heigh! then the boy made one spring out of bed, donned
+his clothes in a hurry as if for a fire, and could scarcely eat a
+mouthful.  As soon as afternoon had come, and the first boy on skees
+drew in sight along the road-side, swinging his guide-pole above his
+head and shouting so that echoes resounded through the mountain-ridges
+about the lake; and then another on the road on a sled, and still
+another and another,--off started Oyvind with "Fleet-foot," bounded
+down the hill, and stopped among the last-comers, with a long, ringing
+shout that pealed from ridge to ridge all along the bay, and died away
+in the far distance.
+
+Then he would look round for Marit, but when she had come he payed no
+further attention to her.
+
+At last there came a Christmas, when Oyvind and Marit might be about
+sixteen or seventeen, and were both to be confirmed in the spring.  The
+fourth day after Christmas there was a party at the upper Heidegards,
+at Marit's grandparents', by whom she had been brought up, and who had
+been promising her this party for three years, and now at last had to
+give it during the holidays.  Oyvind was invited to it.
+
+It was a somewhat cloudy evening but not cold; no stars could be seen;
+the next day must surely bring rain.  There blew a sleepy wind over the
+snow, which was swept away here and there on the white Heidefields;
+elsewhere it had drifted.  Along the part of the road where there was
+but little snow, were smooth sheets of ice of a blue-black hue, lying
+between the snow and the bare field, and glittering in patches as far
+as the eye could reach.  Along the mountain-sides there had been
+avalanches; it was dark and bare in their track, but on either side
+light and snow-clad, except where the forest birch-trees put their
+heads together and made dark shadows.  No water was visible, but
+half-naked heaths and bogs lay under the deeply-fissured, melancholy
+mountains.  Gards were spread in thick clusters in the centre of the
+plain; in the gloom of the winter evening they resembled black clumps,
+from which light shot out over the fields, now from one window, now
+from another; from these lights it might be judged that those within
+were busy.
+
+Young people, grown-up and half-grown-up, were flocking together from
+diverse directions; only a few of them came by the road, the others had
+left it at least when they approached the gards, and stole onward, one
+behind the stable, a couple near the store-house, some stayed for a
+long time behind the barn, screaming like foxes, others answered from
+afar like cats; one stood behind the smoke-house, barking like a cross
+old dog whose upper notes were cracked; and at last all joined in a
+general chase.  The girls came sauntering along in large groups, having
+a few boys, mostly small ones, with them, who had gathered about them
+on the road in order to appear like young men.  When such a bevy of
+girls arrived at the gard and one or two of the grown youths saw them,
+the girls parted, flew into the passages or down in the garden, and had
+to be dragged thence into the house, one by one.  Some were so
+excessively bashful that Marit had to be sent for, and then she came
+out and insisted upon their entering.  Sometimes, too, there appeared
+one who had had no invitation and who had by no means intended to go
+in, coming only to look on, until perhaps she might have a chance just
+to take one single dance.  Those whom Marit liked well she invited into
+a small chamber, where her grandfather sat smoking his pipe, and her
+grandmother was walking about.  The old people offered them something
+to drink and spoke kindly to them.  Oyvind was not among those invited
+in, and this seemed to him rather strange.
+
+The best fiddler of the parish could not come until later, so meanwhile
+they had to content themselves with the old one, a houseman, who went
+by the name of Gray-Knut.  He knew four dances; as follows: two spring
+dances, a halling, and an old dance, called the Napoleon waltz; but
+gradually he had been compelled to transform the halling into a
+schottishe by altering the accent, and in the same manner a spring
+dance had to become a polka-mazurka.  He now struck up and the dancing
+began.  Oyvind did not dare join in at once, for there were too many
+grown folks here; but the half-grown-up ones soon united, thrust one
+another forward, drank a little strong ale to strengthen their courage,
+and then Oyvind came forward with them.  The room grew warm to them;
+merriment and ale mounted to their heads.  Marit was on the floor most
+of the time that evening, no doubt because the party was at her
+grandparents'; and this led Oyvind to look frequently at her; but she
+was always dancing with others.  He longed to dance with her himself,
+and so he sat through one dance, in order to be able to hasten to her
+side the moment it was ended; and he did so, but a tall, swarthy
+fellow, with thick hair, threw himself in his way.
+
+"Back, youngster!" he shouted, and gave Oyvind a push that nearly made
+him fall backwards over Marit.
+
+Never before had such a thing occurred to Oyvind; never had any one
+been otherwise than kind to him; never had he been called "youngster"
+when he wanted to take part; he blushed crimson, but said nothing, and
+drew back to the place where the new fiddler, who had just arrived, had
+taken his seat and was tuning his instrument.  There was silence in the
+crowd, every one was waiting to hear the first vigorous tones from "the
+chief fiddler."  He tried his instrument and kept on tuning; this
+lasted a long time; but finally he began with a spring dance, the boys
+shouted and leaped, couple after couple coming into the circle.  Oyvind
+watched Marit dancing with the thick-haired man; she laughed over the
+man's shoulder and her white teeth glistened.  Oyvind felt a strange,
+sharp pain in his heart for the first time in his life.
+
+He looked longer and longer at her, but however it might be, it seemed
+to him that Marit was now a young maiden.  "It cannot be so, though,"
+thought he, "for she still takes part with the rest of us in our
+coasting."  But grown-up she was, nevertheless, and after the dance was
+ended, the dark-haired man pulled her down on his lap; she tore herself
+away, but still she sat down beside him.
+
+Oyvind's eyes turned to the man, who wore a fine blue broadcloth suit,
+blue checked shirt, and a soft silk neckerchief; he had a small face,
+vigorous blue eyes, a laughing, defiant mouth.  He was handsome.
+Oyvind looked more and more intently, finally scanned himself also; he
+had had new trousers for Christmas, which he had taken much delight in,
+but now he saw that they were only gray wadmal; his jacket was of the
+same material, but old and dark; his vest, of checked homespun, was
+also old, and had two bright buttons and a black one.  He glanced
+around him and it seemed to him that very few were so poorly clad as
+he.  Marit wore a black, close-fitting dress of a fine material, a
+silver brooch in her neckerchief and had a folded silk handkerchief in
+her hand.  On the back of her head was perched a little black silk cap,
+which was tied under the chin with a broad, striped silk ribbon.  She
+was fair and had rosy cheeks, and she was laughing; the man was talking
+to her and was laughing too.  The fiddler started another tune, and the
+dancing was about to begin again.  A comrade came and sat down beside
+Oyvind.
+
+"Why are you not dancing, Oyvind? " he asked pleasantly.
+
+"Dear me!" said Oyvind, "I do not look fit."
+
+"Do not look fit?" cried his comrade; but before he could say more,
+Oyvind inquired,--
+
+"Who is that in the blue broadcloth suit, dancing with Marit?"
+
+"That is Jon Hatlen, he who has been away so long at an agricultural
+school and is now to take the gard."
+
+At that moment Marit and Jon sat down.
+
+"Who is that boy with light hair sitting yonder by the fiddler, staring
+at me?" asked Jon.
+
+Then Marit laughed and said,--
+
+"He is the son of the houseman at Pladsen."
+
+Oyvind had always known that he was a houseman's son; but until now he
+had never realized it.  It made him feel so very little, smaller than
+all the rest; in order to keep up he had to try and think of all that
+hitherto had made him happy and proud, from the coasting hill to each
+kind word.  He thought, too, of his mother and his father, who were now
+sitting at home and thinking that he was having a good time, and he
+could scarcely hold back his tears.  Around him all were laughing and
+joking, the fiddle rang right into his ear, it was a moment in which
+something black seemed to rise up before him, but then he remembered
+the school with all his companions, and the school-master who patted
+him, and the priest who at the last examination had given him a book
+and told him he was a clever boy.  His father himself had sat by
+listening and had smiled on him.
+
+"Be good now, dear Oyvind," he thought he heard the school-master say,
+taking him on his lap, as when he was a child.  "Dear me! it all
+matters so little, and in fact all people are kind; it merely seems as
+if they were not.  We two will be clever, Oyvind, just as clever as Jon
+Hatlen; we shall yet have good clothes, and dance with Marit in a light
+room, with a hundred people in it; we will smile and talk together;
+there will be a bride and bridegroom, a priest, and I will be in the
+choir smiling upon you, and mother will be at home, and there will be a
+large gard with twenty cows, three horses, and Marit as good and kind
+as at school."
+
+The dancing ceased.  Oyvind saw Marit on the bench in front of him, and
+Jon by her side with his face close up to hers; again there came that
+great burning pain in his breast, and he seemed to be saying to
+himself: "It is true, I am suffering."
+
+Just then Marit rose, and she came straight to him.  She stooped over
+him.
+
+"You must not sit there staring so fixedly at me," said she; "you might
+know that people are noticing it.  Take some one now and join the
+dancers."
+
+He made no reply, but he could not keep back the tears that welled up
+to his eyes as he looked at her.  Marit had already risen to go when
+she saw this, and paused; suddenly she grew as red as fire, turned and
+went back to her place, but having arrived there she turned again and
+took another seat.  Jon followed her forthwith.
+
+Oyvind got up from the bench, passed through the crowd, out in the
+grounds, sat down on a porch, and then, not knowing what he wanted
+there rose, but sat down again, thinking he might just as well sit
+there as anywhere else.  He did not care about going home, nor did he
+desire to go in again, it was all one to him.  He was not capable of
+considering what had happened; he did not want to think of it; neither
+did he wish to think of the future, for there was nothing to which he
+looked forward.
+
+"But what, then, is it I am thinking of?" he queried, half aloud, and
+when he had heard his own voice, he thought: "You can still speak, can
+you laugh?"  And then he tried it; yes, he could laugh, and so he
+laughed loud, still louder, and then it occurred to him that it was
+very amusing to be sitting laughing here all by himself, and he laughed
+again.  But Hans, the comrade who had been sitting beside him, came out
+after him.
+
+"Good gracious, what are you laughing at?" he asked, pausing in front
+of the porch.  At this Oyvind was silent.
+
+Hans remained standing, as if waiting to see what further might happen.
+Oyvind got up, looked cautiously about him and said in a low tone,--
+
+"Now Hans, I will tell you why I have been so happy before: it was
+because I did not really love any one; from the day we love some one,
+we cease to be happy," and he burst into tears.
+
+"Oyvind!" a voice whispered out in the court; "Oyvind!"  He paused and
+listened.  "Oyvind," was repeated once more, a little louder.  "It must
+be she," he thought.
+
+"Yes," he answered, also in a whisper; and hastily wiping his eyes he
+came forward.
+
+A woman stole softly across the gard.
+
+[Transcriber's Note: The above sentence should read, "A woman stole
+softly across the yard."  In other early translations, the words "yard"
+and "court-yard" are used here.  "Gard" in this case is apparently a
+typo.  The use of the word, "gard" throughout the rest of this story
+refers to "farm."]
+
+"Are you there?" she asked.
+
+"Yes," he answered, standing still.
+
+"Who is with you?"
+
+"Hans."
+
+But Hans wanted to go.
+
+"No, no!" besought Oyvind.
+
+She slowly drew near them, and it was Marit.
+
+"You left so soon," said she to Oyvind.
+
+He knew not what to reply; thereupon Marit, too, became embarrassed,
+and all three were silent.  But Hans gradually managed to steal away.
+The two remained behind, neither looking at each other, nor stirring.
+Finally Marit whispered:--
+
+"I have been keeping some Christmas goodies in my pocket for you,
+Oyvind, the whole evening, but I have had no chance to give them to you
+before."
+
+She drew forth some apples, a slice of a cake from town, and a little
+half pint bottle, which she thrust into his hand, and said he might
+keep.  Oyvind took them.
+
+"Thank you!" said he, holding out his hand; hers was warm, and he
+dropped it at once as if it had burned him.
+
+"You have danced a good deal this evening," he murmured.
+
+"Yes, I have," she replied, "but _you_ have not danced much," she
+added.
+
+"I have not," he rejoined.
+
+"Why did you not dance?"
+
+"Oh"--
+
+"Oyvind!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why did you sit looking at me so?"
+
+"Oh--Marit!"
+
+"What!"
+
+"Why did you dislike having me look at you?"
+
+"There were so many people."
+
+"You danced a great deal with Jon Hatlen this evening."
+
+"I did."
+
+"He dances well."
+
+"Do you think so?"
+
+"Oh, yes.  I do not know how it is, but this evening I could not bear
+to have you dance with him, Marit."
+
+He turned away,--it had cost him something to say this.
+
+"I do not understand you, Oyvind."
+
+"Nor do I understand myself; it is very stupid of me.  Good-by, Marit;
+I will go now."
+
+He made a step forward without looking round.  Then she called after
+him.
+
+"You make a mistake about what you saw."
+
+He stopped.
+
+"That you have already become a maiden is no mistake."
+
+He did not say what she had expected, therefore she was silent; but at
+that moment she saw the light from a pipe right in front of her.  It
+was her grandfather, who had just turned the corner and was coming that
+way.  He stood still.
+
+"Is it here you are, Marit?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"With whom are you talking?"
+
+"With Oyvind."
+
+"Whom did you say?"
+
+"Oyvind Pladsen."
+
+"Oh! the son of the houseman at Pladsen.  Come at once and go in with
+me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+The next morning, when Oyvind opened his eyes, it was from a long,
+refreshing sleep and happy dreams.  Marit had been lying on the cliff,
+throwing leaves down on him; he had caught them and tossed them back
+again, so they had gone up and down in a thousand colors and forms; the
+sun was shining, and the whole cliff glittered beneath its rays.  On
+awaking Oyvind looked around to find them all gone; then he remembered
+the day before, and the burning, cruel pain in his heart began at once.
+"This, I shall never be rid of again," thought he; and there came over
+him a feeling of indifference, as though his whole future had dropped
+away from him.
+
+"Why, you have slept a long time," said his mother, who sat beside him
+spinning.  "Get up now and eat your breakfast; your father is already
+in the forest cutting wood."
+
+Her voice seemed to help him; he rose with a little more courage.  His
+mother was no doubt thinking of her own dancing days, for she sat
+singing to the sound of the spinning-wheel, while he dressed himself
+and ate his breakfast.  Her humming finally made him rise from the
+table and go to the window; the same dullness and depression he had
+felt before took possession of him now, and he was forced to rouse
+himself, and think of work.  The weather had changed, there had come a
+little frost into the air, so that what yesterday had threatened to
+fall in rain, to-day came down as sleet.  Oyvind put on his snow-socks,
+a fur cap, his sailor's jacket and mittens, said farewell, and started
+off, with his axe on his shoulder.
+
+Snow fell slowly, in great, wet flakes; he toiled up over the coasting
+hill, in order to turn into the forest on the left.  Never before,
+winter or summer, had he climbed this hill without recalling something
+that made him happy, or to which he was looking forward.  Now it was a
+dull, weary walk.  He slipped in the damp snow, his knees were stiff,
+either from the party yesterday or from his low spirits; he felt that
+it was all over with the coasting-hill for that year, and with it,
+forever.  He longed for something different as he threaded his way in
+among the tree-trunks, where the snow fell softly.  A frightened
+ptarmigan screamed and fluttered a few yards away, but everything else
+stood as if awaiting a word which never was spoken.  But what his
+aspirations were, he did not distinctly know, only they concerned
+nothing at home, nothing abroad, neither pleasure nor work; but rather
+something far above, soaring upward like a song.  Soon all became
+concentrated in one defined desire, and this was to be confirmed in the
+spring, and on that occasion to be number one.  His heart beat wildly
+as he thought of it, and before he could yet hear his father's axe in
+the quivering little trees, this wish throbbed within him with more
+intensity than anything he had known in all his life.
+
+His father, as usual, did not have much to say to him; they chopped
+away together and both dragged the wood into heaps.  Now and then they
+chanced to meet, and on one such occasion Oyvind remarked, in a
+melancholy tone, "A houseman has to work very hard."
+
+"He as well as others," said the father, as he spit in the palm of his
+hand and took up the axe again.
+
+When the tree was felled and the father had drawn it up to the pile,
+Oyvind said,--
+
+"If you were a gardman you would not have to work so hard."
+
+"Oh! then there would doubtless be other things to distress us," and he
+grasped his axe with both hands.
+
+The mother came up with dinner for them; they sat down.  The mother was
+in high spirits, she sat humming and beating time with her feet.
+
+"What are you going to make of yourself when you are grown up, Oyvind?"
+said she, suddenly.
+
+"For a houseman's son, there are not many openings," he replied.
+
+"The school-master says you must go to the seminary," said she.
+
+"Can people go there free?" inquired Oyvind.
+
+"The school-fund pays," answered the father, who was eating.
+
+"Would you like to go?" asked the mother.
+
+"I should like to learn something, but not to become a school-master."
+
+They were all silent for a time.  The mother hummed again and gazed
+before her; but Oyvind went off and sat down by himself.
+
+"We do not actually need to borrow of the school-fund," said the
+mother, when the boy was gone.
+
+Her husband looked at her.
+
+"Such poor folks as we?"
+
+"It does not please me, Thore, to have you always passing yourself off
+for poor when you are not so."
+
+They both stole glances down after the boy to find out if he could
+hear.  The father looked sharply at his wife.
+
+"You talk as though you were very wise."
+
+She laughed.
+
+"It is just the same as not thanking God that things have prospered
+with us," said she, growing serious.
+
+"We can surely thank Him without wearing silver buttons," observed the
+father.
+
+"Yes, but to let Oyvind go to the dance, dressed as he was yesterday,
+is not thanking Him either."
+
+"Oyvind is a houseman's son."
+
+"That is no reason why he should not wear suitable clothes when we can
+afford it."
+
+"Talk about it so he can hear it himself!"
+
+"He does not hear it; but I should like to have him do so," said she,
+and looked bravely at her husband, who was gloomy, and laid down his
+spoon to take his pipe.
+
+"Such a poor houseman's place as we have!" said he.
+
+"I have to laugh at you, always talking about the place, as you are.
+Why do you never speak of the mills?"
+
+"Oh! you and the mills.  I believe you cannot bear to hear them go."
+
+"Yes, I can, thank God! might they but go night and day!"
+
+"They have stood still now, since before Christmas."
+
+"Folks do not grind here about Christmas time."
+
+"They grind when there is water; but since there has been a mill at New
+Stream, we have fared badly here."
+
+"The school-master did not say so to-day."
+
+"I shall get a more discreet fellow than the school-master to manage
+our money."
+
+"Yes, he ought least of all to talk with your own wife."
+
+Thore made no reply to this; he had just lit his pipe, and now, leaning
+up against a bundle of fagots, he let his eyes wander, first from his
+wife, then from his son, and fixed them on an old crow's-nest which
+hung, half overturned, from a fir-branch above.
+
+Oyvind sat by himself with the future stretching before him like a
+long, smooth sheet of ice, across which for the first time he found
+himself sweeping onward from shore to shore.  That poverty hemmed him
+in on every side, he felt, but for that reason his whole mind was bent
+on breaking through it.  From Marit it had undoubtedly parted him
+forever; he regarded her as half engaged to Jon Hatlen; but he had
+determined to vie with him and her through the entire race of life.
+Never again to be rebuffed as he had been yesterday, and in view of
+this to keep out of the way until he made something of himself, and
+then, with the aid of Almighty God, to continue to be something,
+--occupied all his thoughts, and there arose within his soul not a
+single doubt of his success.  He had a dim idea that through study he
+would get on best; to what goal it would lead he must consider later.
+
+There was coasting in the evening; the children came to the hill, but
+Oyvind was not with them.  He sat reading by the fire-place, feeling
+that he had not a moment to lose.  The children waited a long time; at
+length, one and another became impatient, approached the house, and
+laying their faces against the window-pane shouted in; but Oyvind
+pretended not to hear them.  Others came, and evening after evening
+they lingered about outside, in great surprise; but Oyvind turned his
+back to them and went on reading, striving faithfully to gather the
+meaning of the words.  Afterwards he heard that Marit was not there
+either.  He read with a diligence which even his father was forced to
+say went too far.  He became grave; his face, which had been so round
+and soft, grew thinner and sharper, his eye more stern; he rarely sang,
+and never played; the right time never seemed to come.  When the
+temptation to do so beset him, he felt as if some one whispered,
+"later, later!" and always "later!"  The children slid, shouted, and
+laughed a while as of old, but when they failed to entice him out
+either through his own love of coasting, or by shouting to him with
+their faces pressed against the window-pane, they gradually fell away,
+found other playgrounds, and soon the hill was deserted.
+
+But the school-master soon noticed that this was not the old Oyvind who
+read because it was his turn, and played because it was a necessity.
+He often talked with him, coaxed and admonished him; but he did not
+succeed in finding his way to the boy's heart so easily as in days of
+old.  He spoke also with the parents, the result of the conference
+being that he came down one Sunday evening, late in the winter, and
+said, after he had sat a while,--
+
+"Come now, Oyvind, let us go out; I want to have a talk with you."
+
+Oyvind put on his things and went with him.  They wended their way up
+toward the Heidegards; a brisk conversation was kept up, but about
+nothing in particular; when they drew near the gards the school-master
+turned aside in the direction of one that lay in the centre, and when
+they had advanced a little farther, shouting and merriment met them.
+
+"What is going on here?" asked Oyvind.
+
+"There is a dance here," said the school-master; "shall we not go in?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Will you not take part in a dance, boy?"
+
+"No; not yet."
+
+"Not yet?  When, then?"
+
+Oyvind did not answer.
+
+"What do you mean by _yet_?"
+
+As the youth did not answer, the school-master said,--
+
+"Come, now, no such nonsense."
+
+"No, I will not go."
+
+He was very decided and at the same time agitated.
+
+"The idea of your own school-master standing here and begging you to go
+to a dance."
+
+There was a long pause.
+
+"Is there any one in there whom you are afraid to see?"
+
+"I am sure I cannot tell who may be in there."
+
+"But is there likely to be any one?"
+
+Oyvind was silent.  Then the school-master walked straight up to him,
+and laying his hand on his shoulder, said,--
+
+"Are you afraid to see Marit?"
+
+Oyvind looked down; his breathing became heavy and quick.
+
+"Tell me, Oyvind, my boy?"
+
+Oyvind made no reply.
+
+"You are perhaps ashamed to confess it since you are not yet confirmed;
+but tell me, nevertheless, my dear Oyvind, and you shall not regret
+it."
+
+Oyvind raised his eyes but could not speak the word, and let his gaze
+wander away.
+
+"You are not happy, either, of late.  Does she care more for any one
+else than for you?"
+
+Oyvind was still silent, and the school-master, feeling slightly hurt,
+turned away from him.  They retraced their steps.
+
+After they had walked a long distance, the school-master paused long
+enough for Oyvind to come up to his side.
+
+"I presume you are very anxious to be confirmed," said he.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What do you think of doing afterwards?"
+
+"I should like to go to the seminary."
+
+"And then become a school-master?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You do not think that is great enough?"
+
+Oyvind made no reply.  Again they walked on for some distance.
+
+"When you have been through the seminary, what will you do?"
+
+"I have not fairly considered that."
+
+"If you had money, I dare say you would like to buy yourself a gard?"
+
+"Yes, but keep the mills."
+
+"Then you had better enter the agricultural school."
+
+"Do pupils learn as much there as at the seminary?"
+
+"Oh, no! but they learn what they can make use of later."
+
+"Do they get numbers there too?"
+
+"Why do you ask?"
+
+"I should like to be a good scholar."
+
+"That you can surely be without a number."
+
+They walked on in silence again until they saw Pladsen; a light shone
+from the house, the cliff hanging over it was black now in the winter
+evening; the lake below was covered with smooth, glittering ice, but
+there was no snow on the forest skirting the silent bay; the moon
+sailed overhead, mirroring the forest trees in the ice.
+
+"It is beautiful here at Pladsen," said the school-master.
+
+There were times when Oyvind could see these things with the same eyes
+with which he looked when his mother told him nursery tales, or with
+the vision he had when he coasted on the hill-side, and this was one of
+those times,--all lay exalted and purified before him.
+
+"Yes, it is beautiful," said he, but he sighed.
+
+"Your father has found everything he wanted in this home; you, too,
+might be contented here."
+
+The joyous aspect of the spot suddenly disappeared.  The school-master
+stood as if awaiting an answer; receiving none, he shook his head and
+entered the house with Oyvind.  He sat a while with the family, but was
+rather silent than talkative, whereupon the others too became silent.
+When he took his leave, both husband and wife followed him outside of
+the door; it seemed as if both expected him to say something.
+Meanwhile, they stood gazing up into the night.
+
+"It has grown so unusually quiet here," finally said the mother, "since
+the children have gone away with their sports."
+
+"Nor have you a _child_ in the house any longer, either," said the
+school-master.
+
+The mother knew what he meant.
+
+"Oyvind has not been happy of late," said she.
+
+"Ah, no! he who is ambitious never is happy,"--and he gazed up with an
+old man's calmness into God's peaceful heavens above.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+Half a year later--in the autumn it was (the confirmation had been
+postponed until then)--the candidates for confirmation of the main
+parish sat in the parsonage servant's hall, waiting examination, among
+them was Oyvind Pladsen and Marit Heidegards.  Marit had just come down
+from the priest, from whom she had received a handsome book and much
+praise; she laughed and chatted with her girl friends on all sides and
+glanced around among the boys.  Marit was a full-grown girl, easy and
+frank in her whole address, and the boys as well as the girls knew that
+Jon Hatlen, the best match in the parish, was courting her,--well might
+she be happy as she sat there.  Down by the door stood some girls and
+boys who had not passed; they were crying, while Marit and her friends
+were laughing; among them was a little boy in his father's boots and
+his mother's Sunday kerchief.
+
+"Oh, dear! oh, dear!" sobbed he, "I dare not go home again."
+
+And this overcame those who had not yet been up with the power of
+sympathy; there was a universal silence.  Anxiety filled their throats
+and eyes; they could not see distinctly, neither could they swallow;
+and this they felt a continual desire to do.
+
+One sat reckoning over how much he knew; and although but a few hours
+before he had discovered that he knew everything, now he found out just
+as confidently that he knew nothing, not even how to read in a book.
+
+Another summed up the list of his sins, from the time he was large
+enough to remember until now, and he decided that it would not be at
+all remarkable if the Lord decreed that he should be rejected.
+
+A third sat taking note of all things about him: if the clock which was
+about to strike did not make its first stroke before he could count
+twenty, he would pass; if the person he heard in the passage proved to
+be the gard-boy Lars, he would pass; if the great rain-drop, working
+its way down over the pane, came as far as the moulding of the window,
+he would pass.  The final and decisive proof was to be if he succeeded
+in twisting his right foot about the left,--and this it was quite
+impossible for him to do.
+
+A fourth was convinced in his own mind that if he was only questioned
+about Joseph in Bible history and about baptism in the Catechism, or
+about Saul, or about domestic duties, or about Jesus, or about the
+Commandments, or--he still sat rehearsing when he was called.
+
+A fifth had taken a special fancy to the Sermon on the Mount; he had
+dreamed about the Sermon on the Mount; he was sure of being questioned
+on the Sermon on the Mount; he kept repeating the Sermon on the Mount
+to himself; he had to go out doors and read over the Sermon on the
+Mount--when he was called up to be examined on the great and the small
+prophets.
+
+A sixth thought of the priest who was an excellent man and knew his
+father so well; he thought, too, of the school-master, who had such a
+kindly face, and of God who was all goodness and mercy, and who had
+aided so many before both Jacob and Joseph; and then he remembered that
+his mother and brothers and sisters were at home praying for him, which
+surely must help.
+
+The seventh renounced all he had meant to become in this world.  Once
+he had thought that he would like to push on as far as being a king,
+once as far as general or priest; now that time was over.  But even to
+the moment of his coming here he had thought of going to sea and
+becoming a captain; perhaps a pirate, and acquiring enormous riches;
+now he gave up first the riches, then the pirate, then the captain,
+then the mate; he paused at sailor, at the utmost boatswain; indeed, it
+was possible that he would not go to sea at all, but would take a
+houseman's place on his father's gard.
+
+The eighth was more hopeful about his case but not certain, for even
+the aptest scholar was not certain.  He thought of the clothes he was
+to be confirmed in, wondering what they would be used for if he did not
+pass.  But if he passed he was going to town to get a broadcloth suit,
+and coming home again to dance at Christmas to the envy of all the boys
+and the astonishment of all the girls.
+
+The ninth reckoned otherwise: he prepared a little account book with
+the Lord, in which he set down on one side, as it were, "Debit:" he
+must let me pass, and on the other "Credit:" then I will never tell any
+more lies, never tittle-tattle any more, always go to church, let the
+girls alone, and break myself of swearing.
+
+The tenth, however, thought that if Ole Hansen had passed last year it
+would be more than unjust if he who had always done better at school,
+and, moreover, came of a better family, did not get through this year.
+
+By his side sat the eleventh, who was wrestling with the most alarming
+plans of revenge in the event of his not being passed: either to burn
+down the school-house, or to run away from the parish and come back
+again as the denouncing judge of the priest and the whole school
+commission, but magnanimously allow mercy to take the place of justice.
+To begin with, he would take service at the house of the priest of the
+neighboring parish, and there stand number one next year, and answer so
+that the whole church would marvel.
+
+But the twelfth sat alone under the clock, with both hands in his
+pockets, and looked mournfully out over the assemblage.  No one here
+knew what a burden he bore, what a responsibility he had assumed.  At
+home there was one who knew,--for he was betrothed.  A large,
+long-legged spider was crawling over the floor and drew near his foot;
+he was in the habit of treading on this loathsome insect, but to-day he
+tenderly raised his foot that it might go in peace whither it would.
+His voice was as gentle as a collect, his eyes said incessantly that
+all men were good, his hands made a humble movement out of his pockets
+up to his hair to stroke it down more smoothly.  If he could only glide
+gently through this dangerous needle's eye, he would doubtless grow out
+again on the other side, chew tobacco, and announce his engagement.
+
+And down on a low stool with his legs drawn up under him, sat the
+anxious thirteenth; his little flashing eyes sped round the room three
+times each second, and through the passionate, obstinate head stormed
+in motley confusion the combined thoughts of the other twelve: from the
+mightiest hope to the most crushing doubt, from the most humble
+resolves to the most devastating plans of revenge; and, meanwhile, he
+had eaten up all the loose flesh on his right thumb, and was busied now
+with his nails, sending large pieces across the floor.
+
+Oyvind sat by the window, he had been upstairs and had answered
+everything that had been asked him; but the priest had not said
+anything, neither had the school-master.  For more than half a year he
+had been considering what they both would say when they came to know
+how hard he had toiled, and he felt now deeply disappointed as well as
+wounded.  There sat Marit, who for far less exertion and knowledge had
+received both encouragement and reward; it was just in order to stand
+high in her eyes that he had striven, and now she smilingly won what he
+had labored with so much self-denial to attain.  Her laughter and
+joking burned into his soul, the freedom with which she moved about
+pained him.  He had carefully avoided speaking with her since that
+evening, it would take years, he thought; but the sight of her sitting
+there so happy and superior, weighed him to the ground, and all his
+proud determinations drooped like leaves after a rain.
+
+He strove gradually to shake off his depression.  Everything depended
+on whether he became number one to-day, and for this he was waiting.
+It was the school-master's wont to linger a little after the rest with
+the priest to arrange about the order of the young people, and
+afterwards to go down and report the result; it was, to be sure, not
+the final decision, merely what the priest and he had for the present
+agreed upon.  The conversation became livelier after a considerable
+number had been examined and passed; but now the ambitious ones plainly
+distinguished themselves from the happy ones; the latter left as soon
+as they found company, in order to announce their good fortune to their
+parents, or they waited for the sake of others who were not yet ready;
+the former, on the contrary, grew more and more silent and their eyes
+were fixed in suspense on the door.
+
+At length the children were all through, the last had come down, and so
+the school-master must now be talking with the priest.  Oyvind glanced
+at Marit; she was just as happy as before, but she remained in her
+seat, whether waiting for her own pleasure or for some one else, he
+knew not.  How pretty Marit had become!  He had never seen so
+dazzlingly lovely a complexion; her nose was slightly turned up, and a
+dainty smile played about the mouth.  She kept her eyes partially
+closed when not looking directly at any one, but for that reason her
+gaze always had unsuspected power when it did come; and, as though she
+wished herself to add that she meant nothing by this, she half smiled
+at the same moment.  Her hair was rather dark than light, but it was
+wavy and crept far over the brow on either side, so that, together with
+the half closed eyes, it gave the face a hidden expression that one
+could never weary of studying.  It never seemed quite sure whom it was
+she was looking for when she was sitting alone and among others, nor
+what she really had in mind when she turned to speak to any one, for
+she took back immediately, as it were, what she gave.  "Under all this
+Jon Hatlen is hidden, I suppose," thought Oyvind, but still stared
+constantly at her.
+
+Now came the school-master.  All left their places and stormed about
+him.
+
+"What number am I?"--"And I?"--"And I--I?"
+
+"Hush! you overgrown young ones!  No uproar here!  Be quiet and you
+shall hear about it, children."  He looked slowly around.  "You are
+number two," said he to a boy with blue eyes, who was gazing up at him
+most beseechingly; and the boy danced out of the circle.  "You are
+number three," he tapped a red-haired, active little fellow who stood
+tugging at his jacket.  "You are number five; you number eight," and so
+on.  Here he caught sight of Marit.  "You are number one of the
+girls,"--she blushed crimson over face and neck, but tried to smile.
+"You are number twelve; you have been lazy, you rogue, and full of
+mischief; you number eleven, nothing better to be expected, my boy;
+you, number thirteen, must study hard and come to the next examination,
+or it will go badly with you!"
+
+Oyvind could bear it no longer; number one, to be sure, had not been
+mentioned, but he had been standing all the time so that the
+school-master could see him.
+
+"School-master!"  He did not hear.  "School-master!"  Oyvind had to
+repeat this three times before it was heard.  At last the school-master
+looked at him.
+
+"Number nine or ten, I do not remember which," said he, and turned to
+another.
+
+"Who is number one, then?" inquired Hans, who was Oyvind's best friend.
+
+"It is not you, curly-head!" said the school-master, rapping him over
+the hand with a roll of paper.
+
+"Who is it, then?" asked others.  "Who is it?  Yes; who is it?"
+
+"He will find that out who has the number," replied the school-master,
+sternly.  He would have no more questions.  "Now go home nicely,
+children.  Give thanks to your God and gladden your parents.  Thank
+your old school-master too; you would have been in a pretty fix if it
+had not been for him."
+
+They thanked him, laughed, and went their way jubilantly, for at this
+moment when they were about to go home to their parents they all felt
+happy.  Only one remained behind, who could not at once find his books,
+and who when he had found them sat down as if he must read them over
+again.
+
+The school-master went up to him.
+
+"Well, Oyvind, are you not going with the rest?"
+
+There was no reply.
+
+"Why do you open your books?"
+
+"I want to find out what I answered wrong to-day."
+
+"You answered nothing wrong."
+
+Then Oyvind looked at him; tears filled his eyes, but he gazed intently
+at the school-master, while one by one trickled down his cheeks, and
+not a word did he say.  The school-master sat down in front of him.
+
+"Are you not glad that you passed?"
+
+There was a quivering about the lips but no reply.
+
+"Your mother and father will be very glad," said the school-master, and
+looked at Oyvind.
+
+The boy struggled hard to gain power of utterance, finally he asked in
+low, broken tones,--
+
+"Is it--because I--am a houseman's son that I only stand number nine or
+ten?"
+
+"No doubt that was it," replied the school-master.
+
+"Then it is of no use for me to work," said Oyvind, drearily, and all
+his bright dreams vanished.  Suddenly he raised his head, lifted his
+right hand, and bringing it down on the table with all his might, flung
+himself forward on his face and burst into passionate tears.
+
+The school-master let him lie and weep,--weep as long as he would.  It
+lasted a long time, but the school-master waited until the weeping grew
+more childlike.  Then taking Oyvind's head in both hands, he raised it
+and gazed into the tear-stained face.
+
+"Do you believe that it is God who has been with you now," said he,
+drawing the boy affectionately toward him.
+
+Oyvind was still sobbing, but not so violently as before; his tears
+flowed more calmly, but he neither dared look at him who questioned nor
+answer.
+
+"This, Oyvind, has been a well-merited recompense.  You have not
+studied from love of your religion, or of your parents; you have
+studied from vanity."
+
+There was silence in the room after every sentence the school-master
+uttered.  Oyvind felt his gaze resting on him, and he melted and grew
+humble under it.
+
+"With such wrath in your heart, you could not have come forward to make
+a covenant with your God.  Do you think you could, Oyvind?"
+
+"No," the boy stammered, as well as he was able.
+
+"And if you stood there with vain joy, over being number one, would you
+not be coming forward with a sin?"
+
+"Yes, I should," whispered Oyvind, and his lips quivered.
+
+"You still love me, Oyvind?"
+
+"Yes;" here he looked up for the first time.
+
+"Then I will tell you that it was I who had you put down; for I am very
+fond of you, Oyvind."
+
+The other looked at him, blinked several times, and the tears rolled
+down in rapid succession.
+
+"You are not displeased with me for that?"
+
+"No;" he looked up full in the school-master's face, although his voice
+was choked.
+
+"My dear child, I will stand by you as long as I live."
+
+The school-master waited for Oyvind until the latter had gathered
+together his books, then said that he would accompany him home.  They
+walked slowly along.  At first Oyvind was silent and his struggle went
+on, but gradually he gained his self-control.  He was convinced that
+what had occurred was the best thing that in any way could have
+happened to him; and before he reached home, his belief in this had
+become so strong that he gave thanks to his God, and told the
+school-master so.
+
+"Yes, now we can think of accomplishing something in life," said the
+school-master, "instead of playing blind-man's buff, and chasing after
+numbers.  What do you say to the seminary?"
+
+"Why, I should like very much to go there."
+
+"Are you thinking of the agricultural school?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"That is, without doubt, the best; it provides other openings than a
+school-master's position."
+
+"But how can I go there?  I earnestly desire it, but I have not the
+means."
+
+"Be industrious and good, and I dare say the means will be found."
+
+Oyvind felt completely overwhelmed with gratitude.  His eyes sparkled,
+his breath came lightly, he glowed with that infinite love that bears
+us along when we experience some unexpected kindness from a
+fellow-creature.  At such a moment, we fancy that our whole future will
+be like wandering in the fresh mountain air; we are wafted along more
+than we walk.
+
+When they reached home both parents were within, and had been sitting
+there in quiet expectation, although it was during working hours of a
+busy time.  The school-master entered first, Oyvind followed; both were
+smiling.
+
+"Well?" said the father, laying aside a hymn-book, in which he had just
+been reading a "Prayer for a Confirmation Candidate."
+
+His mother stood by the hearth, not daring to say anything; she was
+smiling, but her hand was trembling.  Evidently she was expecting good
+news, but did not wish to betray herself.
+
+"I merely had to come to gladden you with the news, that he answered
+every question put to him; and that the priest said, when Oyvind had
+left him, that he had never had a more apt scholar."
+
+"Is it possible!" said the mother, much affected.
+
+"Well, that is good," said his father, clearing his throat unsteadily.
+
+After it had been still for some time, the mother asked, softly,--
+
+"What number will he have?"
+
+"Number nine or ten," said the school-master, calmly.
+
+The mother looked at the father; he first at her, then at Oyvind, and
+said,--
+
+"A houseman's son can expect no more."
+
+Oyvind returned his gaze.  Something rose up in his throat once more,
+but he hastily forced himself to think of things that he loved, one by
+one, until it was choked down again.
+
+"Now I had better go," said the school-master, and nodding, turned
+away.
+
+Both parents followed him as usual out on the door-step; here the
+school-master took a quid of tobacco, and smiling said,--
+
+"He will be number one, after all; but it is not worth while that he
+should know anything about it until the day comes."
+
+"No, no," said the father, and nodded.
+
+"No, no," said the mother, and she nodded too; after which she grasped
+the school-master's hand and added: "We thank you for all you do for
+him."
+
+"Yes, you have our thanks," said the father, and the school-master
+moved away.
+
+They long stood there gazing after him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+The school-master had judged the boy correctly when he asked the priest
+to try whether Oyvind could bear to stand number one.  During the three
+weeks which elapsed before the confirmation, he was with the boy every
+day.  It is one thing for a young, tender soul to yield to an
+impression; what through faith it shall attain is another thing.  Many
+dark hours fell upon Oyvind before he learned to choose the goal of his
+future from something better than ambition and defiance.  Often in the
+midst of his work he lost his interest and stopped short: what was it
+all for, what would he gain by it?--and then presently he would
+remember the school-master, his words and his kindness; and this human
+medium forced him to rise up again every time he fell from a
+comprehension of his higher duty.
+
+In those days while they were preparing at Pladsen for the
+confirmation, they were also preparing for Oyvind's departure for the
+agricultural school, for this was to take place the following day.
+Tailor and shoemaker were sitting in the family-room; the mother was
+baking in the kitchen, the father working at a chest.  There was a
+great deal said about what Oyvind would cost his parents in the next
+two years; about his not being able to come home the first Christmas,
+perhaps not the second either, and how hard it would be to be parted so
+long.  They spoke also of the love Oyvind should bear his parents who
+were willing to sacrifice themselves for their child's sake.  Oyvind
+sat like one who had tried sailing out into the world on his own
+responsibility, but had been wrecked and was now picked up by kind
+people.
+
+Such is the feeling that humility gives, and with it comes much more.
+As the great day drew near he dared call himself prepared, and also
+dared look forward with trustful resignation.  Whenever Marit's image
+would present itself, he cautiously thrust it aside, although he felt a
+pang in so doing.  He tried to gain practice in this, but never made
+any progress in strength; on the contrary, it was the pain that grew.
+Therefore he was weary the last evening, when, after a long
+self-examination, he prayed that the Lord would not put him to the test
+in this matter.
+
+The school-master came as the day was drawing to a close.  They all sat
+down together in the family-room, after washing and dressing themselves
+neat and clean, as was customary the evening before going to communion,
+or morning service.  The mother was agitated, the father silent;
+parting was to follow the morrow's ceremony, and it was uncertain when
+they could all sit down together again.  The school-master brought out
+the hymn-books, read the service, sang with the family, and afterwards
+said a short prayer, just as the words came into his mind.
+
+These four people now sat together until late in the evening, the
+thoughts of each centering within; then they parted with the best
+wishes for the coming day and what it was to consecrate.  Oyvind was
+obliged to admit, as he laid himself down, that he had never gone to
+bed so happy before; he gave this an interpretation of his own,--he
+understood it to mean: I have never before gone to bed feeling so
+resigned to God's will and so happy in it.  Marit's face at once rose
+up before him again, and the last thing he was conscious of was that he
+lay and examined himself: not quite happy, not quite,--and that he
+answered: yes, quite; but again: not quite; yes, quite; no, not quite.
+
+When he awoke he at once remembered the day, prayed, and felt strong,
+as one does in the morning.  Since the summer, he had slept alone in
+the attic; now he rose, and put on his handsome new clothes, very
+carefully, for he had never owned such before.  There was especially a
+round broadcloth jacket, which he had to examine over and over again
+before he became accustomed to it.  He hung up a little looking-glass
+when he had adjusted his collar, and for the fourth time drew on his
+jacket.  At sight of his own contented face, with the unusually light
+hair surrounding it, reflected and smiling in the glass, it occurred to
+him that this must certainly be vanity again.  "Yes, but people must be
+well-dressed and tidy," he reasoned, drawing his face away from the
+glass, as if it were a sin to look in it.  "To be sure, but not quite
+so delighted with themselves, for the sake of the matter."  "No,
+certainly not, but the Lord must also like to have one care to look
+well."  "That may be; but He would surely like it better to have you do
+so without taking so much notice of it yourself."  "That is true; but
+it happens now because everything is so new."  "Yes, but you must
+gradually lay the habit aside."--He caught himself carrying on such a
+self-examining conversation, now upon one theme, now upon another, so
+that not a sin should fall on the day and stain it; but at the same
+time he knew that he had other struggles to meet.
+
+When he came down-stairs, his parents sat all dressed, waiting
+breakfast for him.  He went up to them and taking their hands thanked
+them for the clothes, and received in return a
+"wear-them-out-with-good-health."[1]  They sat down to table, prayed
+silently, and ate.  The mother cleared the table, and carried in the
+lunch-box for the journey to church.  The father put on his jacket, the
+mother fastened her kerchief; they took their hymn-books, locked up the
+house, and started.  As soon as they had reached the upper road they
+met the church-faring people, driving and walking, the confirmation
+candidates scattered among them, and in one group and another
+white-haired grand-parents, who had felt moved to come out on this
+great occasion.
+
+[Footnote 1: A common expression among the peasantry of Norway,
+meaning: "You are welcome."]
+
+It was an autumn day without sunshine, as when the weather is about to
+change.  Clouds gathered together and dispersed again; sometimes out of
+one great mass were formed twenty smaller ones, which sped across the
+sky with orders for a storm; but below, on the earth, it was still
+calm, the foliage hung lifeless, not a leaf stirring; the air was a
+trifle sultry; people carried their outer wraps with them but did not
+use them.  An unusually large multitude had assembled round the church,
+which stood in an open space; but the confirmation children immediately
+went into the church in order to be arranged in their places before
+service began.  Then it was that the school-master, in a blue
+broadcloth suit, frock coat, and knee-breeches, high shoes, stiff
+cravat, and a pipe protruding from his back coat pocket, came down
+towards them, nodded and smiled, tapped one on the shoulder, spoke a
+few words to another about answering loudly and distinctly, and
+meanwhile worked his way along to the poor-box, where Oyvind stood
+answering all the questions of his friend Hans in reference to his
+journey.
+
+"Good-day, Oyvind.  How fine you look to-day!"  He took him by the
+jacket collar as if he wished to speak to him.  "Listen.  I believe
+everything good of you.  I have been talking with the priest; you will
+be allowed to keep your place; go up to number one and answer
+distinctly!"
+
+Oyvind looked up at him amazed; the school-master nodded; the boy took
+a few steps, stopped, a few steps more, stopped again: "Yes, it surely
+is so; he has spoken to the priest for me,"--and the boy walked swiftly
+up to his place.
+
+"You are to be number one, after all," some one whispered to him.
+
+"Yes," answered Oyvind, in a low voice, but did not feel quite sure yet
+whether he dared think so.
+
+The assignment of places was over, the priest had come, the bells were
+ringing, and the people pouring into church.  Then Oyvind saw Marit
+Heidegards just in front of him; she saw him too; but they were both so
+awed by the sacredness of the place that they dared not greet each
+other.  He only noticed that she was dazzlingly beautiful and that her
+hair was uncovered; more he did not see.  Oyvind, who for more than
+half a year had been building such great plans about standing opposite
+her, forgot, now that it had come to the point, both the place and her,
+and that he had in any way thought of them.
+
+After all was ended the relatives and acquaintances came up to offer
+their congratulations; next came Oyvind's comrades to take leave of
+him, as they had heard that he was to depart the next day; then there
+came many little ones with whom he had coasted on the hill-sides and
+whom he had assisted at school, and who now could not help whimpering a
+little at parting.  Last came the school-master, silently took Oyvind
+and his parents by the hands, and made a sign to start for home; he
+wanted to accompany them.  The four were together once more, and this
+was to be the last evening.  On the way home they met many others who
+took leave of Oyvind and wished him good luck; but they had no other
+conversation until they sat down together in the family-room.
+
+The school-master tried to keep them in good spirits; the fact was now
+that the time had come they all shrank from the two long years of
+separation, for up to this time they had never been parted a single
+day; but none of them would acknowledge it.  The later it grew the more
+dejected Oyvind became; he was forced to go out to recover his
+composure a little.
+
+It was dusk now and there were strange sounds in the air.  Oyvind
+remained standing on the door-step gazing upward.  From the brow of the
+cliff he then heard his own name called, quite softly; it was no
+delusion, for it was repeated twice.  He looked up and faintly
+distinguished a female form crouching between the trees and looking
+down.
+
+"Who is it?" asked he.
+
+"I hear you are going away," said a low voice, "so I had to come to you
+and say good-by, as you would not come to me."
+
+"Dear me!  Is that you, Marit?  I shall come up to you."
+
+"No, pray do not.  I have waited so long, and if you come I should have
+to wait still longer; no one knows where I am and I must hurry home."
+
+"It was kind of you to come," said he.
+
+"I could not bear to have you leave so, Oyvind; we have known each
+other since we were children."
+
+"Yes; we have."
+
+"And now we have not spoken to each other for half a year."
+
+"No; we have not."
+
+"We parted so strangely, too, that time."
+
+"We did.  I think I must come up to you!"
+
+"Oh, no! do not come!  But tell me: you are not angry with me?"
+
+"Goodness! how could you think so?"
+
+"Good-by, then, Oyvind, and my thanks for all the happy times we have
+had together!"
+
+"Wait, Marit!"
+
+"Indeed I must go; they will miss me."
+
+"Marit!  Marit!"
+
+"No, I dare not stay away any longer, Oyvind.  Good-by."
+
+"Good-by!"
+
+Afterwards he moved about as in a dream, and answered very absently
+when he was addressed.  This was ascribed to his journey, as was quite
+natural; and indeed it occupied his whole mind at the moment when the
+school-master took leave of him in the evening and put something into
+his hand, which he afterwards found to be a five-dollar bill.  But
+later, when he went to bed, he thought not of the journey, but of the
+words which had come down from the brow of the cliff, and those that
+had been sent up again.  As a child Marit was not allowed to come on
+the cliff, because her grandfather feared she might fall down.  Perhaps
+she will come down some day, any way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+     DEAR PARENTS,--We have to study much more now than at first, but
+as I am less behind the others than I was, it is not so hard.  I shall
+change many things in father's place when I come home; for there is
+much that is wrong there, and it is wonderful that it has prospered as
+well as it has.  But I shall make everything right, for I have learned
+a great deal.  I want to go to some place where I can put into practice
+all I now know, and so I must look for a high position when I get
+through here.
+     No one here considers Jon Hatlen as clever as he is thought to be
+at home with us; but as he has a gard of his own, this does not concern
+any one but himself.
+     Many who go from here get very high salaries, but they are paid so
+well because ours is the best agricultural school in the country.  Some
+say the one in the next district is better, but this is by no means
+true.  There are two words here: one is called Theory, the other
+Practice.  It is well to have them both, for one is nothing without the
+other; but still the latter is the better.  Now the former means, to
+understand the cause and principle of a work; the latter, to be able to
+perform it: as, for instance, in regard to a quagmire; for there are
+many who know what should be done with a quagmire and yet do it wrong,
+because they are not able to put their knowledge into practice.  Many,
+on the other hand, are skillful in doing, but do not know what ought to
+be done; and thus they too may make bad work of it, for there are many
+kinds of quagmires.  But we at the agricultural school learn both
+words.  The superintendent is so skillful that he has no equal.  At the
+last agricultural meeting for the whole country, he led in two
+discussions, and the other superintendents had only one each, and upon
+careful consideration his statements were always sustained.  At the
+meeting before the last, where he was not present, there was nothing
+but idle talk.  The lieutenant who teaches surveying was chosen by the
+superintendent only on account of his ability, for the other schools
+have no lieutenant.  He is so clever that he was the best scholar at
+the military academy.
+     The school-master asks if I go to church.  Yes, of course I go to
+church, for now the priest has an assistant, and his sermons fill all
+the congregation with terror, and it is a pleasure to listen to him.
+He belongs to the new religion they have in Christiania, and people
+think him too strict, but it is good for them that he is so.
+     Just now we are studying much history, which we have not done
+before, and it is curious to observe all that has happened in the
+world, but especially in our country, for we have always won, except
+when we have lost, and then we always had the smaller number.  We now
+have liberty; and no other nation has so much of it as we, except
+America; but there they are not happy.  Our freedom should be loved by
+us above everything.
+     Now I will close for this time, for I have written a very long
+letter.  The school-master will read it, I suppose, and when he answers
+for you, get him to tell me some news about one thing or another, for
+he never does so of himself.  But now accept hearty greetings from your
+affectionate son,
+               O. THORESEN.
+
+
+
+     DEAR PARENTS,--Now I must tell you that we have had examinations,
+and that I stood 'excellent' in many things, and 'very good' in writing
+and surveying, but 'good' in Norwegian composition.  This comes, the
+superintendent says, from my not having read enough, and he has made me
+a present of some of Ole Vig's books, which are matchless, for I
+understand everything in them.  The superintendent is very kind to me,
+and he tells us many things.  Everything here is very inferior compared
+with what they have abroad; we understand almost nothing, but learn
+everything from the Scotch and Swiss, although horticulture we learn
+from the Dutch.  Many visit these countries.  In Sweden, too, they are
+much more clever than we, and there the superintendent himself has
+been.  I have been here now nearly a year, and I thought that I had
+learned a great deal; but when I heard what those who passed the
+examination knew, and considered that they would not amount to anything
+either when they came into contact with foreigners, I became very
+despondent.  And then the soil here in Norway is so poor compared with
+what it is abroad; it does not at all repay us for what we do with it.
+Moreover, people will not learn from the experience of others; and even
+if they would, and if the soil was much better, they really have not
+the money to cultivate it.  It is remarkable that things have prospered
+as well as they have.
+     I am now in the highest class, and am to remain there a year
+before I get through.  But most of my companions have left and I long
+for home.  I feel alone, although I am not so by any means, but one has
+such a strange feeling when one has been long absent.  I once thought I
+should become so much of a scholar here; but I am not making the
+progress I anticipated.
+     What shall I do with myself when I leave here?  First, of course,
+I will come home; afterwards, I suppose, I will have to seek something
+to do, but it must not be far away.
+     Farewell, now, dear parents!  Give greetings to all who inquire
+for me, and tell them that I have everything pleasant here but that now
+I long to be at home again.
+          Your affectionate son,
+               OYVIND THORESEN PLADSEN.
+
+
+
+DEAR SCHOOL-MASTER,--With this I ask if you will deliver the inclosed
+letter and not speak of it to any one.  And if you will not, then you
+must burn it.
+               OYVIND THORESEN PLADSEN.
+
+
+
+TO THE MOST HONORED MAIDEN, MARIT KNUDSDATTER NORDISTUEN AT THE UPPER
+HEIDEGARDS:--
+     You will no doubt be much surprised at receiving a letter from me;
+but you need not be for I only wish to ask how you are.  You must send
+me a few words as soon as possible, giving me all particulars.
+Regarding myself, I have to say that I shall be through here in a year.
+Most respectfully,
+               OYVIND PLADSEN.
+
+
+
+TO OYVIND PLADSEN, AT THE AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL:--
+     Your letter was duly received by me from the school-master, and I
+will answer since you request it.  But I am afraid to do so, now that
+you are so learned; and I have a letter-writer, but it does not help
+me.  So I will have to try what I can do, and you must take the will
+for the deed; but do not show this, for if you do you are not the one I
+think you are.  Nor must you keep it, for then some one might see it,
+but you must burn it, and this you will have to promise me to do.
+There were so many things I wanted to write about, but I do not quite
+dare.  We have had a good harvest; potatoes bring a high price, and
+here at the Heidegards we have plenty of them.  But the bear has done
+much mischief among the cattle this summer: he killed two of Ole
+Nedregard's cattle and injured one belonging to our houseman so badly
+that it had to be killed for beef.  I am weaving a large piece of
+cloth, something like a Scotch plaid, and it is difficult.  And now I
+will tell you that I am still at home, and that there are those who
+would like to have it otherwise.  Now I have no more to write about for
+this time, and so I must bid you farewell.
+               MARIT KNUDSDATTER.
+P.S.--Be sure and burn this letter.
+
+
+
+TO THE AGRICULTURIST, OYVIND THORESEN PLADSEN:--
+     As I have told you before, Oyvind, he who walks with God has come
+into the good inheritance.  But now you must listen to my advice, and
+that is not to take the world with yearning and tribulation, but to
+trust in God and not allow your heart to consume you, for if you do you
+will have another god besides Him.  Next I must inform you that your
+father and your mother are well, but I am troubled with one of my hips;
+for now the war breaks out afresh with all that was suffered in it.
+What youth sows age must reap; and this is true both in regard to the
+mind and the body, which now throbs and pains, and tempts one to make
+any number of lamentations.  But old age should not complain; for
+wisdom flows from wounds, and pain preaches patience, that man may grow
+strong enough for the last journey.  To-day I have taken up my pen for
+many reasons, and first and above all for the sake of Marit, who has
+become a God-fearing maiden, but who is as light of foot as a reindeer,
+and of rather a fickle disposition.  She would be glad to abide by one
+thing, but is prevented from so doing by her nature; but I have often
+before seen that with hearts of such weak stuff the Lord is indulgent
+and long-suffering, and does not allow them to be tempted beyond their
+strength, lest they break to pieces, for she is very fragile.  I duly
+gave her your letter, and she hid it from all save her own heart.  If
+God will lend His aid in this matter, I have nothing against it, for
+Marit is most charming to young men, as plainly can be seen, and she
+has abundance of earthly goods, and the heavenly ones she has too, with
+all her fickleness.  For the fear of God in her mind is like water in a
+shallow pond: it is there when it rains, but it is gone when the sun
+shines.
+     My eyes can endure no more at present, for they see well at a
+distance, but pain me and fill with tears when I look at small objects.
+In conclusion, I will advise you, Oyvind, to have your God with you in
+all your desires and undertakings, for it is written: "Better is an
+handful with quietness, than both the hands full with travail and
+vexation of spirit."  Ecclesiastes, iv. 6.  Your old school-master,
+               BAARD ANDERSEN OPDAL.
+
+
+
+TO THE MOST HONORED MAIDEN, MARIT KNUDSDATTER HEIDEGARDS:--
+     You have my thanks for your letter, which I have read and burned,
+as you requested.  You write of many things, but not at all concerning
+that of which I wanted you to write.  Nor do I dare write anything
+definite before I know how you are in _every respect_.  The
+school-master's letter says nothing that one can depend on, but he
+praises you and he says you are fickle.  That, indeed, you were before.
+Now I do not know what to think, and so you must write, for it will not
+be well with me until you do.  Just now I remember best about your
+coming to the cliff that last evening and what you said then.  I will
+say no more this time, and so farewell.
+               Most respectfully,
+                    OYVIND PLADSEN.
+
+
+
+TO OYVIND THORESEN PLADSEN:--
+     The school-master has given me another letter from you, and I have
+just read it, but I do not understand it in the least, and that, I dare
+say, is because I am not learned.  You want to know how it is with me
+in every respect; and I am healthy and well, and there is nothing at
+all the matter with me.  I eat heartily, especially when I get milk
+porridge.  I sleep at night, and occasionally in the day-time too.  I
+have danced a great deal this winter, for there have been many parties
+here, and that has been very pleasant.  I go to church when the snow is
+not too deep; but we have had a great deal of snow this winter.  Now, I
+presume, you know everything, and if you do not, I can think of nothing
+better than for you to write to me once more.
+               MARIT KNUDSDATTER.
+
+
+
+TO THE MOST HONORED MAIDEN, MARIT KNUDSDATTER HEIDEGARDS:--
+     I have received your letter, but you seem inclined to leave me no
+wiser than I was before.  Perhaps this may be meant for an answer.  I
+do not know.  I dare not write anything that I wish to write, for I do
+not know you.  But possibly you do not know me either.
+     You must not think that I am any longer the soft cheese you
+squeezed the water away from when I sat watching you dance.  I have
+laid on many shelves to dry since that time.  Neither am I like those
+long-haired dogs who drop their ears at the least provocation and take
+flight from people, as in former days.  I can stand fire now.
+     Your letter was very playful, but it jested where it should not
+have jested at all, for you understood me very well, and you could see
+that I did not ask in sport, but because of late I can think of nothing
+else than the subject I questioned you about.  I was waiting in deep
+anxiety, and there came to me only foolery and laughter.
+     Farewell, Marit Heidegards, I shall not look at you too much, as I
+did at that dance.  May you both eat well, and sleep well, and get your
+new web finished, and above all, may you be able to shovel away the
+snow which lies in front of the church-door.
+          Most respectfully,
+               OYVIND THORESEN PLADSEN.
+
+
+
+TO THE AGRICULTURIST, OYVIND THORESEN, AT THE AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL:--
+     Notwithstanding my advanced years, and the weakness of my eyes,
+and the pain in my right hip, I must yield to the importunity of the
+young, for we old people are needed by them when they have caught
+themselves in some snare.  They entice us and weep until they are set
+free, but then at once run away from us again, and will take no further
+advice.
+     Now it is Marit; she coaxes me with many sweet words to write at
+the same time she does, for she takes comfort in not writing alone.  I
+have read your letter; she thought that she had Jon Hatlen or some
+other fool to deal with, and not one whom school-master Baard had
+trained; but now she is in a dilemma.  However, you have been too
+severe, for there are certain women who take to jesting in order to
+avoid weeping, and who make no difference between the two.  But it
+pleases me to have you take serious things seriously, for otherwise you
+could not laugh at nonsense.
+     Concerning the feelings of both, it is now apparent from many
+things that you are bent on having each other.  About Marit I have
+often been in doubt, for she is like the wind's course; but I have now
+learned that notwithstanding this she has resisted Jon Hatlen's
+advances, at which her grandfather's wrath is sorely kindled.  She was
+happy when your offer came, and if she jested it was from joy, not from
+any harm.  She has endured much, and has done so in order to wait for
+him on whom her mind was fixed.  And now you will not have her, but
+cast her away as you would a naughty child.
+     This was what I wanted to tell you.  And this counsel I must add,
+that you should come to an understanding with her, for you can find
+enough else to be at variance with.  I am like the old man who has
+lived through three generations; I have seen folly and its course.
+     Your mother and father send love by me.  They are expecting you
+home; but I would not write of this before, lest you should become
+homesick.  You do not know your father; he is like a tree which makes
+no moan until it is hewn down.  But if ever any mischance should befall
+you, then you will learn to know him, and you will wonder at the
+richness of his nature.  He has had heavy burdens to bear, and is
+silent in worldly matters; but your mother has relieved his mind from
+earthly anxiety, and now daylight is beginning to break through the
+gloom.
+     Now my eyes grow dim, my hand refuses to do more.  Therefore I
+commend you to Him whose eye ever watches, and whose hand is never
+weary.
+               BAARD ANDERSEN OPDAL.
+
+
+
+TO OYVIND PLADSEN:--
+     You seem to be displeased with me, and this greatly grieves me.
+For I did not mean to make you angry.  I meant well.  I know I have
+often failed to do rightly by you, and that is why I write to you now;
+but you must not show the letter to any one.  Once I had everything
+just as I desired, and then I was not kind; but now there is no one who
+cares for me, and I am very wretched.  Jon Hatlen has made a lampoon
+about me, and all the boys sing it, and I no longer dare go to the
+dances.  Both the old people know about it, and I have to listen to
+many harsh words.  Now I am sitting alone writing, and you must not
+show my letter.
+     You have learned much and are able to advise me, but you are now
+far away.  I have often been down to see your parents, and have talked
+with your mother, and we have become good friends; but I did not like
+to say anything about it, for you wrote so strangely.  The
+school-master only makes fun of me, and he knows nothing about the
+lampoon, for no one in the parish would presume to sing such a thing to
+him.  I stand alone now, and have no one to speak with.  I remember
+when we were children, and you were so kind to me; and I always sat on
+your sled, and I could wish that I were a child again.
+     I cannot ask you to answer me, for I dare not do so.  But if you
+will answer just once more I will never forget it in you, Oyvind.
+               MARIT KNUDSDATTER.
+
+Please burn this letter; I scarcely know whether I dare send it.
+
+
+
+DEAR MARIT,--Thank you for your letter; you wrote it in a lucky hour.
+I will tell you now, Marit, that I love you so much that I can scarcely
+wait here any longer; and if you love me as truly in return all the
+lampoons of Jon and harsh words of others shall be like leaves which
+grow too plentifully on the tree.  Since I received your letter I feel
+like a new being, for double my former strength has come to me, and I
+fear no one in the whole world.  After I had sent my last letter I
+regretted it so that I almost became ill.  And now you shall hear what
+the result of this was.  The superintendent took me aside and asked
+what was the matter with me; he fancied I was studying too hard.  Then
+he told me that when my year was out I might remain here one more,
+without expense.  I could help him with sundry things, and he would
+teach me more.  Then I thought that work was the only thing I had to
+rely on, and I thanked him very much; and I do not yet repent it,
+although now I long for you, for the longer I stay here the better
+right I shall have to ask for you one day.  How happy I am now!  I work
+like three people, and never will I be behind-hand in any work!  But
+you must have a book that I am reading, for there is much in it about
+love.  I read in it in the evening when the others are sleeping, and
+then I read your letter over again.  Have you thought about our
+meeting?  I think of it so often, and you, too, must try and find out
+how delightful it will be.  I am truly happy that I have toiled and
+studied so much, although it was hard before; for now I can say what I
+please to you, and smile over it in my heart.
+     I shall give you many books to read, that you may see how much
+tribulation they have borne who have truly loved each other, and that
+they would rather die of grief than forsake each other.  And that is
+what we would do, and do it with the greatest joy.  True, it will be
+nearly two years before we see each other, and still longer before we
+get each other; but with every day that passes there is one day less to
+wait; we must think of this while we are working.
+     My next letter shall be about many things; but this evening I have
+no more paper, and the others are asleep.  Now I will go to bed and
+think of you, and I will do so until I fall asleep.
+               Your friend,
+                         OYVIND PLADSEN.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+One Saturday, in midsummer, Thore Pladsen rowed across the lake to meet
+his son, who was expected to arrive that afternoon from the
+agricultural school, where he had finished his course.  The mother had
+hired women several days beforehand, and everything was scoured and
+clean.  The bedroom had been put in order some time before, a stove had
+been set up, and there Oyvind was to be.  To-day the mother carried in
+fresh greens, laid out clean linen, made up the bed, and all the while
+kept looking out to see if, perchance, any boat were coming across the
+lake.  A plentiful table was spread in the house, and there was always
+something wanting, or flies to chase away, and the bedroom was
+dusty,--continually dusty.  Still no boat came.  The mother leaned
+against the window and looked across the waters; then she heard a step
+near at hand on the road, and turned her head.  It was the school-
+master, who was coming slowly down the hill, supporting himself on a
+staff, for his hip troubled him.  His intelligent eyes looked calm.  He
+paused to rest, and nodded to her:--
+
+"Not come yet?"
+
+"No; I expect them every moment."
+
+"Fine weather for haymaking, to-day."
+
+"But warm for old folks to be walking."
+
+The school-master looked at her, smiling,--
+
+"Have any young folks been out to-day?"
+
+"Yes; but are gone again."
+
+"Yes, yes, to be sure; there will most likely be a meeting somewhere
+this evening."
+
+"I presume there will be.  Thore says they shall not meet in his house
+until they have the old man's consent."
+
+"Right, quite right."
+
+Presently the mother cried,--
+
+"There!  I think they are coming."
+
+The school-master looked long in the distance.
+
+"Yes, indeed! it is they."
+
+The mother left the window, and he went into the house.  After he had
+rested a little and taken something to drink, they proceeded down to
+the shore, while the boat darted toward them, making rapid headway, for
+both father and son were rowing.  The oarsmen had thrown off their
+jackets, the waters whitened beneath their strokes; and so the boat
+soon drew near those who were waiting.  Oyvind turned his head and
+looked up; he saw the two at the landing-place, and resting his oars,
+he shouted,--
+
+"Good-day, mother!  Good-day, school-master!"
+
+"What a manly voice he has," said the mother, her face sparkling. "O
+dear, O dear! he is as fair as ever," she added.
+
+The school-master drew in the boat.  The father laid down his oars,
+Oyvind sprang past him and out of the boat, shook hands first with his
+mother, then with the school-master.  He laughed and laughed again;
+and, quite contrary to the custom of peasants, immediately began to
+pour out a flood of words about the examination, the journey, the
+superintendent's certificate, and good offers; he inquired about the
+crops and his acquaintances, all save one.  The father had paused to
+carry things up from the boat, but, wanting to hear, too, thought they
+might remain there for the present, and joined the others.  And so they
+walked up toward the house, Oyvind laughing and talking, the mother
+laughing, too, for she was utterly at a loss to know what to say.  The
+school-master moved slowly along at Oyvind's side, watching his old
+pupil closely; the father walked at a respectful distance.  And thus
+they reached home.  Oyvind was delighted with everything he saw: first
+because the house was painted, then because the mill was enlarged, then
+because the leaden windows had been taken out in the family-room and in
+the bed-chamber, and white glass had taken the place of green, and the
+window frames had been made larger.  When he entered everything seemed
+astonishingly small, and not at all as he remembered it, but very
+cheerful.  The clock cackled like a fat hen, the carved chairs almost
+seemed as if they would speak; he knew every dish on the table spread
+before him, the freshly white-washed hearth smiled welcome; the greens,
+decorating the walls, scattered about them their fragrance, the
+juniper, strewn over the floor, gave evidence of the festival.
+
+They all sat down to the meal; but there was not much eaten, for Oyvind
+rattled away without ceasing.  The others viewed him now more
+composedly, and observed in what respect he had altered, in what he
+remained unchanged; looked at what was entirely new about him, even to
+the blue broadcloth suit he wore.  Once when he had been telling a long
+story about one of his companions and finally concluded, as there was a
+little pause, the father said,--
+
+"I scarcely understand a word that you say, boy; you talk so very
+fast."
+
+They all laughed heartily, and Oyvind not the least.  He knew very well
+this was true, but it was not possible for him to speak more slowly.
+Everything new he had seen and learned, during his long absence from
+home, had so affected his imagination and understanding, and had so
+driven him out of his accustomed demeanor, that faculties which long
+had lain dormant were roused up, as it were, and his brain was in a
+state of constant activity.  Moreover, they observed that he had a
+habit of arbitrarily taking up two or three words here and there, and
+repeating them again and again from sheer haste.  He seemed to be
+stumbling over himself.  Sometimes this appeared absurd, but then he
+laughed and it was forgotten.  The school-master and the father sat
+watching to see if any of the old thoughtfulness was gone; but it did
+not seem so.  Oyvind remembered everything, and was even the one to
+remind the others that the boat should be unloaded.  He unpacked his
+clothes at once and hung them up, displayed his books, his watch,
+everything new, and all was well cared for, his mother said.  He was
+exceedingly pleased with his little room.  He would remain at home for
+the present, he said,--help with the hay-making, and study.  Where he
+should go later he did not know; but it made not the least difference
+to him.  He had acquired a briskness and vigor of thought which it did
+one good to see, and an animation in the expression of his feelings
+which is so refreshing to a person who the whole year through strives
+to repress his own.  The school-master grew ten years younger.
+
+"Now we have come _so far_ with him," said he, beaming with
+satisfaction as he rose to go.
+
+When the mother returned from waiting on him, as usual, to the
+door-step, she called Oyvind into the bedroom.
+
+"Some one will be waiting for you at nine o'clock," whispered she.
+
+"Where?"
+
+"On the cliff."
+
+Oyvind glanced at the clock; it was nearly nine.  He could not wait in
+the house, but went out, clambered up the side of the cliff, paused on
+the top, and looked around.  The house lay directly below; the bushes
+on the roof had grown large, all the young trees round about him had
+also grown, and he recognized every one of them.  His eyes wandered
+down the road, which ran along the cliff, and was bordered by the
+forest on the other side.  The road lay there, gray and solemn, but the
+forest was enlivened with varied foliage; the trees were tall and well
+grown.  In the little bay lay a boat with unfurled sail; it was laden
+with planks and awaiting a breeze.  Oyvind gazed across the water which
+had borne him away and home again.   There it stretched before him,
+calm and smooth; some sea-birds flew over it, but made no noise, for it
+was late.  His father came walking up from the mill, paused on the
+door-step, took a survey of all about him, as his son had done, then
+went down to the water to take the boat in for the night.  The mother
+appeared at the side of the house, for she had been in the kitchen.
+She raised her eyes toward the cliff as she crossed the farm-yard with
+something for the hens, looked up again and began to hum.  Oyvind sat
+down to wait.  The underbrush was so dense that he could not see very
+far into the forest, but he listened to the slightest sound.  For a
+long time he heard nothing but the birds that flew up and cheated
+him,--after a while a squirrel that was leaping from tree to tree.  But
+at length there was a rustling farther off; it ceased a moment, and
+then began again.  He rises, his heart throbs, the blood rushes to his
+head; then something breaks through the brushes close by him; but it is
+a large, shaggy dog, which, on seeing him, pauses on three legs without
+stirring.  It is the dog from the Upper Heidegards, and close behind
+him another rustling is heard.  The dog turns his head and wags his
+tail; now Marit appears.
+
+A bush caught her dress; she turned to free it, and so she was standing
+when Oyvind saw her first.  Her head was bare, her hair twisted up as
+girls usually wear it in every-day attire; she had on a thick plaid
+dress without sleeves, and nothing about the neck except a turned-down
+linen collar.  She had just stolen away from work in the fields, and
+had not ventured on any change of dress.  Now she looked up askance and
+smiled; her white teeth shone, her eyes sparkled beneath the
+half-closed lids.  Thus she stood for a moment working with her
+fingers, and then she came forward, growing rosier and rosier with each
+step.  He advanced to meet her, and took her hand between both of his.
+Her eyes were fixed on the ground, and so they stood.
+
+"Thank you for all your letters," was the first thing he said; and when
+she looked up a little and laughed, he felt that she was the most
+roguish troll he could meet in a wood; but he was captured, and she,
+too, was evidently caught.
+
+"How tall you have grown," said she, meaning something quite different.
+
+She looked at him more and more, laughed more and more, and he laughed,
+too; but they said nothing.  The dog had seated himself on the slope,
+and was surveying the gard.  Thore observed the dog's head from the
+water, but could not for his life understand what it could be that was
+showing itself on the cliff above.
+
+But the two had now let go of each other's hands and were beginning to
+talk a little.  And when Oyvind was once under way he burst into such a
+rapid stream of words that Marit had to laugh at him.
+
+"Yes, you see, this is the way it is when I am happy--truly happy, you
+see; and as soon as it was settled between us two, it seemed as if
+there burst open a lock within me--wide open, you see."
+
+She laughed.  Presently she said,--
+
+"I know almost by heart all the letters you sent me."
+
+"And I yours!  But you always wrote such short ones."
+
+"Because you always wanted them to be so long."
+
+"And when I desired that we should write more about something, then you
+changed the subject."
+
+"'I show to the best advantage when you see my tail,'[1] said the
+hulder."
+
+[Footnote 1: The hulder in the Norse folk-lore appears like a beautiful
+woman, and usually wears a blue petticoat and a white sword; but she
+unfortunately has a long tail, like a cow's, which she anxiously
+strives to conceal when she is among people.  She is fond of cattle,
+particularly brindled, of which she possesses a beautiful and thriving
+stock.  They are without horns.  She was once at a merry-making, where
+every one was desirous of dancing with the handsome, strange damsel;
+but in the midst of the mirth a young man, who had just begun a dance
+with her, happened to cast his eye on her tail.  Immediately guessing
+whom he had gotten for a partner, he was not a little terrified; but,
+collecting himself, and unwilling to betray her, he merely said to her
+when the dance was over: "Fair maid, you will lose your garter."  She
+instantly vanished, but afterwards rewarded the silent and considerate
+youth with beautiful presents and a good breed of cattle.  FAYE'S
+_Traditions_.--NOTE BY TRANSLATOR.]
+
+"Ah! that is so.  You have never told me how you got rid of Jon
+Hatlen."
+
+"I laughed."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Laughed.  Do not you know what it is to laugh?"
+
+"Yes; I can laugh."
+
+"Let me see!"
+
+"Whoever beard of such a thing!  Surely, I must have something to laugh
+at."
+
+"I do not need that when I am happy."
+
+"Are you happy now, Marit?"
+
+"Pray, am I laughing now?"
+
+"Yes; you are, indeed."
+
+He took both her hands in his and clapped them together over and over
+again, gazing into her face.  Here the dog began to growl, then his
+hair bristled and he fell to barking at something below, growing more
+and more savage, and finally quite furious.  Marit sprang back in
+alarm; but Oyvind went forward and looked down.  It was his father the
+dog was barking at.  He was standing at the foot of the cliff with both
+hands in his pockets, gazing at the dog.
+
+"Are you there, you two?  What mad dog is that you have up there?"
+
+"It is the dog from the Heidegards," answered Oyvind, somewhat
+embarrassed.
+
+"How the deuce did it get up there?"
+
+Now the mother had put her head out of the kitchen door, for she had
+heard the dreadful noise, and at once knew what it meant; and laughing,
+she said,--
+
+"That dog is roaming about there every day, so there is nothing
+remarkable in it."
+
+"Well, I must say it is a fierce dog."
+
+"It will behave better if I stroke it," thought Oyvind, and he did so.
+
+The dog stopped barking, but growled.  The father walked away as though
+he knew nothing, and the two on the cliff were saved from discovery.
+
+"It was all right this time," said Marit, as they drew near to each
+other again.
+
+"Do you expect it to be worse hereafter?"
+
+"I know one who will keep a close watch on us--that I do."
+
+"Your grandfather?"
+
+"Yes, indeed."
+
+"But he shall do us no harm."
+
+"Not the least."
+
+"And you promise that?"
+
+"Yes, I promise it, Oyvind."
+
+"How beautiful you are, Marit!"
+
+"So the fox said to the raven and got the cheese."
+
+"I mean to have the cheese, too, I can assure you."
+
+"You shall not have it."
+
+"But I will take it."
+
+She turned her head, but he did not take it.
+
+"I can tell you one thing, Oyvind, though."  She looked up sideways as
+she spoke.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"How homely you have grown!"
+
+"Ah! you are going to give me the cheese, anyway; are you?"
+
+"No, I am not," and she turned away again.
+
+"Now I must go, Oyvind."
+
+"I will go with you."
+
+"But not beyond the woods; grandfather might see you."
+
+"No, not beyond the woods.  Dear me! are you running?"
+
+"Why, we cannot walk side by side here."
+
+"But this is not going together?"
+
+"Catch me, then!"
+
+She ran; he after her; and soon she was fast in the bushes, so that he
+overtook her.
+
+"Have I caught you forever, Merit?"  His hand was on her waist.
+
+"I think so," said she, and laughed; but she was both flushed and
+serious.
+
+"Well, now is the time," thought he, and he made a movement to kiss
+her; but she bent her head down under his arm, laughed, and ran away.
+She paused, though, by the last trees.
+
+"And when shall we meet again?" whispered she.
+
+"To-morrow, to-morrow!" he whispered in return.
+
+"Yes; to-morrow."
+
+"Good-by," and she ran on.
+
+"Marit!"  She stopped.  "Say, was it not strange that we met first on
+the cliff?"
+
+"Yes, it was."  She ran on again.
+
+Oyvind gazed long after her.  The dog ran on before her, barking; Marit
+followed, quieting him.  Oyvind turned, took off his cap and tossed it
+into the air, caught it, and threw it up again.
+
+"Now I really think I am beginning to be happy," said the boy, and went
+singing homeward.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+One afternoon later in the summer, as his mother and a girl were raking
+hay, while Oyvind and his father were carrying it in, there came a
+little barefooted and bareheaded boy, skipping down the hill-side and
+across the meadows to Oyvind, and gave him a note.
+
+"You run well, my boy," said Oyvind.
+
+"I am paid for it," answered the boy.
+
+On being asked if he was to have an answer, the reply was No; and the
+boy took his way home over the cliff, for some one was coming after him
+up on the road, he said.  Oyvind opened the note with some difficulty,
+for it was folded in a strip, then tied in a knot, then sealed and
+stamped; and the note ran thus:--
+
+     "He is now on the march; but he moves slowly.  Run into the woods
+and hide yourself!          THE ONE YOU KNOW."
+
+"I will do no such thing," thought Oyvind; and gazed defiantly up the
+hills.  Nor did he wait long before an old man appeared on the
+hill-top, paused to rest, walked on a little, rested again.  Both Thore
+and his wife stopped to look.  Thore soon smiled, however; his wife, on
+the other hand, changed color.
+
+"Do you know him?"
+
+"Yes, it is not very easy to make a mistake here."
+
+Father and son again began to carry hay; but the latter took care that
+they were always together.  The old man on the hill slowly drew near,
+like a heavy western storm.  He was very tall and rather corpulent; he
+was lame and walked with a labored gait, leaning on a staff.  Soon he
+came so near that they could see him distinctly; he paused, removed his
+cap and wiped away the perspiration with a handkerchief.  He was quite
+bald far back on the head; he had a round, wrinkled face, small,
+glittering, blinking eyes, bushy eyebrows, and had lost none of his
+teeth.  When he spoke it was in a sharp, shrill voice, that seemed to
+be hopping over gravel and stones; but it lingered on an "r" here and
+there with great satisfaction, rolling it over for several yards, and
+at the same time making a tremendous leap in pitch.  He had been known
+in his younger days as a lively but quick-tempered man; in his old age,
+through much adversity, he had become irritable and suspicious.
+
+Thore and his son came and went many times before Ole could make his
+way to them; they both knew that he did not come for any good purpose,
+therefore it was all the more comical that he never got there.  Both
+had to walk very serious, and talk in a whisper; but as this did not
+come to an end it became ludicrous.  Only half a word that is to the
+point can kindle laughter under such circumstances, and especially when
+it is dangerous to laugh.  When at last Ole was only a few rods
+distant, but which seemed never to grow less, Oyvind said, dryly, in a
+low tone,--
+
+"He must carry a heavy load, that man,"--and more was not required.
+
+"I think you are not very wise," whispered the father, although he was
+laughing himself.
+
+"Hem, hem!" said Ole, coughing on the hill.
+
+"He is getting his throat ready," whispered Thore.
+
+Oyvind fell on his knees in front of the haycock, buried his head in
+the hay, and laughed.  His father also bowed down.
+
+"Suppose we go into the barn," whispered he, and taking an armful of
+hay he trotted off.  Oyvind picked up a little tuft, rushed after him,
+bent crooked with laughter, and dropped down as soon as he was inside
+the barn.  His father was a grave man, but if he once got to laughing,
+there first began within him a low chuckling, with an occasional
+ha-ha-ha, gradually growing longer and longer, until all blended in a
+single loud peal, after which came wave after wave with a longer gasp
+between each.  Now he was under way.  The son lay on the floor, the
+father stood beside him, both laughing with all their might.
+Occasionally they had such fits of laughter.
+
+"But this is inconvenient," said the father.
+
+Finally they were at a loss to know how this would end, for the old man
+must surely have reached the gard.
+
+"I will not go out," said the father; "I have no business with him."
+
+"Well, then, I will not go out either," replied Oyvind.
+
+"Hem, hem!" was heard just outside of the barn wall.
+
+The father held up a threatening finger to his boy.
+
+"Come, out with you!"
+
+"Yes; you go first!"
+
+"No, you be off at once."
+
+"Well, go you first."
+
+And they brushed the dust off each other, and advanced very seriously.
+When they came below the barn-bridge they saw Ole standing with his
+face towards the kitchen door, as if he were reflecting.  He held his
+cap in the same hand as his staff, and with his handkerchief was wiping
+the sweat from his bald head, at the same time pulling at the bushy
+tufts behind his ears and about his neck until they stuck out like
+spikes.  Oyvind hung behind his father, so the latter was obliged to
+stand still, and in order to put an end to this he said with excessive
+gravity,--
+
+"Is the old gentleman out for a walk?"
+
+Ole turned, looked sharply at him, and put on his cap before he
+replied,--
+
+"Yes, so it seems."
+
+"Perhaps you are tired; will you not walk in?"
+
+"Oh!  I can rest very well here; my errand will not take long."
+
+Some one set the kitchen door ajar and looked out; between it and Thore
+stood old Ole, with his cap-visor down over his eyes, for the cap was
+too large now that he had lost his hair.  In order to be able to see he
+threw his head pretty far back; he held his staff in his right hand,
+while the left was firmly pressed against his side when he was not
+gesticulating; and this he never did more vigorously than by stretching
+the hand half way out and holding it passive a moment, as a guard for
+his dignity.
+
+"Is that your son who is standing behind you?" he began, abruptly.
+
+"So they say."
+
+"Oyvind is his name, is it not?"
+
+"Yes; they call him Oyvind."
+
+"He has been at one of those agricultural schools down south, I
+believe?"
+
+"There was something of the kind; yes."
+
+"Well, my girl--she--my granddaughter--Marit, you know--she has gone
+mad of late."
+
+"That is too bad."
+
+"She refuses to marry."
+
+"Well, really?"
+
+"She will not have any of the gard boys who offer themselves."
+
+"Ah, indeed."
+
+"But people say he is to blame; he who is standing there."
+
+"Is that so?"
+
+"He is said to have turned her head--yes; he there, your son Oyvind."
+
+"The deuce he has!"
+
+"See you, I do not like to have any one take my horses when I let them
+loose on the mountains, neither do I choose to have any one take my
+daughters when I allow them to go to a dance.  I will not have it."
+
+"No, of course not."
+
+"I cannot go with them; I am old, I cannot be forever on the lookout."
+
+"No, no! no, no!"
+
+"Yes, you see, I will have order and propriety; there the block must
+stand, and there the axe must lie, and there the knife, and there they
+must sweep, and there throw rubbish out,--not outside the door, but
+yonder in the corner, just there--yes; and nowhere else.  So, when I
+say to her: 'not this one but that one!' I expect it to be that one,
+and not this one!"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"But it is not so.  For three years she has persisted in thwarting me,
+and for three years we have not been happy together.  This is bad; and
+if he is at the bottom of it, I will tell him so that you may hear it,
+you, his father, that it will not do him any good.  He may as well give
+it up."
+
+"Yes, yes."
+
+Ole looked a moment at Thore, then he said,--
+
+"Your answers are short."
+
+"A sausage is no longer."
+
+Here Oyvind had to laugh, although he was in no mood to do so.  But
+with daring persons fear always borders on laughter, and now it
+inclined to the latter.
+
+"What are you laughing at?" asked Ole, shortly and sharply.
+
+"I?"
+
+"Are you laughing at me?"
+
+"The Lord forbid!" but his own answer increased his desire to laugh.
+
+Ole saw this, and grew absolutely furious.  Both Thore and Oyvind tried
+to make amends with serious faces and entreaties to walk in; but it was
+the pent-up wrath of three years that was now seeking vent, and there
+was no checking it.
+
+"You need not think you can make a fool of me," he began; "I am on a
+lawful errand: I am protecting my grandchild's happiness, as I
+understand it, and puppy laughter shall not hinder me.  One does not
+bring up girls to toss them down into the first houseman's place that
+opens its doors, and one does not manage an estate for forty years only
+to hand the whole over to the first one who makes a fool of the girl.
+My daughter made herself ridiculous until she was allowed to marry a
+vagabond.  He drank them both into the grave, and I had to take the
+child and pay for the fun; but, by my troth! it shall not be the same
+with my granddaughter, and now you know _that_!  I tell you, as sure as
+my name is Ole Nordistuen of the Heidegards, the priest shall sooner
+publish the bans of the hulder-folks up in the Nordal forest than give
+out such names from the pulpit as Marit's and yours, you Christmas
+clown!  Do you think you are going to drive respectable suitors away
+from the gard, forsooth?  Well; you just try to come there, and you
+shall have such a journey down the hills that your shoes will come
+after you like smoke.  You snickering fox!  I suppose you have a notion
+that I do not know what you are thinking of, both you and she.  Yes,
+you think that old Ole Nordistuen will turn his nose to the skies
+yonder, in the churchyard, and then you will trip forward to the altar.
+No; I have lived now sixty-six years, and I will prove to you, boy,
+that I shall live until you waste away over it, both of you!  I can
+tell you this, too, that you may cling to the house like new-fallen
+snow, yet not so much as see the soles of her feet; for I mean to send
+her from the parish.  I am going to send her where she will be safe; so
+you may flutter about here like a chattering jay all you please, and
+marry the rain and the north wind.  This is all I have to say to you;
+but now you, who are his father, know my sentiments, and if you desire
+the welfare of him whom this concerns, you had better advise him to
+lead the stream where it can find its course; across my possessions it
+is forbidden."
+
+He turned away with short, hasty steps, lifting his right foot rather
+higher than the left, and grumbling to himself.
+
+Those left behind were completely sobered; a foreboding of evil had
+become blended with their jesting and laughter, and the house seemed,
+for a while, as empty as after a great fright.  The mother who, from
+the kitchen door had heard everything, anxiously sought Oyvind's eyes,
+scarcely able to keep back her tears, but she would not make it harder
+for him by saying a single word.  After they had all silently entered
+the house, the father sat down by the window, and gazed out after Ole,
+with much earnestness in his face; Oyvind's eyes hung on the slightest
+change of countenance; for on his father's first words almost depended
+the future of the two young people.  If Thore united his refusal with
+Ole's, it could scarcely be overcome.  Oyvind's thoughts flew,
+terrified, from obstacle to obstacle; for a time he saw only poverty,
+opposition, misunderstanding, and a sense of wounded honor, and every
+prop he tried to grasp seemed to glide away from him.  It increased his
+uneasiness that his mother was standing with her hand on the latch of
+the kitchen-door, uncertain whether she had the courage to remain
+inside and await the issue, and that she at last lost heart entirely
+and stole out.  Oyvind gazed fixedly at his father, who never took his
+eyes from the window; the son did not dare speak, for the other must
+have time to think the matter over fully.  But at the same moment his
+soul had fully run its course of anxiety, and regained its poise once
+more.  "No one but God can part us in the end," he thought to himself,
+as he looked at his father's wrinkled brow.  Soon after this something
+occurred.  Thore drew a long sigh, rose, glanced round the room, and
+met his son's gaze.  He paused, and looked long at him.
+
+"It was my will that you should give her up, for one should hesitate
+about succeeding through entreaties or threats.  But if you are
+determined not to give her up, you may let me know when the opportunity
+comes, and perhaps I can help you."
+
+He started off to his work, and the son followed.
+
+But that evening Oyvind had his plan formed: he would endeavor to
+become agriculturist for the district, and ask the inspector and the
+school-master to aid him.  "If she only remains firm, with God's help,
+I shall win her through my work."
+
+He waited in vain for Marit that evening, but as he walked about he
+sang his favorite song:--
+
+     "Hold thy head up, thou eager boy!
+      Time a hope or two may destroy,
+      Soon in thy eye though is beaming,
+      Light that above thee is beaming!
+
+     "Hold thy head up, and gaze about!
+      Something thou'lt find that "Come!" does shout;
+      Thousands of tongues it has bringing
+      Tidings of peace with their singing.
+
+     "Hold thy head up; within thee, too,
+      Rises a mighty vault of blue,
+      Wherein are harp tones sounding,
+      Swinging, exulting, rebounding.
+
+     "Hold thy head up, and loudly sing!
+      Keep not back what would sprout in spring;
+      Powers fermenting, glowing,
+      Must find a time for growing.
+
+     "Hold thy head up; baptism take,
+      From the hope that on high does break,
+      Arches of light o'er us throwing,
+      And in each life-spark glowing."[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Auber Forestier's translation.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+It was during the noonday rest; the people at the great Heidegards were
+sleeping, the hay was scattered over the meadows, the rakes were staked
+in the ground.  Below the barn-bridge stood the hay sleds, the harness
+lay, taken off, beside them, and the horses were tethered at a little
+distance.  With the exception of the latter and some hens that had
+strayed across the fields, not a living creature was visible on the
+whole plain.
+
+There was a notch in the mountains above the gards, and through it the
+road led to the Heidegard saeters,--large, fertile mountain plains.  A
+man was standing in this notch, taking a survey of the plain below,
+just as if he were watching for some one.  Behind him lay a little
+mountain lake, from which flowed the brook which made this mountain
+pass; on either side of this lake ran cattle-paths, leading to the
+saeters, which could be seen in the distance.  There floated toward him
+a shouting and a barking, cattle-bells tinkled among the mountain
+ridges; for the cows had straggled apart in search of water, and the
+dogs and herd-boys were vainly striving to drive them together.  The
+cows came galloping along with the most absurd antics and involuntary
+plunges, and with short, mad bellowing, their tails held aloft, they
+rushed down into the water, where they came to a stand; every time they
+moved their heads the tinkling of their bells was heard across the
+lake.  The dogs drank a little, but stayed behind on firm land; the
+herd-boys followed, and seated themselves on the warm, smooth
+hill-side.  Here they drew forth their lunch boxes, exchanged with one
+another, bragged about their dogs, oxen, and the family they lived
+with, then undressed, and sprang into the water with the cows.  The
+dogs persisted in not going in; but loitered lazily around, their heads
+hanging, with hot eyes and lolling tongues.  Round about on the slopes
+not a bird was to be seen, not a sound was heard, save the prattling of
+children and the tinkling of bells; the heather was parched and dry,
+the sun blazed on the hill-sides, so that everything was scorched by
+its heat.
+
+It was Oyvind who was sitting up there in the mid-day sun, waiting.  He
+sat in his shirt-sleeves, close by the brook which flowed from the
+lake.  No one yet appeared on the Heidegard plain, and he was gradually
+beginning to grow anxious when suddenly a large dog came walking with
+heavy steps out of a door in Nordistuen, followed by a girl in white
+sleeves.  She tripped across the meadow toward the cliff; he felt a
+strong desire to shout down to her, but dared not.  He took a careful
+survey of the gard to see if any one might come out and notice her, but
+there seemed to be no danger of detection, and several times he rose
+from impatience.
+
+She arrived at last, following a path by the side of the brook, the dog
+a little in advance of her, snuffing the air, she catching hold of the
+low shrubs, and walking with more and more weary gait.  Oyvind sprang
+downward; the dog growled and was hushed; but as soon as Marit saw
+Oyvind coming she sat down on a large stone, as red as blood, tired and
+overcome by the heat.  He flung himself down on the stone by her side.
+
+"Thank you for coming."
+
+"What heat and what a distance!  Have you been here long?"
+
+"No.  Since we are watched in the evening, we must make use of the
+noon.  But after this I think we will not act so secretly, nor take so
+much trouble; it was just about this I wanted to speak to you."
+
+"Not so secretly?"
+
+"I know very well that all that is done secretly pleases you best; but
+to show courage pleases you also.  To-day I have come to have a long
+talk with you, and now you must listen."
+
+"Is it true that you are trying to be agriculturist for the district?"
+
+"Yes, and I expect to succeed.  In this I have a double purpose: first,
+to win a position for myself; but secondly, and chiefly, to accomplish
+something which your grandfather can see and understand.  Luckily it
+chances that most of the Heidegard freeholders are young people who
+wish for improvements and desire help; they have money, too.  So I
+shall begin among them.  I shall regulate everything from their stables
+to their water-pipes; I shall give lectures and work; I shall fairly
+besiege the old man with good deeds."
+
+"Those are brave words.  What more, Oyvind?"
+
+"Why, the rest simply concerns us two.  You must not go away."
+
+"Not if he orders it?"
+
+"And keep nothing secret that concerns us two."
+
+"Even if he torments me?"
+
+"We gain more and defend ourselves better by allowing everything to be
+open.  We must manage to be so constantly before the eyes of people,
+that they are constantly forced to talk about how fond we are of each
+other; so much the sooner will they wish that all may go well with us.
+You must not leave home.  There is danger of gossip forcing its way
+between those who are parted.  We pay no heed to any idle talk the
+first year, but we begin by degrees to believe in it the second.  We
+two will meet once a week and laugh away the mischief people would like
+to make between us; we shall be able to meet occasionally at a dance,
+and keep step together until everything sings about us, while those who
+backbite us are sitting around.  We shall meet at church and greet each
+other so that it may attract the attention of all those who wish us a
+hundred miles apart.  If any one makes a song about us we will sit down
+together and try to get up one in answer to it; we must succeed if we
+assist each other.  No one can harm us if we keep together, and thus
+_show_ people that we keep together.  All unhappy love belongs either
+to timid people, or weak people, or sick people, or calculating people,
+who keep waiting for some special opportunity, or cunning people, who,
+in the end, smart for their own cunning; or to sensuous people that do
+not care enough for each other to forget rank and distinction; they go
+and hide from sight, they send letters, they tremble at a word, and
+finally they mistake fear, that constant uneasiness and irritation in
+the blood, for love, become wretched and dissolve like sugar.  Oh
+pshaw! if they truly loved each other they would have no fear; they
+would laugh, and would openly march to the church door, in the face of
+every smile and every word.  I have read about it in books, and I have
+seen it for myself.  That is a pitiful love which chooses a secret
+course.  Love naturally begins in secresy because it begins in shyness;
+but it must live openly because it lives in joy.  It is as when the
+leaves are changing; that which is to grow cannot conceal itself, and
+in every instance you see that all which is dry falls from the tree the
+moment the new leaves begin to sprout.  He who gains love casts off all
+the old, dead rubbish he formerly clung to, the sap wells up and rushes
+onward; and should no one notice it then?  Hey, my girl! they shall
+become happy at seeing us happy; two who are betrothed and remain true
+to each other confer a benefit on people, for they give them a poem
+which their children learn by heart to the shame of their unbelieving
+parents.  I have read of many such cases; and some still live in the
+memory of the people of this parish, and those who relate these
+stories, and are moved by them, are the children of the very persons
+who once caused all the mischief.  Yes, Marit, now we two will join
+hands, so; yes, and we will promise each other to cling together, so;
+yes, and now it will all come right.  Hurrah!"
+
+He was about to take hold of her head, but she turned it away and
+glided down off the stone.
+
+He kept his seat; she came back, and leaning her arms on his knee,
+stood talking with him, looking up into his face.
+
+"Listen, Oyvind; what if he is determined I shall leave home, how
+then?"
+
+"Then you must say No, right out."
+
+"Oh, dear! how would that be possible?"
+
+"He cannot carry you out to the carriage."
+
+"If he does not quite do that, he can force me in many other ways."
+
+"That I do not believe; you owe obedience, to be sure, as long as it is
+not a sin; but it is also your duty to let him fully understand how
+hard it is for you to be obedient this time.  I am sure he will change
+his mind when he sees this; now he thinks, like most people, that it is
+only childish nonsense.  Prove to him that it is something more."
+
+"He is not to be trifled with, I can assure you.  He watches me like a
+tethered goat."
+
+"But you tug at the tether several times a day."
+
+"That is not true."
+
+"Yes, you do; every time you think of me in secret you tug at it."
+
+"Yes, in that way.  But are you so very sure that I think often of
+you?"
+
+"You would not be sitting here if you did not."
+
+"Why, dear me! did you not send word for me to come?"
+
+"But you came because your thoughts drove you here."
+
+"Rather because the weather was so fine."
+
+"You said a while ago that it was too warm."
+
+"To go _up_ hill, yes; but _down_ again?"
+
+"Why did you come up, then?"
+
+"That I might run down again."
+
+"Why did you not run down before this?"
+
+"Because I had to rest."
+
+"And talk with me about love?"
+
+"It was an easy matter to give you the pleasure of listening."
+
+"While the birds sang."
+
+"And the others were sleeping."
+
+"And the bells rang."
+
+"In the shady grove."
+
+Here they both saw Marit's grandfather come sauntering out into the
+yard, and go to the bell-rope to ring the farm people up.  The people
+came slowly forth from the barns, sheds, and houses, moved sleepily
+toward their horses and rakes, scattered themselves over the meadow,
+and presently all was life and work again.  Only the grandfather went
+in and out of the houses, and finally up on the highest barn-bridge and
+looked out.  There came running up to him a little boy, whom he must
+have called.  The boy, sure enough, started off in the direction of
+Pladsen.  The grandfather, meanwhile, moved about the gard, often
+looking upward and having a suspicion, at least, that the black spot on
+the "giant rock" was Marit and Oyvind.  Now for the second time Marit's
+great dog was the cause of trouble.  He saw a strange horse drive in to
+the Heidegards, and believing himself to be only doing his duty, began
+to bark with all his might.  They hushed the dog, but he had grown
+angry and would not be quiet; the grandfather stood below staring up.
+But matters grew still worse, for all the herd-boys' dogs heard with
+surprise the strange voice and came running up.  When they saw that it
+was a large, wolf-like giant, all the stiff-haired Lapp-dogs gathered
+about him.  Marit became so terrified that she ran away without saying
+farewell.  Oyvind rushed into the midst of the fray, kicked and fought;
+but the dogs merely changed the field of battle, and then flew at one
+another again, with hideous howls and kicks; Oyvind after them again,
+and so it kept on until they had rolled over to the edge of the brook,
+when he once more came running up.  The result of this was that they
+all tumbled together into the water, just at a place where it was quite
+deep, and there they parted, shame-faced.  Thus ended this forest
+battle.  Oyvind walked through the forest until he reached the parish
+road; but Marit met her grandfather up by the fence.  This was the
+dog's fault.
+
+"Where do you come from?"
+
+"From the wood."
+
+"What were you doing there?"
+
+"Plucking berries."
+
+"That is not true."
+
+"No; neither is it."
+
+"What were you doing, then?"
+
+"I was talking with some one."
+
+"Was it with the Pladsen boy?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Hear me now, Marit; to-morrow you leave home."
+
+"No."
+
+"Listen to me, Marit; I have but one single thing to say, only one: you
+_shall_ go."
+
+"You cannot lift me into the carriage."
+
+"Indeed?  Can I not?"
+
+"No; because you will not."
+
+"Will I not?  Listen now, Marit, just for sport, you see, just for
+sport.  I am going to tell you that I will crush the backbone of that
+worthless fellow of yours."
+
+"No; you would not dare do so."
+
+"I would not dare?  Do you say I would not dare?  Who should interfere?
+Who?"
+
+"The school-master."
+
+"School--school--school-master.  Does he trouble his head about that
+fellow, do you think?"
+
+"Yes; it is he who has kept him at the agricultural school."
+
+"The school-master?"
+
+"The school-master."
+
+"Hearken now, Marit; I will have no more of this nonsense; you shall
+leave the parish.  You only cause me sorrow and trouble; that was the
+way with your mother, too, only sorrow and trouble.  I am an old man.
+I want to see you well provided for.  I will not live in people's talk
+as a fool just for this matter.  I only wish your own good; you should
+understand this, Marit.  Soon I will be gone, and then you will be left
+alone.  What would have become of your mother if it had not been for
+me?  Listen, Marit; be sensible, pay heed to what I have to say.  I
+only desire your own good."
+
+"No, you do not."
+
+"Indeed?  What do I want, then?"
+
+"To carry out your own will, that is what you want; but you do not ask
+about mine."
+
+"And have you a will, you young sea-gull, you?  Do you suppose you know
+what is for your good, you fool?  I will give you a taste of the rod, I
+will, for all you are so big and tall.  Listen now, Marit; let me talk
+kindly with you.  You are not so bad at heart, but you have lost your
+senses.  You must listen to me.  I am an old and sensible man.  We will
+talk kindly together a little; I have not done so remarkably well in
+the world as folks think; a poor bird on the wing could easily fly away
+with the little I have; your father handled it roughly, indeed he did.
+Let us care for ourselves in this world, it is the best thing we can
+do.  It is all very well for the school-master to talk, for he has
+money himself; so has the priest;--let them preach.  But with us who
+must slave for our daily bread, it is quite different.  I am old.  I
+know much.  I have seen many things; love, you see, may do very well to
+talk about; yes, but it is not worth much.  It may answer for priests
+and such folks, peasants must look at it in a different light.  First
+food, you see, then God's Word, and then a little writing and
+arithmetic, and then a little love, if it happens to come in the way;
+but, by the Eternals! there is no use in beginning with love and ending
+with food.  What can you say, now, Marit?"
+
+"I do not know."
+
+"You do not know what you ought to answer?"
+
+"Yes, indeed, I know that."
+
+"Well, then?"
+
+"May I say it?"
+
+"Yes; of course you may say it."
+
+"I care a great deal for that love of mine."
+
+He stood aghast for a moment, recalling a hundred similar conversations
+with similar results, then he shook his head, turned his back, and
+walked away.
+
+He picked a quarrel with the housemen, abused the girls, beat the large
+dog, and almost frightened the life out of a little hen that had
+strayed into the field; but to Marit he said nothing.
+
+That evening Marit was so happy when she went up-stairs to bed, that
+she opened the window, lay in the window-frame, looked out and sang.
+She had found a pretty little love-song, and it was that she sang.
+
+     "Lovest thou but me,
+      I will e'er love thee,
+      All my days on earth, so fondly;
+      Short were summer's days,
+      Now the flower decays,--
+      Comes again with spring, so kindly.
+
+     "What you said last year
+      Still rings in my ear,
+      As I all alone am sitting,
+      And your thoughts do try
+      In my heart to fly,--
+      Picture life in sunshine flitting.
+
+     "Litli--litli--loy,
+      Well I hear the boy,
+      Sighs behind the birches heaving.
+      I am in dismay,
+      Thou must show the way,
+      For the night her shroud is weaving.
+
+     "Flomma, lomma, hys,
+      Sang I of a kiss,
+      No, thou surely art mistaken.
+      Didst thou hear it, say?
+      Cast the thought away;
+      Look on me as one forsaken.
+
+     "Oh, good-night! good-night!
+      Dreams of eyes so bright,
+      Hold me now in soft embraces,
+      But that wily word,
+      Which thou thought'st unheard,
+      Leaves in me of love no traces.
+
+     "I my window close,
+      But in sweet repose
+      Songs from thee I hear returning;
+      Calling me they smile,
+      And my thoughts beguile,--
+      Must I e'er for thee be yearning?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+Several years have passed since the last scene.
+
+It is well on in the autumn.  The school-master comes walking up to
+Nordistuen, opens the outer door, finds no one at home, opens another,
+finds no one at home; and thus he keeps on until he reaches the
+innermost room in the long building.  There Ole Nordistuen is sitting
+alone, by the side of his bed, his eyes fixed on his hands.
+
+The school-master salutes him, and receives a greeting in return; he
+finds a stool, and seats himself in front of Ole.
+
+"You have sent for me," he says.
+
+"I have."
+
+The school-master takes a fresh quid of tobacco, glances around the
+room, picks up a book that is lying on the bench, and turns over the
+leaves.
+
+"What did you want of me?"
+
+"I was just sitting here thinking it over."
+
+The school-master gives himself plenty of time, searches for his
+spectacles in order to read the title of the book, wipes them and puts
+them on.
+
+"You are growing old, now, Ole."
+
+"Yes, it was about that I wanted to talk with you.  I am tottering
+downward; I will soon rest in the grave."
+
+"You must see to it that you rest well there, Ole."
+
+He closes the book and sits looking at the binding.
+
+"That is a good book you are holding in your hands."
+
+"It is not bad.  How often have you gone beyond the cover, Ole?"
+
+"Why, of late, I"--
+
+The school-master lays aside the book and puts away his spectacles.
+
+"Things are not going as you wish to have them, Ole?"
+
+"They have not done so as far back as I can remember."
+
+"Ah, so it was with me for a long time.  I lived at variance with a
+good friend, and wanted _him_ to come to _me_, and all the while I was
+unhappy.  At last I took it into my head to go to _him_, and since then
+all has been well with me."
+
+Ole looks up and says nothing.
+
+The school-master: "How do you think the gard is doing, Ole?"
+
+"Failing, like myself."
+
+"Who shall have it when you are gone?"
+
+"That is what I do not know, and it is that, too, which troubles me."
+
+"Your neighbors are doing well now, Ole."
+
+"Yes, they have that agriculturist to help them."
+
+The school-master turned unconcernedly toward the window: "You should
+have help,--you, too, Ole.  You cannot walk much, and you know very
+little of the new ways of management."
+
+Ole: "I do not suppose there is any one who would help me."
+
+"Have you asked for it?"
+
+Ole is silent.
+
+The school-master: "I myself dealt just so with the Lord for a long
+time.  'You are not kind to me,' I said to Him.  'Have you prayed me to
+be so?' asked He.  No; I had not done so.  Then I prayed, and since
+then all has been truly well with me."
+
+Ole is silent; but now the school-master, too, is silent.
+
+Finally Ole says:--
+
+"I have a grandchild; she knows what would please me before I am taken
+away, but she does not do it."
+
+The school-master smiles.
+
+"Possibly it would not please her?"
+
+Ole makes no reply.
+
+The school-master: "There are many things which trouble you; but as far
+as I can understand they all concern the gard."
+
+Ole says, quietly,--
+
+"It has been handed down for many generations, and the soil is good.
+All that father after father has toiled for lies in it; but now it does
+not thrive.  Nor do I know who shall drive in when I am driven out.  It
+will not be one of the family."
+
+"Your granddaughter will preserve the family."
+
+"But how can he who takes her take the gard?  That is what I want to
+know before I die.  You have no time to lose, Baard, either for me or
+for the gard."
+
+They were both silent; at last the school-master says,--
+
+"Shall we walk out and take a look at the gard in this fine weather?"
+
+"Yes; let us do so.  I have work-people on the slope; they are
+gathering leaves, but they do not work except when I am watching them."
+
+He totters off after his large cap and staff, and says, meanwhile,--
+
+"They do not seem to like to work for me; I cannot understand it."
+
+When they were once out and turning the corner of the house, he paused.
+
+"Just look here.  No order: the wood flung about, the axe not even
+stuck in the block."
+
+He stooped with difficulty, picked up the axe, and drove it in fast.
+
+"Here you see a skin that has fallen down; but has any one hung it up
+again?"
+
+He did it himself.
+
+"And the store-house; do you think the ladder is carried away?"
+
+He set it aside.  He paused, and looking at the school-master, said,--
+
+"This is the way it is every single day."
+
+As they proceeded upward they heard a merry song from the slopes.
+
+"Why, they are singing over their work," said the school-master.
+
+"That is little Knut Ostistuen who is singing; he is helping his father
+gather leaves.  Over yonder _my_ people are working; you will not find
+them singing."
+
+"That is not one of the parish songs, is it?"
+
+"No, it is not."
+
+"Oyvind Pladsen has been much in Ostistuen; perhaps that is one of the
+songs he has introduced into the parish, for there is always singing
+where he is."
+
+There was no reply to this.
+
+The field they were crossing was not in good condition; it required
+attention.  The school-master commented on this, and then Ole stopped.
+
+"It is not in my power to do more," said he, quite pathetically.
+"Hired work-people without attention cost too much.  But it is hard to
+walk over such a field, I can assure you."
+
+As their conversation now turned on the size of the gard, and what
+portion of it most needed cultivation, they decided to go up the slope
+that they might have a view of the whole.  When they at length had
+reached a high elevation, and could take it all in, the old man became
+moved.
+
+"Indeed, I should not like to leave it so.  We have labored hard down
+there, both I and those who went before me, but there is nothing to
+show for it."
+
+A song rang out directly over their heads, but with the peculiar
+shrilling of a boy's voice when it is poured out with all its might.
+They were not far from the tree in whose top was perched little Knut
+Ostistuen, gathering leaves for his father, and they were compelled to
+listen to the boy:--
+
+     "When on mountain peaks you hie,
+          'Mid green slopes to tarry,
+      In your scrip pray no more tie,
+          Than you well can carry.
+      Take no hindrances along
+          To the crystal fountains;
+      Drown them in a cheerful song,
+          Send them down the mountains.
+
+     "Birds there greet you from the trees,
+          Gossip seeks the valley;
+      Purer, sweeter grows the breeze,
+          As you upward sally.
+      Fill your lungs, and onward rove,
+          Ever gayly singing,
+      Childhood's memories, heath and grove,
+          Rosy-hued, are bringing.
+
+     "Pause the shady groves among,
+          Hear yon mighty roaring,
+      Solitude's majestic song
+          Upward far is soaring.
+      All the world's distraction comes
+          When there rolls a pebble;
+      Each forgotten duty hums
+          In the brooklet's treble.
+
+     "Pray, while overhead, dear heart,
+          Anxious mem'ries hover;
+      Then go on: the better part
+          You'll above discover.
+      Who hath chosen Christ as guide,
+          Daniel and Moses,
+      Finds contentment far and wide,
+          And in peace reposes."[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Auber Forestier's translation.]
+
+Ole had sat down and covered his face with his hands.
+
+"Here I will talk with you," said the school-master, and seated himself
+by his side.
+
+
+
+Down at Pladsen, Oyvind had just returned home from a somewhat long
+journey, the post-boy was still at the door, as the horse was resting.
+Although Oyvind now had a good income as agriculturist of the district,
+he still lived in his little room down at Pladsen, and helped his
+parents every spare moment.  Pladsen was cultivated from one end to the
+other, but it was so small that Oyvind called it "mother's toy-farm,"
+for it was she, in particular, who saw to the farming.
+
+He had changed his clothes, his father had come in from the mill, white
+with meal, and had also dressed.  They just stood talking about taking
+a short walk before supper, when the mother came in quite pale.
+
+"Here are singular strangers coming up to the house; oh dear! look
+out!"
+
+Both men turned to the window, and Oyvind was the first to exclaim:--
+
+"It is the school-master, and--yes, I almost believe--why, certainly it
+is he!"
+
+"Yes, it is old Ole Nordistuen," said Thore, moving away from the
+window that he might not be seen; for the two were already near the
+door.
+
+Just as Oyvind was leaving the window he caught the school-master's
+eye, Baard smiled, and cast a glance back at old Ole, who was laboring
+along with his staff in small, short steps, one foot being constantly
+raised higher than the other.  Outside the school-master was heard to
+say, "He has recently returned home, I suppose," and Ole to exclaim
+twice over, "Well, well!"
+
+They remained a long time quiet in the passage.  The mother had crept
+up to the corner where the milk-shelf was; Oyvind had assumed his
+favorite position, that is, he leaned with his back against the large
+table, with his face toward the door; his father was sitting near him.
+At length there came a knock at the door, and in stepped the
+school-master, who drew off his hat, afterward Ole, who pulled off his
+cap, and then turned to shut the door.  It took him a long time to do
+so; he was evidently embarrassed.  Thore rising, asked them to be
+seated; they sat down, side by side, on the bench in front of the
+window.  Thore took his seat again.
+
+And the wooing proceeded as shall now be told.
+
+The school-master: "We are having fine weather this autumn, after all."
+
+Thore: "It has been mending of late."
+
+"It is likely to remain pleasant, now that the wind is over in that
+quarter."
+
+"Are you through with your harvesting up yonder?"
+
+"Not yet; Ole Nordistuen here, whom, perhaps, you know, would like very
+much to have help from you, Oyvind, if there is nothing else in the
+way."
+
+Oyvind: "If help is desired, I shall do what I can."
+
+"Well, there is no great hurry.  The gard is not doing well, he thinks,
+and he believes what is wanting is the right kind of tillage and
+superintendence."
+
+Oyvind: "I am so little at home."
+
+The school-master looks at Ole.  The latter feels that he must now rush
+into the fire; he clears his throat a couple of times, and begins
+hastily and shortly,--
+
+"It was--it is--yes.  What I meant was that you should be in a certain
+way established--that you should--yes--be the same as at home up yonder
+with us,--be there, when you were not away."
+
+"Many thanks for the offer, but I should rather remain where I now
+live."
+
+Ole looks at the school-master, who says,--
+
+"Ole's brain seems to be in a whirl to-day.  The fact is he has been
+here once before, and the recollection of that makes his words get all
+confused."
+
+Ole, quickly: "That is it, yes; I ran a madman's race.  I strove
+against the girl until the tree split.  But let by-gones be by-gones;
+the wind, not the snow, beats down the grain; the rain-brook does not
+tear up large stones; snow does not lie long on the ground in May; it
+is not the thunder that kills people."
+
+They all four laugh; the school-master says:
+
+"Ole means that he does not want you to remember that time any longer;
+nor you, either, Thore."
+
+Ole looks at them, uncertain whether he dare begin again.
+
+Then Thore says,--
+
+"The briar takes hold with many teeth, but causes no wound.  In me
+there are certainly no thorns left."
+
+Ole: "I did not know the boy then.  Now I see that what he sows
+thrives; the harvest answers to the promise of the spring; there is
+money in his finger-tips, and I should like to get hold of him."
+
+Oyvind looks at the father, he at the mother, she from them to the
+school-master, and then all three at the latter.
+
+"Ole thinks that he has a large gard"--
+
+Ole breaks in: "A large gard, but badly managed.  I can do no more.  I
+am old, and my legs refuse to run the errands of my head.  But it will
+pay to take hold up yonder."
+
+"The largest gard in the parish, and that by a great deal," interrupts
+the school-master.
+
+"The largest gard in the parish; that is just the misfortune; shoes
+that are too large fall off; it is a fine thing to have a good gun, but
+one should be able to lift it."  Then turning quickly towards Oyvind,
+"Would you be willing to lend a hand to it?"
+
+"Do you mean for me to be gard overseer?"
+
+"Precisely--yes; you should have the gard."
+
+"I should _have_ the gard?"
+
+"Just so--yes: then you could manage it."
+
+"But"--
+
+"You will not?"
+
+"Why, of course, I will."
+
+"Yes, yes, yes, yes; then it is decided, as the hen said when she flew
+into the water."
+
+"But"--
+
+Ole looks puzzled at the school-master.
+
+"Oyvind is asking, I suppose, whether he shall have Marit, to."
+
+Ole, abruptly: "Marit in the bargain; Marit in the bargain!"
+
+Then Oyvind burst out laughing, and jumped right up; all three laughed
+with him.  Oyvind rubbed his hands, paced the floor, and kept repeating
+again and again: "Marit in the bargain!  Marit in the bargain!"  Thore
+gave a deep chuckle, the mother in the corner kept her eyes fastened on
+her son until they filled with tears.
+
+Ole, in great excitement: "What do you think of the gard?"
+
+"Magnificent land!"
+
+"Magnificent land; is it not?"
+
+"No pasture equal to it!"
+
+"No pasture equal to it!  Something can be done with it?"
+
+"It will become the best gard in the district!"
+
+"It will become the best gard in the district!  Do you think so?  Do
+you mean that?"
+
+"As surely as I am standing here!"
+
+"There, is not that just what I have said?"
+
+They both talked equally fast, and fitted together like the cogs of two
+wheels.
+
+"But money, you see, money?  I have no money."
+
+"We will get on slowly without money; but get on we shall!"
+
+"We shall get on!  Of course we will!  But if we _had_ money, it would
+go faster you say?"
+
+"Many times faster."
+
+"Many times?  We ought to have money!  Yes, yes; a man can chew who has
+not all his teeth; he who drives with oxen will get on, too."
+
+The mother stood blinking at Thore, who gave her many quick side
+glances as he sat swaying his body to and fro, and stroking his knees
+with his hands.  The school-master also winked at him.  Thore's lips
+parted, he coughed a little, and made an effort to speak; but Ole and
+Oyvind both kept on talking in an uninterrupted stream, laughed and
+kept up such a clatter that no one else could be heard.
+
+"You must be quiet for a little while, Thore has something he wants to
+say," puts in the school-master.
+
+They pause and look at Thore, who finally begins, in a low tone:--
+
+"It has so happened that we have had a mill on our place.  Of late it
+has turned out that we have had two.  These mills have always brought
+in a few shillings during the year; but neither my father nor I have
+used any of these shillings except while Oyvind was away.  The
+school-master has managed them, and he says they have prospered well
+where they are; but now it is best that Oyvind should take them for
+Nordistuen."
+
+The mother stood in a corner, shrinking away into almost nothing, as
+she gazed with sparkling eyes at Thore, who looked very grave, and had
+an almost stupid expression on his face.  Ole Nordistuen sat nearly
+opposite him, with wide-gaping mouth.  Oyvind was the first to rouse
+from his astonishment, and burst out,--
+
+"Does it not seem as if good luck went with me!"
+
+With this he crossed the floor to his father, and gave him a slap on
+the shoulder that rang through the room.  "You, father!" cried he, and
+rubbing his hands together he continued his walk.
+
+"How much money might it be?" finally asked Ole, in a low tone, of the
+school-master.
+
+"It is not so little."
+
+"Some hundreds?"
+
+"Rather more."
+
+"Rather more?  Oyvind, rather more!  Lord help us, what a gard it will
+be!"
+
+He got up, laughing aloud.
+
+"I must go with you up to Marit," says Oyvind.  "We can use the
+conveyance that is standing outside, then it will not take long."
+
+"Yes, at once! at once!  Do you, too, want everything done with haste?"
+
+"Yes, with haste and wrong."
+
+"With haste and wrong!  Just the way it was with me when I was young,
+precisely."
+
+"Here is your cap and staff; now I am going to drive you away."
+
+"You are going to drive me away, ha--ha--ha!  But you are coming with
+me; are you not?  You are coming with me?  All the rest of you come
+along, too; we must sit together this evening as long as the coals are
+alive.  Come along!"
+
+They promised that they would come.  Oyvind helped Ole into the
+conveyance, and they drove off to Nordistuen.  The large dog was not
+the only one up there who was surprised when Ole Nordistuen came
+driving into the gard with Oyvind Pladsen.  While Oyvind was helping
+Ole out of the conveyance, and servants and laborers were gaping at
+them, Marit came out in the passage to see what the dog kept barking
+at; but paused, as if suddenly bewitched, turned fiery red, and ran in.
+Old Ole, meanwhile, shouted so tremendously for her when he got into
+the house that she had to come forward again.
+
+"Go and make yourself trim, girl; here is the one who is to have the
+gard!"
+
+"Is that true?" she cries, involuntarily, and so loud that the words
+rang through the room.
+
+"Yes; it is true!" replies Oyvind, clapping his hands.
+
+At this she swings round on her toe, flings away what she has in her
+hand, and runs out; but Oyvind follows her.
+
+Soon came the school-master, and Thore and his wife.  The old man had
+ordered candles put on the table, which he had had spread with a white
+cloth.  Wine and beer were offered, and Ole kept going round himself,
+lifting his feet even higher than usual; but the right foot always
+higher than the left.
+
+
+
+Before this little tale ends, it may be told that five weeks later
+Oyvind and Marit were united in the parish church.  The school-master
+himself led the singing on the occasion, for the assistant chorister
+was ill.  His voice was broken now, for he was old; but it seemed to
+Oyvind that it did the heart good to hear him.  When the young man had
+given Marit his hand, and was leading her to the altar, the
+school-master nodded at him from the chancel, just as Oyvind had seen
+him do, in fancy, when sitting sorrowfully at that dance long ago.
+Oyvind nodded back while tears welled up to his eyes.
+
+These tears at the dance were the forerunners of those at the wedding.
+Between them lay Oyvind's faith and his work.
+
+Here endeth the story of A HAPPY BOY.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note: Some words which appear to be typos are printed
+thus in the original book. A list of these possible misprints follows:
+
+ascendency
+payed
+skees
+wadmal
+aptest
+inclosed
+secresy
+gayly
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Happy Boy, by Bjornstjerne Bjornson
+
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