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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Great Hunger, by Johan Bojer
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+Title:  The Great Hunger
+
+Author:  Johan Bojer
+
+Translators:  W. J. Alexander Worster and C. Archer
+
+Release Date:  December, 2001  [Etext #2943]
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+Edition:  10
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Great Hunger, by Johan Bojer
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+
+
+THE GREAT HUNGER
+
+by JOHAN BOJER
+
+
+
+
+Translated from the Norwegian by
+
+W. J. ALEXANDER WORSTER and C. ARCHER
+
+
+
+
+THE GREAT HUNGER
+
+
+Book I
+
+
+Chapter I
+
+
+For sheer havoc, there is no gale like a good northwester, when it 
+roars in, through the long winter evenings, driving the spindrift 
+before it between the rocky walls of the fjord.  It churns the 
+water to a froth of rushing wave crests, while the boats along the 
+beach are flung in somersaults up to the doors of the grey fisher 
+huts, and solid old barn gangways are lifted and sent flying like 
+unwieldy birds over the fields.  "Mercy on us!" cry the maids, for 
+it is milking-time, and they have to fight their way on hands and 
+knees across the yard to the cowshed, dragging a lantern that WILL 
+go out and a milk-pail that WON'T be held.  And "Lord preserve us!" 
+mutter the old wives seated round the stove within doors--and their 
+thoughts are far away in the north with the Lofoten fishermen, out 
+at sea, maybe, this very night.
+
+But on a calm spring day, the fjord just steals in smooth and 
+shining by ness and bay.  And at low water there is a whole 
+wonderland of strange little islands, sand-banks, and weed-fringed 
+rocks left high and dry, with clear pools between, where bare-
+legged urchins splash about, and tiny flat-fish as big as a 
+halfpenny dart away to every side.  The air is filled with a smell 
+of salt sea-water and warm, wet beach-waste, and the sea-pie, see-
+sawing about on a big stone in the water, lifts his red beak 
+cheerily sunwards and pipes:  "Kluip, kluip! the spring has come!"
+
+On just such a day, two boys of fourteen or thereabouts came 
+hurrying out from one of the fishermen's huts down towards the 
+beach.  Boys are never so busy as when they are up to some piece of 
+mischief, and evidently the pair had business of this sort in hand.  
+Peer Troen, fair-haired and sallow-faced, was pushing a wheelbarrow;
+his companion, Martin Bruvold, a dark youth with freckles, carried 
+a tub.  And both talked mysteriously in whispers, casting anxious 
+glances out over the water.
+
+Peer Troen was, of course, the ringleader.  That he always was: the 
+forest fire of last year was laid at his door.  And now he had made 
+it clear to some of his friends that boys had just as much right to 
+lay out deep-sea lines as men.  All through the winter they had 
+been kept at grown-up work, cutting peat and carrying wood; why 
+should they be left now to fool about with the inshore fishing, and 
+bring home nothing better than flounders and coal-fish and silly 
+codlings?  The big deep-sea line they were forbidden to touch--that 
+was so--but the Lofoten fishery was at its height, and none of the 
+men would be back till it was over.  So the boys had baited up the 
+line on the sly down at the boathouse the day before, and laid it 
+out across the deepest part of the fjord.
+
+Now the thing about a deep-sea line is that it may bring to the 
+surface fish so big and so fearsome that the like has never been 
+seen before.  Yesterday, however, there had been trouble of a 
+different sort.  To their dismay, the boys had found that they had 
+not sinkers enough to weight the shore end of the line; and it 
+looked as if they might have to give up the whole thing.  But Peer, 
+ever ready, had hit on the novel idea of making one end fast to the 
+trunk of a small fir growing at the outermost point of the ness, 
+and carrying the line from there out over the open fjord.  Then a 
+stone at the farther end, and with the magic words, "Fie, fish!" it 
+was paid out overboard, vanishing into the green depths.  The deed 
+was done.  True, there were a couple of hooks dangling in mid-air 
+at the shore end, between the tree and the water, and, while they 
+might serve to catch an eider duck, or a guillemot, if any one 
+should chance to come rowing past in the dark and get hung up--why, 
+the boys might find they had made a human catch.  No wonder, then, 
+that they whispered eagerly and hurried down to the boat.
+
+"Here comes Peter Ronningen," cried Martin suddenly.
+
+This was the third member of the crew, a lanky youth with whitish 
+eyebrows and a foolish face.  He stammered, and made a queer noise 
+when he laughed:  "Chee-hee-hee."  Twice he had been turned down in 
+the confirmation classes; after all, what was the use of learning 
+lessons out of a book when nobody ever had patience to wait while 
+he said them?
+
+Together they ran the boat down to the water's edge, got it afloat, 
+and scrambled in, with much waving of patched trouser legs.  "Hi!" 
+cried a voice up on the beach, "let me come too!"
+
+"There's Klaus," said Martin.  "Shall we take him along?"
+
+"No," said Peter Ronningen.
+
+"Oh yes, let's," said Peer.
+
+Klaus Brock, the son of the district doctor, was a blue-eyed 
+youngster in knickerbockers and a sailor blouse.  He was playing 
+truant, no doubt--Klaus had his lessons at home with a private 
+tutor--and would certainly get a thrashing from his father when he 
+got home.
+
+"Hurry up," called Peer, getting out an oar.  Klaus clambered in, 
+and the white-straked four-oar surged across the bay, rocking a 
+little as the boys pulled out of stroke.  Martin was rowing at the 
+bow, his eyes fixed on Peer, who sat in the stern in command with 
+his eyes dancing, full of great things to be done.  Martin, poor 
+fellow, was half afraid already; he never could understand why 
+Peer, who was to be a parson when he grew up, was always hitting 
+upon things to do that were evidently sinful in the sight of the 
+Lord.
+
+Peer was a town boy, who had been put out to board with a fisherman 
+in the village.  His mother had been no better than she should be, 
+so people said, but she was dead now, and the father at any rate 
+must be a rich gentleman, for he sent the boy a present of ten 
+whole crowns every Christmas, so that Peer always had money in his 
+pocket.  Naturally, then, he was looked up to by the other boys, 
+and took the lead in all things as a chieftain by right.
+
+The boat moved on past the grey rocks, the beach and the huts above 
+it growing blue and faint in the distance.  Up among the distant 
+hills a red wooden farm-house on its white foundation wall stood 
+out clear.
+
+Here was the ness at last, and there stood the fir.  Peer climbed 
+up and loosed the end of the line, while the others leaned over the 
+side, watching the cord where it vanished in the depths.  What 
+would it bring to light when it came up?
+
+"Row!" ordered Peer, and began hauling in.
+
+The boat was headed straight out across the fjord, and the long 
+line with its trailing hooks hauled in and coiled up neatly in the 
+bottom of a shallow tub.  Peer's heart was beating.  There came a 
+tug--the first--and the faint shimmer of a fish deep down in the 
+water.  Pooh! only a big cod.  Peer heaved it in with a careless 
+swing over the gunwale.  Next came a ling--a deep water fish at any 
+rate this time.  Then a tusk, and another, and another; these would 
+please the women, being good eating, and perhaps make them hold 
+their tongues when the men came home.  Now the line jerks heavily; 
+what is coming?  A grey shadow comes in sight.  "Here with the 
+gaff!" cries Peer, and Peter throws it across to him.  "What is it, 
+what is it?" shriek the other three.  "Steady! don't upset the 
+boat; a catfish."  A stroke of the gaff over the side, and a clumsy 
+grey body is heaved into the boat, where it rolls about, hissing 
+and biting at the bottom-boards and baler, the splinters crackling 
+under its teeth.  "Mind, mind!" cries Klaus--he was always nervous 
+in a boat.
+
+But Peer was hauling in again.  They were nearly half-way across 
+the fjord by now, and the line came up from mysterious depths, 
+which no fisherman had ever sounded.  The strain on Peer began to 
+show in his looks; the others sat watching his face.  "Is the line 
+heavy?" asked Klaus.  "Keep still, can't you?" put in Martin, 
+glancing along the slanting line to where it vanished far below.  
+Peer was still hauling.  A sense of something uncanny seemed to be 
+thrilling up into his hands from the deep sea.  The feel of the 
+line was strange.  There was no great weight, not even the clean 
+tug-tug of an ordinary fish; it was as if a giant hand were pulling 
+gently, very gently, to draw him overboard and down into the 
+depths.  Then suddenly a violent jerk almost dragged him over the 
+side.
+
+"Look out!  What is it?" cried the three together.
+
+"Sit down in the boat," shouted Peer.  And with the true fisherman's
+sense of discipline they obeyed.
+
+Peer was gripping the line firmly with one hand, the other 
+clutching one of the thwarts.  "Have we another gaff?" he jerked 
+out breathlessly.
+
+"Here's one."  Peter Ronningen pulled out a second iron-hooked 
+cudgel.
+
+"You take it, Martin, and stand by."
+
+"But what--what is it?"
+
+"Don't know what it is.  But it's something big."
+
+"Cut the line, and row for your lives!" wailed the doctor's son.  
+Strange he should be such a coward at sea, a fellow who'd tackle a 
+man twice his size on dry land.
+
+Once more Peer was jerked almost overboard.  He thought of the 
+forest fire the year before--it would never do to have another such 
+mishap on his shoulders.  Suppose the great monster did come up and 
+capsize them--they were ever so far from land.  What a to do there 
+would be if they were all drowned, and it came out that it was his 
+fault.  Involuntarily he felt for his knife to cut the line--then 
+thrust it back again, and went on hauling.
+
+Here it comes--a great shadow heaving up through the water.  The 
+huge beast flings itself round, sending a flurry of bubbles to the 
+surface.  And there!--a gleam of white; a row of great white teeth 
+on the underside.  Aha! now he knows what it is!  The Greenland 
+shark is the fiercest monster of the northern seas, quite able to 
+make short work of a few boys or so.
+
+"Steady now, Martin--ready with the gaff."
+
+The brute was wallowing on the surface now, the water boiling 
+around him.  His tail lashed the sea to foam, a big, pointed head 
+showed up, squirming under the hook.  "Now!" cried Peer, and two 
+gaffs struck at the same moment, the boat heeled over, letting in a 
+rush of water, and Klaus, dropping his oars, sprang into the bow, 
+with a cry of "Jesus, save us!"
+
+Next second a heavy body, big as a grown man, was heaved in over 
+the gunwale, and two boys were all but shot out the other way.  And 
+now the fun began.  The boys loosed their hold of the gaffs, and 
+sprang apart to give the creature room.  There it lay raging, the 
+great black beast of prey, with its sharp threatening snout and 
+wicked red eyes ablaze.  The strong tail lashed out, hurling oars 
+and balers overboard, the long teeth snapped at the bottom-boards 
+and thwarts.  Now and again it would leap high up in the air, only 
+to fall back again, writhing furiously, hissing and spitting and 
+frothing at the mouth, its red eyes glaring from one to another of 
+the terrified captors, as if saying:  "Come on--just a little 
+nearer!"
+
+Meanwhile, Martin Bruvold was in terror that the shark would smash 
+the boat to pieces.  He drew his knife and took a step forward--a 
+flash in the air, and the steel went in deep between the back fins, 
+sending up a spurt of blood.  "Look out!" cried the others, but 
+Martin had already sprung back out of reach of the black tail.  And 
+now the dance of death began anew.  The knife was fixed to the grip 
+in the creature's back; one gaff had buried its hook between the 
+eyes, and another hung on the flank--the wooden shafts were flung 
+this way and that at every bound, and the boat's frame shook and 
+groaned under the blows.
+
+"She'll smash the boat and we'll go to the bottom," cried Peer.
+
+And now HIS knife flashed out and sent a stream of blood spouting 
+from between the shoulders, but the blow cost him his foothold--and 
+in a moment the two bodies were rolling over and over together in 
+the bottom of the boat.
+
+"Oh, Lord Jesus!" shrieked Klaus, clinging to the stempost.  
+"She'll kill him!  She'll kill him!"
+
+Peer was half up now, on his knees, but as he reached out a hand to 
+grasp the side, the brute's jaws seized on his arm.  The boy's face 
+was contorted with pain--another moment and the sharp teeth would 
+have bitten through, when, swift as thought, Peter Ronningen 
+dropped his oars and sent his knife straight in between the beast's 
+eyes.  The blade pierced through to the brain, and the grip of the 
+teeth relaxed.
+
+"C-c-cursed d-d-devil!" stammered Peter, as he scrambled back to 
+his oars.  Another moment, and Peer had dragged himself clear and 
+was kneeling by the forward thwart, holding the ragged sleeve of 
+his wounded arm, while the blood trickled through his fingers.
+
+When at last they were pulling homeward, the little boat overloaded 
+with the weight of the great carcase, all at once they stopped 
+rowing.
+
+"Where is Klaus?" asked Peer--for the doctor's son was gone from 
+where he had sat, clinging to the stem.
+
+"Why--there he is--in the bottom!"
+
+There lay the big lout of fifteen, who already boasted of his love-
+affairs, learned German, and was to be a gentleman like his father--
+there he lay on the bottom-boards in the bow in a dead faint.
+
+The others were frightened at first, but Peer, who was sitting 
+washing his wounded arm, took a dipper full of water and flung it 
+in the unconscious one's face.  The next instant Klaus had started 
+up sitting, caught wildly at the gunwale, and shrieked out:
+
+"Cut the line, and row for your lives!"
+
+A roar of laughter went up from the rest; they dropped their oars 
+and sat doubled up and gasping.  But on the beach, before going 
+home, they agreed to say nothing about Klaus's fainting fit.  And 
+for weeks afterwards the four scamps' exploit was the talk of the 
+village, so that they felt there was not much fear of their getting 
+the thrashing they deserved when the men came home.
+
+
+
+Chapter II
+
+
+When Peer, as quite a little fellow, had been sent to live with the 
+old couple at Troen, he had already passed several times from one 
+adopted home to another, though this he did not remember.  He was 
+one of the madcaps of the village now, but it was not long since he 
+had been a solitary child, moping apart from the rest.  Why did 
+people always say "Poor child!" whenever they were speaking about 
+his real mother?  Why did they do it?  Why, even Peter Ronningen, 
+when he was angry, would stammer out:  "You ba-ba-bastard!"  But 
+Peer called the pock-marked good-wife at Troen "mother" and her 
+bandy-legged husband "father," and lent the old man a hand wherever 
+he was wanted--in the smithy or in the boats at the fishing.
+
+His childhood was passed among folk who counted it sinful to smile, 
+and whose minds were gloomy as the grey sea-fog with poverty, 
+psalm-singing, and the fear of hell.
+
+One day, coming home from his work at the peat bog, he found the 
+elders snuffling and sighing over their afternoon meal.  Peer wiped 
+the sweat from his forehead, and asked what was the matter.
+
+The eldest son shoved a spoonful of porridge into his mouth, wiped his 
+eyes, swallowed, and said:  "Poor Peer!"
+
+"Aye, poor little chap," sighed the old man, thrusting his horn 
+spoon into a crack in the wall that served as a rack.
+
+"Neither father nor mother now," whimpered the eldest daughter, 
+looking over to the window.
+
+"Mother?  Is she--"
+
+"Ay, dearie, yes," sighed the old woman.  "She's gone for sure--
+gone to meet her Judge."
+
+Later, as the day went on, Peer tried to cry too.  The worst thing 
+of all was that every one in the house seemed so perfectly certain 
+where his mother had gone to.  And to heaven it certainly was not.  
+But how could they be so sure about it?
+
+Peer had seen her only once, one summer's day when she had come out 
+to see the place.  She wore a light dress and a big straw hat, and 
+he thought he had never seen anything so beautiful before.  She 
+made no secret of it among the neighbours that Peer was not her 
+only child; there was a little girl, too, named Louise, who was 
+with some folks away up in the inland parishes.  She was in high 
+spirits, and told risky stories and sang songs by no means sacred.  
+The old people shook their heads over her--the younger ones watched 
+her with sidelong glances.  And when she left, she kissed Peer, and 
+turned round more than once to look back at him, flushed under her 
+big hat, and smiling; and it seemed to Peer that she must surely be 
+the loveliest creature in all the world.
+
+But now--now she had gone to a place where the ungodly dwell in 
+such frightful torment, and no hope of salvation for her through 
+all eternity--and Peer all the while could only think of her in a 
+light dress and a big straw hat, all song and happy laughter.
+
+Then came the question:  Who was to pay for the boy now?  True, his 
+baptismal certificate said that he had a father--his name was Holm, 
+and he lived in Christiania--but, from what the mother had said, it 
+was understood that he had disappeared long ago.  What was to be 
+done with the boy?
+
+Never till now had Peer rightly understood that he was a stranger 
+here, for all that he called the old couple father and mother.
+
+He lay awake night after night up in the loft, listening to the 
+talk about him going on in the room below--the good-wife crying and 
+saying:  "No, no!", the others saying how hard the times were, and 
+that Peer was quite old enough now to be put to service as a goat-
+herd on some up-country farm.
+
+Then Peer would draw the skin-rug up over his head.  But often, 
+when one of the elders chanced to be awake at night, he could hear 
+some one in the loft sobbing in his sleep.  In the daytime he took 
+up as little room as he could at the table, and ate as little as 
+humanly possible; but every morning he woke up in fear that to-day--
+to-day he would have to bid the old foster-mother farewell and go 
+out among strangers.
+
+Then something new and unheard of plumped down into the little 
+cottage by the fjord.
+
+There came a registered letter with great dabs of sealing-wax all 
+over it, and a handwriting so gentlemanly as to be almost 
+unreadable.  Every one crowded round the eldest son to see it 
+opened--and out fell five ten-crown notes.  "Mercy on us!" they 
+cried in amazement, and "Can it be for us?"  The next thing was to 
+puzzle out what was written in the letter.  And who should that 
+turn out to be from but--no other than Peer's father, though he did 
+not say it in so many words.  "Be good to the boy," the letter 
+said.  "You will receive fifty crowns from me every half-year.  See 
+that he gets plenty to eat and goes dry and well shod.  Faithfully 
+your, P. Holm, Captain."
+
+"Why, Peer--he's--he's--  Your father's a captain, an officer," 
+stammered the eldest girl, and fell back a step to stare at the 
+boy.
+
+"And we're to get twice as much for him as before," said the son, 
+holding the notes fast and gazing up at the ceiling, as if he were 
+informing Heaven of the fact.
+
+But the old wife was thinking of something else as she folded her 
+hands in thankfulness--now she needn't lose the boy.
+
+"Properly fed!"  No need to fear for that.  Peer had treacle with 
+his porridge that very day, though it was only a week-day.  And the 
+eldest son gave him a pair of stockings, and made him sit down and 
+put them on then and there; and the same night, when he went to 
+bed, the eldest girl came and tucked him up in a new skin-rug, not 
+quite so hairless as the old one.  His father a captain!  It seemed 
+too wonderful to be true.
+
+From that day times were changed for Peer.  People looked at him 
+with very different eyes.  No one said "Poor boy" of him now.  The 
+other boys left off calling him bad names; the grown-ups said he 
+had a future before him.  "You'll see," they would say, "that 
+father of yours will get you on; you'll be a parson yet, ay, maybe 
+a bishop, too."  At Christmas, there came a ten-crown note all for 
+himself, to do just as he liked with.  Peer changed it into silver, 
+so that his purse was near bursting with prosperity.  No wonder he 
+began to go about with his nose in the air, and play the little 
+prince and chieftain among the boys.  Even Klaus Brock, the 
+doctor's son, made up to him, and taught him to play cards.  But--
+"You surely don't mean to go and be a parson," he would say.
+
+For all this, no one could say that Peer was too proud to help with 
+the fishing, or make himself useful in the smithy.  But when the 
+sparks flew showering from the glowing iron, he could not help 
+seeing visions of his own--visions that flew out into the future.  
+Aye, he WOULD be a priest.  He might be a sinner now, and a wild 
+young scamp; he certainly did curse and swear like a trooper at 
+times, if only to show the other boys that it was all nonsense 
+about the earth opening and swallowing you up.  But a priest he 
+would be, all the same.  None of your parsons with spectacles and a 
+pot belly: no, but a sort of heavenly messenger with snowy white 
+robes and a face of glory.  Perhaps some day he might even come so 
+far that he could go down into that place of torment where his 
+mother lay, and bring her up again, up to salvation.  And when, in 
+autumn evenings, he stood outside his palace, a white-haired 
+bishop, he would lift up his finger, and all the stars should break 
+into song.
+
+Clang, clang, sang the anvil under the hammer's beat.
+
+In the still summer evenings a troop of boys go climbing up the 
+naked slopes towards the high wooded ranges to fetch home the cows 
+for the milking.  The higher they climb, the farther and farther 
+their sight can travel out over the sea.  And an hour or two later, 
+as the sun goes down, here comes a long string of red-flanked 
+cattle trailing down, with a faint jangle of bells, over the far-
+off ridges.  The boys halloo them on--"Ohoo-oo-oo!"--and swing 
+their ringed rowan staves, and spit red juice of the alder bark 
+that they are chewing as men chew tobacco.  Far below them they see 
+the farm lands, grey in shadow, and, beyond, the waters of the 
+fjord, yellow in the evening light, a mirror where red clouds and 
+white sails and hills of liquid blue are shining.  And away out on 
+the farthest headland, the lonely star of the coast light over the 
+grey sea.
+
+On such an evening Peer came down from the hills just in time to 
+see a gentleman in a carriole turn off from the highway and take 
+the by-road down towards Troen.  The horse balked suddenly at a 
+small bridge, and when the driver reined him in and gave him a cut 
+with his whip, the beast reared, swung about, and sent the cart 
+fairly dancing round on its high wheels.  "Oh, well, then, I'll 
+have to walk," cried the gentleman angrily, and, flinging the reins 
+to the lad behind him, he jumped down.  Just at this moment Peer 
+came up.
+
+"Here, boy," began the traveller, "just take this bag, will you?  
+And--"  He broke off suddenly, took a step backward, and looked 
+hard at the boy.  "What--surely it can't be--  Is it you, Peer?"
+
+"Ye-es," said Peer, gaping a little, and took off his cap.
+
+"Well, now, that's funny.  My name is Holm.  Well, well--well, 
+well!"
+
+The lad in the cart had driven off, and the gentleman from the city 
+and the pale country boy with the patched trousers stood looking at 
+each other.
+
+The newcomer was a man of fifty or so, but still straight and 
+active, though his hair and close-trimmed beard were sprinkled with 
+grey.  His eyes twinkled gaily under the brim of his black felt 
+hat; his long overcoat was open, showing a gold chain across his 
+waistcoat.  With a pair of gloves and an umbrella in one hand, a 
+light travelling bag in the other, and his beautifully polished 
+shoes--a grand gentleman, thought Peer, if ever there was one.  And 
+this was his father!
+
+"So that's how you look, my boy?  Not very big for your age--nearly 
+sixteen now, aren't you?  Do they give you enough to eat?"
+
+"Yes," said Peer, with conviction.
+
+The pair walked down together, towards the grey cottage by the 
+fjord.  Suddenly the man stopped, and looked at it through half-
+shut eyes.
+
+"Is that where you've been living all these years?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"In that little hut there?"
+
+"Yes.  That's the place--Troen they call it."
+
+"Why, that wall there bulges so, I should think the whole affair 
+would collapse soon."
+
+Peer tried to laugh at this, but felt something like a lump in his 
+throat.  It hurt to hear fine folks talk like that of father and 
+mother's little house.
+
+There was a great flurry when the strange gentleman appeared in the 
+doorway.  The old wife was kneading away at the dough for a cake, 
+the front of her all white with flour; the old man sat with his 
+spectacles on, patching a shoe, and the two girls sprang up from 
+their spinning wheels.  "Well, here I am.  My name's Holm," said 
+the traveller, looking round and smiling.  "Mercy on us! the 
+Captain his own self," murmured the old woman, wiping her hands on 
+her skirt.
+
+He was an affable gentleman, and soon set them all at their ease.  
+He sat down in the seat of honour, drumming with his fingers on the 
+table, and talking easily as if quite at home.  One of the girls 
+had been in service for a while in a Consul's family in the town, 
+and knew the ways of gentlefolk, and she fetched a bowl of milk and 
+offered it with a curtsy and a:  "Will the Captain please to take 
+some milk?"  "Thanks, thanks," said the visitor.  "And what is your 
+name, my dear?  Come, there's nothing to blush about.  Nicoline?  
+First-rate!  And you?  Lusiana?  That's right."  He looked at the 
+red-rimmed basin, and, taking it up, all but emptied it at a 
+draught, then, wiping his beard, took breath.  "Phu!--that was 
+good.  Well, so here I am."  And he looked around the room and at 
+each of them in turn, and smiled, and drummed with his fingers, and 
+said, "Well, well--well, well," and seemed much amused with 
+everything in general.  "By the way, Nicoline," he said suddenly, 
+"since you're so well up in titles, I'm not 'Captain' any more now; 
+they've sent me up this way as Lieutenant-Colonel, and my wife has 
+just had a house left her in your town here, so we may be coming to 
+settle down in these parts.  And perhaps you'd better send letters 
+to me through a friend in future.  But we can talk about all that 
+by and by.  Well, well--well, well."  And all the time he was 
+drumming with his fingers on the table and smiling.  Peer noticed 
+that he wore gold sleeve-links and a fine gold stud in his broad 
+white shirt-front.
+
+And then a little packet was produced.  "Hi, Peer, come and look; 
+here's something for you."  And the "something" was nothing less 
+than a real silver watch--and Peer was quite unhappy for the moment 
+because he couldn't dash off at once and show it to all the other 
+boys.  "There's a father for you," said the old wife, clapping her 
+hands, and almost in tears.  But the visitor patted her on the 
+shoulder.  "Father? father?  H'm--that's not a thing any one can be 
+so sure about.  Hahaha!"  And "hahaha" echoed the old man, still 
+sitting with the awl in his hand.  This was the sort of joke he 
+could appreciate.
+
+Then the visitor went out and strolled about the place, with his 
+hands under his coat tails, and looked at the sky, and the fjord, 
+and murmured, "Well, well--well, well," and Peer followed him about 
+all the while, and gazed at him as he might have gazed at a star.  
+He was to sleep in a neighbour's house, where there was a room that 
+had a bed with sheets on it, and Peer went across with him and 
+carried his bag.  It was Martin Bruvold's parents who were to house 
+the traveller, and people stood round staring at the place.  Martin 
+himself was waiting outside.  "This a friend of yours, Peer?  Here, 
+then, my boy, here's something to buy a big farm with."  This time 
+it was a five-crown note, and Martin stood fingering it, hardly 
+able to believe his eyes.  Peer's father was something like a 
+father.
+
+It was a fine thing, too, to see a grand gentleman undress.  "I'll 
+have things like that some day," thought Peer, watching each new 
+wonder that came out of the bag.  There was a silver-backed brush, 
+that he brushed his hair and beard with, walking up and down in his 
+underclothes and humming to himself.  And then there was another 
+shirt, with red stripes round the collar, just to wear in bed.  
+Peer nodded to himself, taking it all in.  And when the stranger 
+was in bed he took out a flask with a silver cork, that screwed off 
+and turned into a cup, and had a dram for a nightcap; and then he 
+reached for a long pipe with a beaded cord, and when it was drawing 
+well he stretched himself out comfortably and smiled at Peer.
+
+"Well, now, my boy--are you getting on well at school?"
+
+Peer put his hands behind him and set one foot forward.  "Yes--he 
+says so--teacher does."
+
+"How much is twelve times twelve?"
+
+That was a stumper!  Peer hadn't got beyond ten times ten.
+
+"Do they teach you gymnastics at the school?"
+
+"Gym--?  What's that?"
+
+"Jumping and vaulting and climbing ropes and drilling in squads--
+what?"
+
+"But isn't it--isn't that wicked?"
+
+"Wicked!  Hahaha!  Wicked, did you say?  So that's the way they 
+look at things here, is it?  Well, well--well, well!  Hahaha!  Hand 
+me that matchbox, my boy.  H'm!"  He puffed away for a while in 
+silence.  Then, suddenly:
+
+"See here, boy.  Did you know you'd a little sister?"
+
+"Yes, I know."
+
+"Half-sister, that is to say.  I didn't quite know how it was 
+myself.  But I may as well tell you, my boy, that I paid the same 
+for you all along, the same as now.  Only I sent the money by your 
+mother, and she--well, she, poor girl, had another one to look 
+after, and no father to pay for it.  So she made my money do for 
+both.  Hahaha!  Well, poor girl, we can't blame her for that.  
+Anyhow, we'll have to look after that little half-sister of yours 
+now, I suppose, till she grows up.  Don't you think so yourself?"
+
+Peer felt the tears coming.  Think so!--indeed he did.
+
+Next day Peer's father went away.  He stood there, ready to start, 
+in the living-room at Troen, stiff felt hat and overcoat and all, 
+and said, in a tone like the sheriff's when he gives out a public 
+notice at the church door:
+
+"And, by the way, you're to have the boy confirmed this year."
+
+"Yes, to be sure we will," the old mother hastened to say.
+
+"Then I wish him to be properly dressed, like the best of the other 
+youngsters.  And there's fifty crowns for him to give the school-
+teacher and the parson as a parting gift."  He handed over some 
+more notes.
+
+"Afterwards," he went on, "I mean, of course, to look after him 
+until he can make his own way in a respectable position.  But first 
+we must see what he has a turn for, and what he'd like to be 
+himself.  He'd better come to town and talk it over with me--but 
+I'll write and arrange all that after he's confirmed.  Then in case 
+anything unexpected should happen to me, there's some money laid by 
+for him in a savings bank account; he can apply to a friend of 
+mine, who knows all about it.  Well, good-bye, and very many 
+thanks!"
+
+And the great man smiled to right and left, and shook them all by 
+the hand, and waved his hat and was gone.
+
+For the next few days Peer walked on air, and found it hard to keep 
+his footing at all on the common earth.  People were for ever 
+filling his head with talk about that savings bank account--it 
+might be only a few thousands of crowns--but then again, it might 
+run up to a million.  A million! and here he was, eating herrings 
+for dinner, and talking to Tom, Dick, and Harry just like any one 
+else.  A million crowns!
+
+Late in the autumn came the confirmation, and the old wooden 
+church, with its tarred walls, nestled among its mighty tree-tops, 
+sent its chimes ringing and ringing out into the blue autumn air.  
+It seemed to Peer like some kindly old grandmother, calling so 
+lovingly:  "Come, come--old and young--old and young--from fjord 
+and valley--northways and southways; come, come--this day of all 
+days--this day of all days--come, come, come!"  So it had stood, 
+ringing out the chimes for one generation after another through 
+hundreds of years, and now it is calling to us.  And the young 
+folks are there, looking at one another in their new clothes, and 
+blowing their noses on clean white handkerchiefs, so carefully 
+folded.  There comes Peter Ronningen, passed by good luck this 
+year, but forced to turn out in a jacket borrowed from Peer, as the 
+tailor wasn't ready with his own new things.  The boys say "how-do-
+you-do" and try to smile like grown-up folks.  One or two of them 
+may have some little account dating from old school-fights waiting 
+to be settled--but, never mind--just as well to forget old scores 
+now.  Peer caught sight of Johan Koja, who stole a pencil from him 
+last summer, but, after all, even that didn't seem worth making a 
+fuss about.  "Well, how've you been getting on since last summer?" 
+they ask each other, as they move together up the stone steps to 
+the big church door, through which the peal of the organ comes 
+rolling out to meet them.
+
+How good it seems, and how kind, the little church, where all you 
+see bids you welcome!  Through the stained-glass windows with their 
+tiny leaded panes falls a light so soft that even poor ugly faces 
+seem beautiful.  The organ tones are the very light itself turned 
+into sweet sound.  On one side of the nave you can see all the 
+boys' heads, sleek with water; on the other the little mothers to 
+be, in grown-up dress to-day for the first time, kerchief on head 
+and hymn-book in hand, and with careful faces.  And now they all 
+sing.  The elder folks have taken their places farther back to-day, 
+but they join in, looking up now and again from the book to those 
+young heads in front, and wondering how they will fare in life.  
+And the young folk themselves are thinking as they sing, "To-day is 
+the beginning of new things.  Play and frolic are over and done 
+with; from today we're grown-up."  But the church and all in it 
+seemed to say:  "If ever you are in heavy trouble, come hither to 
+me."  Just look at that altar-piece there--the wood-carvings are a 
+whole Bible in themselves--but Moses with the Tables of the Law is 
+gentle of face to-day; you can see he means no harm after all.  St. 
+Peter, with the keys, pointing upwards, looks like a kind old 
+uncle, bringing something good home from market.  And then the 
+angels on the walls, pictured or carved in wood, have borrowed the 
+voice of the organ and the tones of the hymn, and they widen out 
+the vaulted roof into the dome of heaven; while light and song and 
+worshippers melt together and soar upwards toward the infinite 
+spaces.
+
+Peer was thinking all the time: I don't care if I'm rich as rich, I 
+WILL be a priest.  And then perhaps with all my money I can build a 
+church that no one ever saw the like of.  And the first couple I'll 
+marry there shall be Martin Bruvold and little sister Louise--if 
+only he'll have her.  Just wait and see!
+
+A few days later he wrote to his father, asking if he might come 
+into town now and go to school.  A long time passed, and then at 
+last a letter came in a strange hand-writing, and all the grown 
+folks at Troen came together again to read it.  But what was their 
+amazement when they read:
+
+"You will possibly have learned by now from the newspapers that 
+your benefactor, Colonel Holm, has met his death by a fall from a 
+horse.  I must therefore request you to call on me personally at 
+your earliest convenience, as I have several matters to settle with 
+you.  Yours faithfully, J. Grundt, Senior Master."
+
+They stood and looked at one another.
+
+Peer was crying--chiefly, it must be admitted, at the thought of 
+having to bid good-bye to all the Troen folks and the two cows, and 
+the calf, and the grey cat.  He might have to go right on to 
+Christiania, no later than to-morrow--to go to school there; and 
+when he came back--why, very likely the old mother might not be 
+there any more.
+
+So all three of them were heavy-hearted, when the pock-marked good-
+wife, and the bow-legged old man, came down with him to the pier.  
+And soon he was standing on the deck of the fjord steamer, gazing 
+at the two figures growing smaller and smaller on the shore.  And 
+then one hut after another in the little hamlet disappeared behind 
+the ness--Troen itself was gone now--and the hills and the woods 
+where he had cut ring staves and searched for stray cattle--swiftly 
+all known things drew away and vanished, until at last the whole 
+parish was gone, and his childhood over.
+
+
+
+Chapter III
+
+
+As evening fell, he saw a multitude of lights spread out on every 
+side far ahead in the darkness.  And next, with his little wooden 
+chest on his shoulder, he was finding his way up through the 
+streets by the quay to a lodging-house for country folk, which he 
+knew from former visits, when he had come to the town with the 
+Lofoten boats.
+
+Next morning, clad in his country homespun, he marched up along 
+River Street, over the bridge, and up the hill to the villa 
+quarter, where he had to ask the way.  At last he arrived outside a 
+white-painted wooden house standing back in a garden.  Here was the 
+place--the place where his fate was to be decided.  After the 
+country fashion he walked in at the kitchen door.
+
+A stout servant maid in a big white apron was rattling the rings of 
+the kitchen range into place; there was a pleasing smell of coffee 
+and good things to eat.  Suddenly a door opened, and a figure in a 
+dressing-gown appeared--a tall red-haired man with gold spectacles 
+astride on a long red nose, his thick hair and scrubby little 
+moustaches touched with grey.  He gasped once or twice and then 
+started sneezing--hoc-hoc-put-putsch!--wiped his nose with a large 
+pocket-handkerchief, and grumbled out:  "Ugh!--this wretched cold--
+can't get rid of it.  How about my socks, Bertha, my good girl; do 
+you think they are quite dry now?"
+
+"I've had them hung up ever since I lit the fire this morning," 
+said the girl, tossing her head.
+
+"But who is this young gentleman, may I ask?"  The gold spectacles 
+were turned full on Peer, who rose and bowed.
+
+"Said he wanted to speak to you, sir," put in the maid.
+
+"Ah.  From the country, I see.  Have you anything to sell, my lad?"
+
+"No," said Peer.  He had had a letter. . . .
+
+The red head seemed positively frightened at this--and the 
+dressing-gown faltered backwards, as if to find support.  He cast a 
+hurried glance at the girl, and then beckoned with a long fore-
+finger to Peer.  "Yes, yes, perfectly so.  Be so good as to come 
+this way, my lad."
+
+Peer found himself in a room with rows of books all round the 
+walls, and a big writing-table in the centre.  "Sit down, my boy."  
+The schoolmaster went and picked out a long pipe, and filled it, 
+clearing his throat nervously, with an occasional glance at the 
+boy.  "H'm--so this is you.  This is Peer--h'm."  He lit his pipe 
+and puffed a little, found himself again obliged to sneeze--but at 
+last settled down in a chair at the writing-table, stretched out 
+his long legs, and puffed away again.
+
+"So that's what you look like?"  With a quick movement he reached 
+for a photograph in a frame.  Peer caught a glimpse of his father 
+in uniform.  The schoolmaster lifted his spectacles, stared at the 
+picture, then let down his spectacles again and fell to 
+scrutinising Peer's face.  There was a silence for a while, and 
+then he said:  "Ah, indeed--I see--h'm."  Then turning to Peer:
+
+"Well, my lad, it was very sudden--your benefactor's end--most 
+unexpected.  He is to be buried to-day."
+
+"Benefactor?" thought Peer.  "Why doesn't he say 'your father'?"
+
+The schoolmaster was gazing at the window.  "He informed me some 
+time ago of--h'm--of all the--all the benefits he had conferred on 
+you--h'm!  And he begged me to keep an eye on you myself in case 
+anything happened to him.  And now"--the spectacles swung round 
+towards Peer--"now you are starting out in life by yourself, hey?"
+
+"Yes," said Peer, shifting a little in his seat.
+
+"You will have to decide now what walk in life you are to--er--
+devote yourself to."
+
+"Yes," said Peer again, sitting up straighter.
+
+"You would perhaps like to be a fisherman--like the good people 
+you've been brought up among?"
+
+"No."  Peer shook his head disdainfully.  Was this man trying to 
+make a fool of him?
+
+"Some trade, then, perhaps?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Oh, then I suppose it's to be America.  Well, you will easily find 
+company to go with.  Such numbers are going nowadays--I am sorry to 
+say. . . ."
+
+Peer pulled himself together.  "Oh, no, not that at all."  Better 
+get it out at once.  "I wish to be a priest," he said, speaking 
+with a careful town accent.
+
+The schoolmaster rose from his seat, holding his long pipe up in 
+the air in one hand, and pressing his ear forward with the other, 
+as though to hear better.  "What?--what did you say?"
+
+"A priest," repeated Peer, but he moved behind his chair as he 
+spoke, for it looked as if the schoolmaster might fling the pipe at 
+his head.
+
+But suddenly the red face broke into a smile, exposing such an 
+array of greenish teeth as Peer had never seen before.  Then he 
+said in a sort of singsong, nodding:  "A priest?  Oh, indeed!  
+Quite a small matter!"  He rose and wandered once or twice up and 
+down the room, then stopped, nodded, and said in a fatherly tone--
+to one of the bookshelves:  "H'm--really--really--we're a little 
+ambitious, are we not?"
+
+He turned on Peer suddenly.  "Look here, my young friend--don't you 
+think your benefactor has been quite generous enough to you 
+already?"
+
+"Yes, indeed he has," said Peer, his voice beginning to tremble a 
+little.
+
+"There are thousands of boys in your position who are thrown out in 
+the world after confirmation and left to shift for themselves, 
+without a soul to lend them a helping hand."
+
+"Yes," gasped Peer, looking round involuntarily towards the door.
+
+"I can't understand--who can have put these wild ideas into your 
+head?"
+
+With an effort Peer managed to get out:  "It's always been what I 
+wanted.  And he--father--"
+
+"Who?  Father--?  Do you mean your benefactor?"
+
+"Well, he was my father, wasn't he?" burst out Peer.
+
+The schoolmaster tottered back and sank into a chair, staring at 
+Peer as if he thought him a quite hopeless subject.  At last he 
+recovered so far as to say:  "Look here, my lad, don't you think 
+you might be content to call him--now and for the future--just your 
+benefactor?  Don't you think he deserves it?"
+
+"Oh, yes," whispered Peer, almost in tears.
+
+"You are thinking, of course--you and those who have put all this 
+nonsense into your head--of the money which he--h'm--"
+
+"Yes--isn't there a savings bank account--?"
+
+"Aha!  There we are!  Yes, indeed.  There is a savings bank 
+account--in my care."  He rose, and hunted out from a drawer a 
+small green-covered book.  Peer could not take his eyes from it.  
+"Here it is.  The sum entered here to your account amounts to 
+eighteen hundred crowns."
+
+Crash!  Peer felt as if he had fallen through the floor into the 
+cellarage.  All his dreams vanished into thin air--the million 
+crowns--priest and bishop--Christiania--and all the rest.
+
+"On the day when you are in a fair way to set up independently as 
+an artisan, a farmer, or a fisherman--and when you seem to me, to 
+the best of my judgment, to deserve such help--then and not till 
+then I place this book at your disposal.  Do you understand what I 
+say?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I am perfectly sure that I am in full agreement with the wishes of 
+the donor in deciding that the money must remain untouched in my 
+safe keeping until then."
+
+"Yes," whispered Peer.
+
+"What?--are you crying?"
+
+"N-no.  Good-morning--"
+
+"No, pray don't go yet.  Sit down.  There are one or two things we 
+must get settled at once.  First of all--you must trust me, my good 
+boy.  Do you believe that I wish you well, or do you not?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Then it is agreed that all these fancies about going to college 
+and so forth must be driven out of your head once for all?"
+
+"Y-yes, sir."
+
+"You can see yourself that, even supposing you had the mental 
+qualifications, such a sum, generous as it is in itself, would not 
+suffice to carry you far."
+
+"No-no, sir."
+
+"On the other hand, if you wish it, I will gladly arrange to get 
+you an apprentice's place with a good handicraftsman here.  You 
+would have free board there, and--well, if you should want clothes 
+the first year or so, I dare say we could manage that.  You will be 
+better without pocket-money to fling about until you can earn it 
+for yourself."
+
+Peer sighed, and drooped as he stood.  When he saw the green-backed 
+book locked into its drawer again, and heard the keys rattle as 
+they went back into a pocket under the dressing-gown, he felt as if 
+some one were pointing a jeering finger at him, and saying, "Yah!"
+
+"Then there's another thing.  About your name.  What name have you 
+thought of taking, my lad--surname, I mean?"
+
+"My name is Peer Holm!" said the boy, instinctively drawing himself 
+up as he had done when the bishop had patted his head at the 
+confirmation and asked his name.
+
+The schoolmaster pursed up his lips, took off his spectacles and 
+wiped them, put them on again, and turned to the bookshelves with a 
+sigh.  "Ah, indeed!--yes--yes--I almost thought as much."
+
+Then he came forward and laid a hand kindly on Peer's shoulder.
+
+"My dear boy--that is out of the question."
+
+A shiver went through Peer.  Had he done something wrong again?
+
+"See here, my boy--have you considered that there may be others of 
+that name in this same place?"
+
+"Yes--but--"
+
+"Wait a minute--and that you would occasion these--others--the 
+deepest pain and distress if it should become known that--well, how 
+matters stand.  You see, I am treating you as a grown-up man--a 
+gentleman.  And I feel sure you would not wish to inflict a great 
+sorrow--a crushing blow--upon a widow and her innocent children.  
+There, there, my boy, there's nothing to cry about.  Life, my young 
+friend, life has troubles that must be faced.  What is the name of 
+the farm, or house, where you have lived up to now?"
+
+"T--Troen."
+
+"Troen--a very good name indeed.  Then from to-day on you will call 
+yourself Peer Troen."
+
+"Y-yes, sir."
+
+"And if any one should ask about your father, remember that you are 
+bound in honour and conscience not to mention your benefactor's 
+name."
+
+"Y-yes."
+
+"Well, then, as soon as you have made up your mind, come at once 
+and let me know.  We shall be great friends yet, you will see.  
+You're sure you wouldn't like to try America?  Well, well, come 
+along out to the kitchen and see if we can find you some 
+breakfast."
+
+Peer found himself a moment after sitting on a chair in the 
+kitchen, where there was such a good smell of coffee.  "Bertha," 
+said the schoolmaster coaxingly, "you'll find something good for 
+breakfast for my young friend here, won't you?"  He waved a 
+farewell with his hand, took down his socks from a string above the 
+stove, and disappeared through the door again.
+
+
+
+Chapter IV
+
+
+When a country boy in blue homespun, with a peaked cap on his blond 
+head, goes wandering at random through the streets of a town, it is 
+no particular concern of any one else.  He moves along, gazing in 
+at shop windows, hands deep in his pockets, whistling, looking at 
+everything around him--or at nothing at all.  And yet--perhaps in 
+the head under that peaked cap it seems as if a whole little world 
+had suddenly collapsed, and he may be whistling hard to keep from 
+crying in the streets for people to see.  He steps aside to avoid 
+a cart, and runs into a man, who drops his cigar in the gutter.  
+"Confounded country lout!" says the man angrily, but passes on and 
+has forgotten boy and all the next moment.  But a little farther on 
+a big dog comes dashing out of a yard and unluckily upsets a fat 
+old woman on the pavement, and the boy with the peaked cap, for all 
+his troubles, cannot help doubling up and roaring with laughter.
+
+That afternoon, Peer sat on one of the ramparts below the fortress, 
+biting at a stalk of grass, and twirling the end in his fingers.  
+Below him lay town and fjord in the mild October sunlight; the 
+rumble of traffic, the noises from workshops and harbour, came up 
+to him through the rust-brown luminous haze.  There he sat, while 
+the sentry on the wall above marched back and forth, with his rifle 
+on his shoulder, left--right--left.
+
+You may climb very high up indeed, and fall down very deep, and no 
+such terrible harm done after all, as long as you don't absolutely 
+break your neck.  And gradually Peer began to realise that he was 
+still alive, after all.  It is a bad business when the world goes 
+against you, even though you may have some one to turn to for 
+advice and sympathy.  But when all the people round you are utter 
+strangers, there is nothing to be done but sit down and twirl a 
+straw, and think things out a bit for yourself.  Peer's thoughts 
+were of a thing in a long dressing-gown that had taken his bank 
+book and locked it up and rattled the keys at him and said "Yah!" 
+and deposed him from his bishopric and tried to sneeze and squeeze 
+him into a trade, where he'd have to carry a pressing-iron all his 
+life and be Peer Troen, Tailor.  But he wouldn't have that.  He sat 
+there bracing himself up, and trying to gather together from 
+somewhere a thing he had never had much need of before--to wit, a 
+will of his own, something to set up against the whole wide world.  
+What was he to do now?  He felt he would like to go back to Troen 
+first of all, and talk things over with the old father and mother; 
+they would be sorry for him there, and say "Poor boy," and pray for 
+him--but after a day or two, he knew, they would begin to glance at 
+him at meals, and remember that there was no one to pay for him 
+now, and that times were hard.  No, that was no refuge for him now.  
+But what could he do, then?  Clearly it was not such a simple 
+matter to be all alone in the world.
+
+A little later he found himself on a hillside by the Cathedral 
+churchyard, sitting under the yellowing trees, and wondering 
+dreamily where his father was to be buried.  What a difference 
+between him and that schoolmaster man!  No preaching with him; no 
+whining about what his boy might call himself or might not.  Why 
+must he go and die?
+
+It was strange to think of that fine strong man, who had brushed 
+his hair and beard so carefully with his silver-backed brush--to 
+think that he was lying still in a coffin now, and would soon be 
+covered up with earth.
+
+People were coming up the hill now, and passing in to the 
+churchyard.  The men wore black clothes and tall shiny hats--but 
+there were some officers too, with plumes and sashes.  And then a 
+regimental band--with its brass instruments.  Peer slipped into the 
+churchyard with the crowd, but kept apart from the rest, and took 
+up his stand a little way off, beside a big monument.  "It must be 
+father's funeral," he thought to himself, and was broad awake at 
+once.
+
+This, he guessed, must be the Cadet School, that came marching in, 
+and formed up in two lines from the mortuary chapel to the open 
+grave.  The place was nearly full of people now; there were women 
+holding handkerchiefs to their eyes, and an elderly lady in black 
+went into the chapel, on the arm of a tall man in uniform.  "That 
+must be father's wife," thought Peer, "and the young ladies there 
+in black are--my half-sisters, and that young lieutenant--my half-
+brother."  How strange it all was!  A sound of singing came from 
+the chapel.  And a little later six sergeants came out, carrying a 
+coffin all heaped with flowers.  "Present arms!"  And the soldiers 
+presented, and the band played a slow march and moved off in front 
+of the coffin, between the two lines of soldiers.  And then came a 
+great following of mourners.  The lady in black came out again, 
+sobbing behind her handkerchief, and hardly able to follow, though 
+she clung to the tall officer's arm.  But in front of the pair, 
+just behind the coffin itself, walked a tall man in splendid 
+uniform, with gold epaulettes, plumed hat, and sword, bearing a 
+cushion with two jewelled stars.  And the long, long train of 
+mourners moved slowly, gently on, and there--there by the grave, 
+stood the priest, holding a spade.
+
+Peer was anxious to hear what the priest would have to say about 
+his father.  Involuntarily he stole a little nearer, though he felt 
+somehow that it would not do to come too close.
+
+A hymn was sung at the graveside, the band accompanying.  Peer 
+took off his cap.  He was too taken up to notice that one of the 
+mourners was watching him intently, and presently left the group 
+and came towards him.  The man wore spectacles, and a shiny tall 
+hat, and it was not until he began to sneeze that Peer recognised 
+him.  It was the schoolmaster, glaring at him now with a face so 
+full of horror and fury that the spectacles almost seemed to be 
+spitting fire.
+
+"You--you--  Are you mad?" he whispered in Peer's face, clenching 
+his black gloved hands.  "What are you doing here?  Do you want to 
+cause a catastrophe to-day of all days?  Go--get away at once, do 
+you hear me?  Go!  For heaven's sake, get away from here before any 
+one sees."  Peer turned and fled, hearing behind him as he went a 
+threatening "If ever you dare--again--," while the voices and the 
+band, swelling higher in the hymn, seemed to strike him in the back 
+and drive him on.
+
+He was far down in the town before he could stop and pull himself 
+together.  One thing was clear--after this he could never face that 
+schoolmaster again.  All was lost.  Could he even be sure that what 
+he had done wasn't so frightfully wrong that he would have to go to 
+prison for it?
+
+Next day the Troen folk were sitting at their dinner when the 
+eldest son looked out of the window and said:  "There's Peer 
+coming."
+
+"Mercy on us!" cried the good-wife, as he came in.  "What is the 
+matter, Peer?  Are you ill?"
+
+Ah, it was good that night to creep in under the old familiar skin-
+rug once more.  And the old mother sat on the bedside and talked to 
+him of the Lord, by way of comfort.  Peer clenched his hands under 
+the clothes--somehow he thought now of the Lord as a sort of 
+schoolmaster in a dressing-gown.  Yet it was some comfort all the 
+same to have the old soul sit there and talk to him.
+
+Peer had much to put up with in the days that followed--much 
+tittering and whispers of "Look! there goes the priest," as he went 
+by.  At table, he felt ashamed of every mouthful he took; he hunted 
+for jobs as day-labourer on distant farms so as to earn a little to 
+help pay for his keep.  And when the winter came he would have to 
+do as the others did--hire himself out, young and small as he was, 
+for the Lofoten fishing.
+
+But one day after church Klaus Brock drew him aside and got him to 
+talk things over at length.  First, Klaus told him that he himself 
+was going away--he was to begin in one of the mechanical workshops 
+in town, and go from there to the Technical College, to qualify for 
+an engineer.  And next he wanted to hear the whole truth about what 
+had happened to Peer that day in town.  For when people went 
+slapping their thighs and sniggering about the young would-be 
+priest that had turned out a beggar, Klaus felt he would like to 
+give the lot of them a darned good hammering.
+
+So the two sixteen-year-old boys wandered up and down talking, and 
+in the days to come Peer never forgot how his old accomplice in the 
+shark-fishing had stood by him now.  "Do like me," urged Klaus.  
+"You're a bit of a smith already, man; go to the workshops, and 
+read up in your spare time for the entrance exam to the Technical.  
+Then three years at the College--the eighteen hundred crowns will 
+cover that--and there you are, an engineer--and needn't even owe 
+any one a halfpenny."
+
+Peer shook his head; he was sure he would never dare to show his 
+face before that schoolmaster again, much less ask for the money in 
+the bank.  No; the whole thing was over and done with for him.
+
+"But devil take it, man, surely you can see that this ape of a 
+schoolmaster dare not keep you out of your money.  Let me come with 
+you; we'll go up and tackle him together, and then--then you'll 
+see."  And Klaus clenched his fists and thrust out one shoulder 
+fiercely.
+
+But when January came, there was Peer in oil-skins, in the foc's'le 
+of a Lofoten fishing-smack, ploughing the long sea-road north to 
+the fishing-grounds, in frost and snow-storms.  All through that 
+winter he lived the fisherman's life: on land, in one of the tiny 
+fisher-booths where a five-man crew is packed like sardines in an 
+air so thick you can cut it with a knife; at sea, where in a fair 
+wind you stand half the day doing nothing and freezing stiff the 
+while--and a foul wind means out oars, and row, row, row, over an 
+endless plain of rolling icy combers; row, row, till one's hands 
+are lumps of bleeding flesh.  Peer lived through it all, thinking 
+now and then, when he could think at all, how the grand gentlefolk 
+had driven him out to this life because he was impertinent enough 
+to exist.  And when the fourteen weeks were past, and the Lofoten 
+boats stood into the fjord again on a mild spring day, it was easy 
+for Peer to reckon out his earnings, which were just nothing at 
+all.  He had had to borrow money for his outfit and food, and he 
+would be lucky if his boy's share was enough to cover what he owed.
+
+A few weeks later a boy stood by the yard gate of an engineering 
+works in the town just as the bell was ringing and the men came 
+streaming out, and asked for Klaus Brock.
+
+"Hullo, Peer--that you?  Been to Lofoten and made your fortune?"
+
+The two boys stood a moment taking stock of one another: Klaus 
+grimy-faced and in working-clothes--Peer weather-beaten and tanned 
+by storm and spray.
+
+The manager of the factory was Klaus's uncle, and the same 
+afternoon his nephew came into the office with a new hand wanting 
+to be taken on as apprentice.  He had done some smithy work before, 
+he said; and he was taken on forthwith, at a wage of twopence an 
+hour.
+
+"And what's your name?"
+
+"Peer--er"--the rest stuck in his throat.
+
+"Holm," put in Klaus.
+
+"Peer Holm?  Very well, that'll do."
+
+The two boys went out with a feeling of having done something 
+rather daring.  And anyway, if trouble should come along, there 
+would be two of them now to tackle it.
+
+
+
+Chapter V
+
+
+In a narrow alley off Sea Street lived Gorseth the job-master, with 
+a household consisting of a lean and skinny wife, two half-starved 
+horses, and a few ramshackle flies and sledges.  The job-master 
+himself was a hulking toper with red nose and beery-yellow eyes, 
+who spent his nights in drinking and got home in the small hours of 
+the morning when his wife was just about getting up.  All through 
+the morning she went about the place scolding and storming at him 
+for a drunken ne'er-do-well, while Gorseth himself lay comfortably 
+snoring.
+
+When Peer arrived on the scene with his box on his shoulder, 
+Gorseth was on his knees in the yard, greasing a pair of leather 
+carriage-aprons, while his wife, sunken-lipped and fierce-eyed, 
+stood in the kitchen doorway, abusing him for a profligate, a 
+swine, and the scum of the earth.  Gorseth lay there on all-fours, 
+with the sun shining on his bald head, smearing on the grease; but 
+every now and then he would lift his head and snarl out, "Hold your 
+jaw, you damned old jade!"
+
+"Haven't you a room to let?" Peer asked.
+
+A beery nose was turned towards him, and the man dragged himself up 
+and wiped his hands on his trousers.  "Right you are," said he, and 
+led the way across the yard, up some stairs, and into a little room 
+with two panes of glass looking on to the street and a half-window 
+on the yard.  The room had a bed with sheets, a couple of chairs, 
+and a table in front of the half-window.  Six and six a month.  
+Agreed.  Peer took it on the spot, paid down the first month's 
+rent, and having got rid of the man sat down on his chest and 
+looked about him.  Many people have never a roof to their heads, 
+but here was he, Peer, with a home of his own.  Outside in the yard 
+the woman had begun yelping her abuse again, the horses in the 
+stable beneath were stamping and whinnying, but Peer had lodged in 
+fisher-booths and peasants' quarters and was not too particular.  
+Here he was for the first time in a place of his own, and within 
+its walls was master of the house and his own master.
+
+Food was the next thing.  He went out and bought in supplies, 
+stocking his chest with plain country fare.  At dinner time he sat 
+on the lid, as fishermen do, and made a good solid meal of flat 
+bannocks and cold bacon.
+
+And now he fell-to at his new work.  There was no question of 
+whether it was what he wanted or not; here was a chance of getting 
+up in the world, and that without having to beg any one's leave.  
+He meant to get on.  And it was not long before his dreams began to 
+take a new shape from his new life.  He stood at the bottom of a 
+ladder, a blacksmith's boy--but up at the top sat a mighty Chief 
+Engineer, with gold spectacles and white waistcoat.  That was where 
+he would be one day.  And if any schoolmaster came along and tried 
+to keep him back this time--well, just let him try it.  They had 
+turned him out of a churchyard once--he would have his revenge for 
+that some day.  It might take him years and years to do it, but one 
+fine day he would be as good as the best of them, and would pay 
+them back in full.
+
+In the misty mornings, as he tramped in to his work, dinner-pail in 
+hand, his footsteps on the plank bridge seemed hammering out with 
+concentrated will:  "To-day I shall learn something new--new--new!"
+
+The great works down at the harbour--shipyard, foundry, and machine 
+shops--were a whole city in themselves.  And into this world of 
+fire and smoke and glowing iron, steam-hammers, racing wheels, and 
+bustle and noise, he was thrusting his way, intent upon one thing, 
+to learn and learn and ever learn.  There were plenty of those by 
+him who were content to know their way about the little corner 
+where they stood--but they would never get any farther.  They would 
+end their days broken-down workmen--HE would carve his way through 
+till he stood among the masters.  He had first to put in some 
+months' work in the smithy, then he would be passed on to the 
+machine shops, then to work with the carpenters and painters, and 
+finally in the shipyard.  The whole thing would take a couple of 
+years.  But the works and all therein were already a kind of new 
+Bible to him; a book of books, which he must learn by heart.  Only 
+wait!
+
+And what a place it was for new adventures!  Many times a day he 
+would find himself gazing at some new wonder; sheer miracle and 
+revelation--yet withal no creation of God's grace, but an invention 
+of men.  Press a button, and behold, a miracle springs to life.  He 
+would stare at the things, and the strain of understanding them 
+would sometimes keep him awake at night.  There was something 
+behind this, something that must be--spirit, even though it did not 
+come from God.  These engineers were priests of a sort, albeit they 
+did not preach nor pray.  It was a new world.
+
+One day he was put to riveting work on an enormous boiler, and for 
+the first time found himself working with a power that was not the 
+power of his own hands.  It was a tube, full of compressed air, 
+that drove home the rivets in quick succession with a clashing wail 
+from the boiler that sounded all over the town.  Peer's head and 
+ears ached with the noise, but he smiled all the same.  He was used 
+to toil himself, in weariness of body; now he stood here master, 
+was mind and soul and directing will.  He felt it now for the first 
+time, and it sent a thrill of triumph through every nerve of his 
+body.
+
+But all through the long evenings he sat alone, reading, reading, 
+and heard the horses stamping in the stable below.  And when he 
+crept into bed, well after midnight, there was only one thing that 
+troubled him--his utter loneliness.  Klaus Brock lived with his 
+uncle, in a fine house, and went to parties.  And he lay here all 
+by himself.  If he were to die that very night, there would be 
+hardly a soul to care.  So utterly alone he was--in a strange and 
+indifferent world.
+
+Sometimes it helped him a little to think of the old mother at 
+Troen, or of the church at home, where the vaulted roof had soared 
+so high over the swelling organ-notes, and all the faces had looked 
+so beautiful.  But the evening prayer was no longer what it had 
+been for him.  There was no grey-haired bishop any more sitting at 
+the top of the ladder he was to climb.  The Chief Engineer that was 
+there now had nothing to do with Our Lord, or with life in the 
+world to come.  He would never come so far now that he could go 
+down into the place of torment where his mother lay, and bring her 
+up with him, up to salvation.  And whatever power and might he 
+gained, he could never stand in autumn evenings and lift up his 
+finger and make all the stars break into song.
+
+Something was past and gone for Peer.  It was as if he were rowing 
+away from a coast where red clouds hung in the sky and dream-
+visions filled the air--rowing farther and farther away, towards 
+something quite new.  A power stronger than himself had willed it 
+so.
+
+One Sunday, as he sat reading, the door opened, and Klaus Brock 
+entered whistling, with his cap on the back of his head.
+
+"Hullo, old boy!  So this is where you live?"
+
+"Yes, it is--and that's a chair over there."
+
+But Klaus remained standing, with his hands in his pockets and his 
+cap on, staring about the room.  "Well, I'm blest!" he said at 
+last.  "If he hasn't stuck up a photograph of himself on his 
+table!"
+
+"Well, did you never see one before?  Don't you know everybody has 
+them?"
+
+"Not their own photos, you ass!  If anybody sees that, you'll never 
+hear the last of it."
+
+Peer took up the photograph and flung it under the bed.  "Well, it 
+was a rubbishy thing," he muttered.  Evidently he had made a 
+mistake.  "But what about this?"--pointing to a coloured picture he 
+had nailed up on the wall.
+
+Klaus put on his most manly air and bit off a piece of tobacco 
+plug.  "Ah! that!" he said, trying not to laugh too soon.
+
+"Yes; it's a fine painting, isn't it?  I got it for fourpence."
+
+"Painting!  Ha-ha! that's good!  Why, you silly cow, can't you see 
+it's only an oleograph?"
+
+"Oh, of course you know all about it.  You always do."
+
+"I'll take you along one day to the Art Gallery," said Klaus.  
+"Then you can see what a real painting looks like.  What's that 
+you've got there--English reader?"
+
+"Yes," put in Peer eagerly; "hear me say a poem."  And before Klaus 
+could protest, he had begun to recite.
+
+When he had finished, Klaus sat for a while in silence, chewing his 
+quid.  "H'm!" he said at last, "if our last teacher, Froken 
+Zebbelin, could have heard that English of yours, we'd have had to 
+send for a nurse for her, hanged if we wouldn't!"
+
+This was too much.  Peer flung the book against the wall and told 
+the other to clear out to the devil.  When Klaus at last managed to 
+get a word in, he said:
+
+"If you are to pass your entrance at the Technical you'll have to 
+have lessons--surely you can see that.  You must get hold of a 
+teacher."
+
+"Easy for you to talk about teachers!  Let me tell you my pay is 
+twopence an hour."
+
+"I'll find you one who can take you twice a week or so in languages 
+and history and mathematics.  I daresay some broken-down sot of a 
+student would take you on for sevenpence a lesson.  You could run 
+to that, surely?"
+
+Peer was quiet now and a little pensive.  "Well, if I give up 
+butter, and drink water instead of coffee--"
+
+Klaus laughed, but his eyes were moist.  Hard luck that he couldn't 
+offer to lend his comrade a few shillings--but it wouldn't do.
+
+So the summer passed.  On Sundays Peer would watch the young folks 
+setting out in the morning for the country, to spend the whole day 
+wandering in the fields and woods, while he sat indoors over his 
+books.  And in the evening he would stick his head out of his two-
+paned window that looked on to the street, and would see the lads 
+and girls coming back, flushed and noisy, with flowers and green 
+boughs in their hats, crazy with sunshine and fresh air.  And still 
+he must sit and read on.  But in the autumn, when the long nights 
+set in, he would go for a walk through the streets before going to 
+bed, as often as not up to the white wooden house where the manager 
+lived.  This was Klaus's home.  Lights in the windows, and often 
+music; the happy people that lived here knew and could do all sorts 
+of things that could never be learned from books.  No mistake: he 
+had a goodish way to go--a long, long way.  But get there he would.
+
+One day Klaus happened to mention, quite casually, where Colonel 
+Holm's widow lived, and late one evening Peer made his way out 
+there, and cautiously approached the house.  It was in River 
+Street, almost hidden in a cluster of great trees, and Peer stood 
+there, leaning against the garden fence, trembling with some 
+obscure emotion.  The long rows of windows on both floors were 
+lighted up; he could hear youthful laughter within, and then a 
+young girl's voice singing--doubtless they were having a party.  
+Peer turned up his collar against the wind, and tramped back 
+through the town to his lodging above the carter's stable.
+
+For the lonely working boy Saturday evening is a sort of festival.  
+He treats himself to an extra wash, gets out his clean underclothes 
+from his chest, and changes.  And the smell of the newly-washed 
+underclothing calls up keenly the thought of a pock-marked old 
+woman who sewed and patched it all, and laid it away so neatly 
+folded.  He puts it on carefully, feeling almost as if it were 
+Sunday already.
+
+Now and again, when a Sunday seemed too long, Peer would drift into 
+the nearest church.  What the parson said was all very good, no 
+doubt, but Peer did not listen; for him there were only the hymns, 
+the organ, the lofty vaulted roof, the coloured windows.  Here, 
+too, the faces of the people looked otherwise than in the street 
+without; touched, as it were, by some reflection from all that 
+their thoughts aspired to reach.  And it was so homelike here.  
+Peer even felt a sort of kinship with them all, though every soul 
+there was a total stranger.
+
+But at last one day, to his surprise, in the middle of a hymn, a 
+voice within him whispered suddenly:  "You should write to your 
+sister.  She's as much alone in the world as you are."
+
+And one evening Peer sat down and wrote.  He took quite a lordly 
+tone, saying that if she wanted help in any way, she need only let 
+him know.  And if she would care to move in to town, she could come 
+and live with him.  After which he remained, her affectionate 
+brother, Peer Holm, engineer apprentice.
+
+A few days later there came a letter addressed in a fine slanting 
+hand.  Louise had just been confirmed.  The farmer she was with 
+wished to keep her on as dairymaid through the winter, but she was 
+afraid the work would be too heavy for her.  So she was coming in 
+to town by the boat arriving on Sunday evening.  With kind regards, 
+his sister, Louise Hagen.
+
+Peer was rather startled.  He seemed to have taken a good deal on 
+his shoulders.
+
+On Sunday evening he put on his blue suit and stiff felt hat, and 
+walked down to the quay.  For the first time in his life he had 
+some one else to look after--he was to be a father and benefactor 
+from now on to some one worse off than himself.  This was something 
+new.  The thought came back to him of the jolly gentleman who had 
+come driving down one day to Troen to look after his little son.  
+Yes, that was the way to do things; that was the sort of man he 
+would be.  And involuntarily he fell into something of his father's 
+look and step, his smile, his lavish, careless air.  "Well, well--
+well, well--well, well," he seemed saying to himself.  He might 
+almost, in his fancy, have had a neat iron-grey beard on his chin.
+
+The little green steamboat rounded the point and lay in to the 
+quay, the gangways were run out, porters jumped aboard, and all the 
+passengers came bundling ashore.  Peer wondered how he was to know 
+her, this sister whom he had never seen.
+
+The crowd on deck soon thinned, and people began moving off from 
+the quay into the town.
+
+Then Peer was aware of a young peasant-girl, with a box in one hand 
+and a violin-case in the other.  She wore a grey dress, with a 
+black kerchief over her fair hair; her face was pale, and finely 
+cut.  It was his mother's face; his mother as a girl of sixteen.  
+Now she was looking about her, and now her eyes rested on him, half 
+afraid, half inquiring.
+
+"Is it you, Louise?"
+
+"Is that you, Peer?"
+
+They stood for a moment, smiling and measuring each other with 
+their eyes, and then shook hands.
+
+Together they carried the box up through the town, and Peer was so 
+much of a townsman already that he felt a little ashamed to find 
+himself walking through the streets, holding one end of a trunk, 
+with a peasant-girl at the other.  And what a clatter her thick 
+shoes made on the pavement!  But all the time he was ashamed to 
+feel ashamed.  Those blue arch eyes of hers, constantly glancing up 
+at him, what were they saying?  "Yes, I have come," they said--"and 
+I've no one but you in all the world--and here I am," they kept on 
+saying.
+
+"Can you play that?" he asked, with a glance at her violin-case.
+
+"Oh well; my playing's only nonsense," she laughed.  And she told 
+how the old sexton she had been living with last had not been able 
+to afford a new dress for her confirmation, and had given her the 
+violin instead.
+
+"Then didn't you have a new dress to be confirmed in?"
+
+"No."
+
+"But wasn't it--didn't you feel horrible, with the other girls 
+standing by you all dressed up fine?"
+
+She shut her eyes for a moment.  "Oh, yes--it WAS horrid," she 
+said.
+
+A little farther on she asked:  "Were you boarded out at a lot of 
+places?"
+
+"Five, I think."
+
+"Pooh--why, that's nothing.  I was at nine, I was."  The girl was 
+smiling again.
+
+When they came up to his room she stood for a moment looking round 
+the place.  It was hardly what she had expected to find.  And she 
+had not been in town lodgings before, and her nose wrinkled up a 
+little as she smelt the close air.  It seemed so stuffy, and so 
+dark.
+
+"We'll light the lamp," he said.
+
+Presently she laughed a little shyly, and asked where she was to 
+sleep.
+
+"Lord bless us, you may well ask!" Peer scratched his head.  
+"There's only one bed, you see."  At that they both burst out 
+laughing.
+
+"The one of us'll have to sleep on the floor," suggested the girl.
+
+"Right.  The very thing," said he, delighted.  "I've two pillows; 
+you can have one.  And two rugs--anyway, you won't be cold."
+
+"And then I can put on my other dress over," she said.  "And maybe 
+you'll have an old overcoat--"
+
+"Splendid!  So we needn't bother any more about that."
+
+"But where do you get your food from?"  She evidently meant to have 
+everything cleared up at once.
+
+Peer felt rather ashamed that he hadn't money enough to invite her 
+to a meal at an eating-house then and there.  But he had to pay his 
+teacher's fees the next day; and his store-box wanted refilling 
+too.
+
+"I boil the coffee on the stove there overnight," he said, "so that 
+it's all ready in the morning.  And the dry food I keep in that box 
+there.  We'll see about some supper now."  He opened the box, 
+fished out a loaf and some butter, and put the kettle on the stove.  
+She helped him to clear the papers off the table, and spread the 
+feast on it.  There was only one knife, but it was really much 
+better fun that way than if he had had two.  And soon they were 
+seated on their chairs--they had a chair each--having their first 
+meal in their own home, he and she together.
+
+It was settled that Louise should sleep on the floor, and they both 
+laughed a great deal as he tucked her in carefully so that she 
+shouldn't feel cold.  It was not till afterwards, when the lamp was 
+out, that they noticed that the autumn gales had set in, and there 
+was a loud north-wester howling over the housetops.  And there they 
+lay, chatting to each other in the dark, before falling asleep.
+
+It seemed a strange and new thing to Peer, this really having a 
+relation of his own--and a girl, too--a young woman.  There she lay 
+on the floor near by him, and from now on he was responsible for 
+what was to become of her in the world.  How should he put that job 
+through?
+
+He could hear her turning over.  The floor was hard, very likely.
+
+"Louise?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Did you ever see mother?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Or your father?"
+
+"My father?"  She gave a little laugh.
+
+"Yes, haven't you ever seen him either?"
+
+"Why, how should I, silly?  Who says that mother knew herself who 
+it was?"
+
+There was a pause.  Then Peer brought out, rather awkwardly:  
+"We're all alone, then--you and I."
+
+"Yes--we are that."
+
+"Louise!  What are you thinking of taking to now?"
+
+"What are you?"
+
+So Peer told her all his plans.  She said nothing for a little 
+while--no doubt she was lying thinking of the grand things he had 
+before him.
+
+At last she spoke.  "Do you think--does it cost very much to learn 
+to be a midwife?"
+
+"A midwife--is that what you want to be, girl?"  Peer couldn't help 
+laughing.  So this was what she had been planning in these days--
+since he had offered to help her on in the world.
+
+"Do you think my hands are too big?" she ventured presently--he 
+could just hear the whisper.
+
+Peer felt a pang of pity.  He had noticed already how ill the red 
+swollen hands matched her pale clear-cut face, and he knew that in 
+the country, when any one has small, fine hands, people call them 
+"midwife's hands."
+
+"We'll manage it somehow, I daresay," said Peer, turning round to 
+the wall.  He had heard that it cost several hundred crowns to go 
+through the course at the midwifery school.  It would be years 
+before he could get together anything like that sum.  Poor girl, 
+it looked as if she would have a long time to wait.
+
+After that they fell silent.  The north-wester roared over the 
+housetops, and presently brother and sister were asleep.
+
+When Peer awoke the next morning, Louise was about already, making 
+coffee over the little stove.  Then she opened her box, took out a 
+yellow petticoat and hung it on a nail, placed a pair of new shoes 
+against the wall, lifted out some under-linen and woollen 
+stockings, looked at them, and put them back again.  The little 
+box held all her worldly goods.
+
+As Peer was getting up:  "Gracious mercy!" she cried suddenly, 
+"what is that awful noise down in the yard?"
+
+"Oh, that's nothing to worry about," said Peer.  "It's only the 
+job-master and his wife.  They carry on like that every blessed 
+morning; you'll soon get used to it."
+
+Soon they were seated once more at the little table, drinking 
+coffee and laughing and looking at each other.  Louise had found 
+time to do her hair--the two fair plaits hung down over her 
+shoulders.
+
+It was time for Peer to be off, and, warning the girl not to go too 
+far from home and get lost, he ran down the stairs.
+
+At the works he met Klaus Brock, and told him that his sister had 
+come to town.
+
+"But what are you going to do with her?" asked Klaus.
+
+"Oh, she'll stay with me for the present."
+
+"Stay with you?  But you've only got one room and one bed, man!"
+
+"Well--she can sleep on the floor."
+
+"She?  Your sister?  She's to sleep on the floor--and you in the 
+bed!" gasped Klaus.
+
+Peer saw he had made a mistake again.  "Of course I was only 
+fooling," he hastened to say.  "Of course it's Louise that's to 
+have the bed."
+
+When he came home he found she had borrowed a frying-pan from the 
+carter's wife, and had fried some bacon and boiled potatoes; so 
+that they sat down to a dinner fit for a prince.
+
+But when the girl's eyes fell on the coloured print on the wall, 
+and she asked if it was a painting, Peer became very grand at once.  
+"That--a painting?  Why, that's only an oleograph, silly!  No, I'll 
+take you along to the Art Gallery one day, and show you what real 
+paintings are like."  And he sat drumming with his fingers on the 
+table, and saying:  "Well, well--well, well, well!"
+
+They agreed that Louise had better look out at once for some work 
+to help things along.  And at the first eating-house they tried, 
+she was taken on at once in the kitchen to wash the floor and peel 
+potatoes.
+
+When bedtime came he insisted on Louise taking the bed.  "Of course 
+all that was only a joke last night," he explained.  "Here in town 
+women always have the best of everything--that's what's called 
+manners."  As he stretched himself on the hard floor, he had a 
+strange new feeling.  The narrow little garret seemed to have 
+widened out now that he had to find room in it for a guest.  There 
+was something not unpleasant even in lying on the hard floor, since 
+he had chosen to do it for some one else's sake.
+
+After the lamp was out he lay for a while, listening to her 
+breathing.  Then at last:
+
+"Louise."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Is your father--was his name Hagen?"
+
+"Yes.  It says so on the certificate."
+
+"Then you're Froken Hagen.  Sounds quite fine, doesn't it?"
+
+"Uf!  Now you're making fun of me."
+
+"And when you're a midwife, Froken Hagen might quite well marry a 
+doctor, you know."
+
+"Silly!  There's no chance--with hands like mine."
+
+"Do you think your hands are too big for you to marry a doctor?"
+
+"Uf! you ARE a crazy thing.  Ha-ha-ha!"
+
+"Ha-ha-ha!"
+
+They both snuggled down under the clothes, with the sense of ease 
+and peace that comes from sharing a room with a good friend in a 
+happy humour.
+
+"Well, good-night, Louise."
+
+"Good-night, Peer."
+
+
+
+Chapter VI
+
+
+So things went on till winter was far spent.  Now that Louise, too, 
+was a wage-earner, and could help with the expenses, they could 
+dine luxuriously at an eating-house every day, if they pleased, on 
+meat-cakes at fourpence a portion.  They managed to get a bed for 
+Peer that could be folded up during the day, and soon learned, too, 
+that good manners required they should hang up Louise's big woollen 
+shawl between them as a modest screen while they were dressing and 
+undressing.  And Louise began to drop her country speech and talk 
+city-fashion like her brother.
+
+One thought often came to Peer as he lay awake.  "The girl is the 
+very image of mother, that's certain--what if she were to go the 
+same way?  Well, no, that she shall not.  You're surely man enough 
+to see to that.  Nothing of that sort shall happen, my dear Froken 
+Hagen."
+
+They saw but little of each other during the day, though, for they 
+were apart from early in the morning till he came home in the 
+evening.  And when he lectured her, and warned her to be careful 
+and take no notice of men who tried to speak to her, Louise only 
+laughed.  When Klaus Brock came up one day to visit them, and made 
+great play with his eyes while he talked to her, Peer felt much 
+inclined to take him by the scruff of the neck and throw him 
+downstairs.
+
+When Christmas-time was near they would wander in the long evenings 
+through the streets and look in at the dazzlingly lit shop-windows, 
+with their tempting, glittering show of gold and finery.  Louise 
+kept asking continually how much he thought this thing or that 
+cost--that lace, or the cloak, or the stockings, or those gold 
+brooches.  "Wait till you marry that doctor," Peer would say, "then 
+you can buy all those things."  So far neither of them had an 
+overcoat, but Peer turned up his coat-collar when he felt cold, and 
+Louise made the most of her thick woollen dress and a pair of good 
+country gloves that kept her quite warm.  And she had adventured on 
+a hat now, in place of her kerchief, and couldn't help glancing 
+round, thinking people must notice how fine she was.
+
+On Christmas Eve he carried up buckets of water from the yard, and 
+she had a great scrubbing-out of the whole room.  And then they in 
+their turn had a good wash, helping each other in country fashion 
+to scrub shoulders and back.
+
+Peer was enough of a townsman now to have laid in a few little 
+presents to give his sister; but the girl, who had not been used to 
+such doings, had nothing for him, and wept a good deal when she 
+realised it.  They ate cakes from the confectioner's with syrup 
+over them, and drank chocolate, and then Louise played a hymn-tune, 
+in her best style, on her violin, and Peer read the Christmas 
+lessons from the prayer-book--it was all just like what they used 
+to do at Troen on Christmas Eve.  And that night, after the lamp 
+was put out, they lay awake talking over plans for the future.  
+They promised each other that when they had got well on in the 
+world, he in his line and she in hers, they would manage to live 
+near each other, so that their children could play together and 
+grow up good friends.  Didn't she think that was a good idea?  Yes, 
+indeed she did.  And did he really mean it?  Yes, of course he 
+meant it, really.
+
+But later on in the winter, when she sat at home in the evenings 
+waiting for him--he often worked overtime--she was sometimes almost 
+afraid.  There was his step on the stairs!  If it was hurried and 
+eager she would tremble a little.  For the moment he was inside the 
+door he would burst out:  "Hurrah, my girl!  I've learnt something 
+new to-day, I tell you!"  "Have you, Peer?"  And then out would 
+pour a torrent of talk about motors and power and pressures and 
+cylinders and cranes and screws, and such-like.  She would sit and 
+listen and smile, but of course understood not a word of it all, 
+and as soon as Peer discovered this he would get perfectly furious, 
+and call her a little blockhead.
+
+Then there were the long evenings when he sat at home reading, by 
+himself or with his teacher and she had to sit so desperately still 
+that she hardly dared take a stitch with her needle.  But one day 
+he took it into his head that his sister ought to be studying too; 
+so he set her a piece of history to learn by the next evening.  But 
+time to learn it--where was that to come from?  And then he started 
+her writing to his dictation, to improve her spelling--and all the 
+time she kept dropping off to sleep.  She had washed so many floors 
+and peeled so many potatoes in the daytime that now her body felt 
+like lead.
+
+"Look here, my fine girl!" he would storm at her, raging up and 
+down the room, "if you think you can get on in the world without 
+education, you're most infernally mistaken."  He succeeded in 
+reducing her to tears--but it wasn't long before her head had 
+fallen forward on the table again and she was fast asleep.  So he 
+realised there was nothing for it but to help her to bed--as 
+quietly as possible, so as not to wake her up.
+
+Some way on in the spring Peer fell sick.  When the doctor came, he 
+looked round the room, sniffed, and frowned.  "Do you call this a 
+place for human beings to live in?" he asked Louise, who had taken 
+the day off.  "How can you expect to keep well?"
+
+He examined Peer, who lay coughing, his face a burning red.  "Yes, 
+yes--just as I expected.  Inflammation of the lungs."  He glanced 
+round the room once more.  "Better get him off to the hospital at 
+once," he said.
+
+Louise sat there in terror at the idea that Peer was to be taken 
+away.  And then, as the doctor was going, he looked at her more 
+closely, and said:  "You'd do well to be a bit careful yourself, my 
+good girl.  You look as if you wanted a change to a decent room, 
+with a little more light and air, pretty badly.  Good-morning."
+
+Soon after he was gone the hospital ambulance arrived.  Peer was 
+carried down the stairs on a stretcher, and the green-painted box 
+on wheels opened its door and swallowed him up; and they would not 
+even let her go with him.  All through the evening she sat in their 
+room alone, sobbing.
+
+The hospital was one of the good old-fashioned kind that people 
+don't come near if they can help it, because the walls seem to reek 
+of the discomfort and wretchedness that reign inside.  The general 
+wards--where the poor folks went--were always so overcrowded that 
+patients with all sorts of different diseases had to be packed into 
+the same rooms, and often infected each other.  When an operation 
+was to be performed, things were managed in the most cheerfully 
+casual way: the patient was laid on a stretcher and carried across 
+the open yard, often in the depth of winter, and as he was always 
+covered up with a rug, the others usually thought he was being 
+taken off to the dead-house.
+
+When Peer opened his eyes, he was aware of a man in a white blouse 
+standing by the foot of his bed.  "Why, I believe he's coming-to," 
+said the man, who seemed to be a doctor.  Peer found out afterwards 
+from a nurse that he had been unconscious for more than twenty-four 
+hours.
+
+He lay there, day after day, conscious of nothing but the stabbing 
+of a red-hot iron boring through his chest and cutting off his 
+breathing.  Some one would come every now and then and pour port 
+wine and naphtha into his mouth; and morning and evening he was 
+washed carefully with warm water by gentle hands.  But little by 
+little the room grew lighter, and his gruel began to have some 
+taste.  And at last he began to distinguish the people in the beds 
+near by, and to chat with them.
+
+On his right lay a black-haired, yellow-faced dock labourer with a 
+broken nose.  His disease, whatever it might be, was clearly 
+different from Peer's.  He plagued the nurse with foul-mouthed 
+complaints of the food, swearing he would report about it.  On the 
+other side lay an emaciated cobbler with a soft brown beard like 
+the Christ pictures, and cheeks glowing with fever.  He was dying 
+of cancer.  At right angles with him lay a man with the face and 
+figure of a prophet--a Moses--all bushy white hair and beard; he 
+was in the last stage of consumption, and his cough was like a 
+riveting machine.  "Huh!" he would groan, "if only I could get 
+across to Germany there'd be a chance for me yet."  Beside him was 
+a fellow with short beard and piercing eyes, who was a little off 
+his head, and imagined himself a corporal of the Guards.  Often at 
+night the others would be wakened by his springing upright in bed 
+and calling out:  "Attention!"
+
+One man lay moaning and groaning all the time, turning from side to 
+side of a body covered with sores.  But one day he managed to 
+swallow some of the alcohol they used as lotion, and after that lay 
+singing and weeping alternately.  And there was a red-bearded man 
+with glasses, a commercial traveller; he had put a bullet into his 
+head, but the doctors had managed to get it out again, and now he 
+lay and praised the Lord for his miraculous deliverance.
+
+It was strange to Peer to lie awake at night in this great room in 
+the dim light of the night-lamp; it seemed as if beings from the 
+land of the dead were stirring in those beds round about him.  But 
+in the daytime, when friends and relations of the patients came a-
+visiting, Peer could hardly keep from crying.  The cobbler had a 
+wife and a little girl who came and sat beside him, gazing at him 
+as if they could never let him go.  The prophet, too, had a wife, 
+who wept inconsolably--and all the rest seemed to have some one or 
+other to care for them.  But where was Louise--why did Louise never 
+come?
+
+The man on the right had a sister, who came sweeping in, gorgeous 
+in her trailing soiled silk dress.  Her shoes were down at heel, 
+but her hat was a wonder, with enormous plumes.  "Hallo, Ugly! how 
+goes it?" she said; and sat down and crossed her legs.  Then the 
+pair would talk mysteriously of people with strange names:  "The 
+Flea," "Cockroach," "The Galliot," "King Ring," and the like, 
+evidently friends of theirs.  One day she managed to bring in a 
+small bottle of brandy, a present from "The Hedgehog," and smuggle 
+it under the bedclothes.  As soon as she had gone, and the coast 
+was clear, Peer's neighbour drew out the bottle, managed to work 
+the cork out, and offered him a drink.  "Here's luck, sonny; do you 
+good."  No--Peer would rather not.  Then followed a gurgling sound 
+from the docker's bed, and soon he too was lying singing at the top 
+of his voice.
+
+At last one day Louise came.  She was wearing her neat hat, and had 
+a little bundle in her hand, and as she came in, looking round the 
+room, the close air of the sick-ward seemed to turn her a little 
+faint.  But then she caught sight of Peer, and smiled, and came 
+cautiously to him, holding out her hand.  She was astonished to 
+find him so changed.  But as she sat down by his pillow she was 
+still smiling, though her eyes were full of tears.
+
+"So you've come at last, then?" said Peer.
+
+"They wouldn't let me in before," she said with a sob.  And then 
+Peer learned that she had come there every single day, but only to 
+be told that he was too ill to see visitors.
+
+The man with the broken nose craned his head forward to get a 
+better view of the modest young girl.  And meanwhile she was 
+pulling out of the bundle the offering she had brought--a bottle of 
+lemonade and some oranges.
+
+But it was a day or two later that something happened which Peer 
+was often to remember in the days to come.
+
+He had been dozing through the afternoon, and when he woke the lamp 
+was lit, and a dull yellow half-light lay over the ward.  The 
+others seemed to be sleeping; all was very quiet, only the man with 
+the sores was whimpering softly.  Then the door opened, and Peer 
+saw Louise glide in, softly and cautiously, with her violin-case 
+under her arm.  She did not come over to where her brother lay, but 
+stood in the middle of the ward, and, taking out her violin, began 
+to play the Easter hymn:  "The mighty host in white array."*
+
+
+* "Den store hvide Flok vi se."
+
+
+The man with the sores ceased whimpering; the patients in the beds 
+round about opened their eyes.  The docker with the broken nose sat 
+up in bed, and the cobbler, roused from his feverish dream, lifted 
+himself on his elbow and whispered:  "It is the Redeemer.  I knew 
+Thou wouldst come."  Then there was silence.  Louise stood there 
+with eyes fixed on her violin, playing her simple best.  The 
+consumptive raised his head and forgot to cough; the corporal 
+slowly stiffened his body to attention; the commercial traveller 
+folded his hands and stared before him.  The simple tones of the 
+hymn seemed to be giving new life to all these unfortunates; the 
+light of it was in their faces.  But to Peer, watching his sister 
+as she stood there in the half-light, it seemed as if she grew to 
+be one with the hymn itself, and that wings to soar were given her.
+
+When she had finished, she came softly over to his bed, stroked his 
+forehead with her swollen hand, then glided out and disappeared as 
+silently as she had come.
+
+For a long time all was silent in the dismal ward, until at last 
+the dying cobbler murmured:  "I thank Thee.  I knew--I knew Thou 
+wert not far away."
+
+When Peer left the hospital, the doctor said he had better not 
+begin work again at once; he should take a holiday in the country 
+and pick up his strength.  "Easy enough for you to talk," thought 
+Peer, and a couple of days later he was at the workshop again.
+
+But his ways with his sister were more considerate than before, and 
+he searched about until he had found her a place as seamstress, and 
+saved her from her heavy floor-scrubbing.
+
+And soon Louise began to notice with delight that her hands were 
+much less red and swollen than they had been; they were actually 
+getting soft and pretty by degrees.
+
+Next winter she sat at home in the evenings while he read, and made 
+herself a dress and cloak and trimmed a new hat, so that Peer soon 
+had quite an elegant young lady to walk out with.  But when men 
+turned round to look at her as she passed, he would scowl and 
+clench his fists.  At last one day this was too much for Louise, 
+and she rebelled.  "Now, Peer, I tell you plainly I won't go out 
+with you if you go on like that."
+
+"All right, my girl," he growled.  "I'll look after you, though, 
+never fear.  We're not going to have mother's story over again with 
+you."
+
+"Well, but, after all, I'm a grown-up-girl, and you can't prevent 
+people looking at me, idiot!"
+
+Klaus Brock had been entered at the Technical College that autumn, 
+and went about now with the College badge in his cap, and sported a 
+walking-stick and a cigarette.  He had grown into a big, broad-
+shouldered fellow, and walked with a little swing in his step; a 
+thick shock of black hair fell over his forehead, and he had a way 
+of looking about him as if to say:  "Anything the matter?  All 
+right, I'm ready!"
+
+One evening he came in and asked Louise to go with him to the 
+theatre.  The young girl blushed red with joy, and Peer could not 
+refuse; but he was waiting for them outside the yard gate when they 
+came back.  On a Sunday soon after Klaus was there again, asking 
+her to come out for a drive.  This time she did not even look to 
+Peer for leave, but said "yes" at once.  "Just you wait," said Peer 
+to himself.  And when she came back that evening he read her a 
+terrific lecture.
+
+Soon he could not help seeing that the girl was going about with 
+half-shut eyes, dreaming dreams of which she would never speak to 
+him.  And as the days went on her hands grew whiter, and she moved 
+more lightly, as if to the rhythm of unheard music.  Always as she 
+went about the room on her household tasks she was crooning some 
+song; it seemed that there was some joy in her soul that must find 
+an outlet.
+
+One Saturday in the late spring she had just come home, and was 
+getting the supper, when Peer came tramping in, dressed in his best 
+and carrying a parcel.
+
+"Hi, girl!  Here you are!  We're going to have a rare old feast to-
+night."
+
+"Why--what is it all about?"
+
+"I've passed my entrance exam for the Technical--hurrah!  Next 
+autumn--next autumn--I'll be a student!"
+
+"Oh, splendid!  I AM so glad!"  And she dried her hand and grasped 
+his.
+
+"Here you are--sausages, anchovies--and here's a bottle of brandy--
+the first I ever bought in my life.  Klaus is coming up later on to 
+have a glass of toddy.  And here's cheese.  We'll make things hum 
+to-night."
+
+Klaus came, and the two youths drank toddy and smoked and made 
+speeches, and Louise played patriotic songs on her violin, and 
+Klaus gazed at her and asked for "more--more."
+
+When he left, Peer went with him, and as the two walked down the 
+street, Klaus took his friend's arm, and pointed to the pale moon 
+riding high above the fjord, and vowed never to give him up, till 
+he stood at the very top of the tree--never, never!  Besides, he 
+was a Socialist now, he said, and meant to raise a revolt against 
+all class distinctions.  And Louise--Louise was the most glorious 
+girl in all the world--and now--and now--Peer might just as well 
+know it sooner as later--they were as good as engaged to be 
+married, he and Louise.
+
+Peer pushed him away, and stood staring at him.  "Go home now, and 
+go to bed," he said.
+
+"Ha! You think I'm not man enough to defy my people--to defy the 
+whole world!"
+
+"Good-night," said Peer.
+
+Next morning, as Louise lay in bed--she had asked to have her 
+breakfast there for once in a way--she suddenly began to laugh.  
+"What ARE you about now?" she asked teasingly.
+
+"Shaving," said Peer, beginning operations.
+
+"Shaving!  Are you so desperate to be grand to-day that you must 
+scrape all your skin off?  You know there's nothing else to shave."
+
+"You hold your tongue.  Little do you know what I've got in front 
+of me to-day."
+
+"What can it be?  You're not going courting an old widow with 
+twelve children, are you?"
+
+"If you want to know, I'm going to that schoolmaster fellow, and 
+going to wring my savings-bank book out of him."
+
+Louise sat up at this.  "My great goodness!" she said.
+
+Yes; he had been working himself up to this for a year or more, and 
+now he was going to do it.  To-day he would show what he was made 
+of--whether he was a snivelling child, or a man that could stand up 
+to any dressing-gown in the world.  He was shaving for the first 
+time--quite true.  And the reason was that it was no ordinary day, 
+but a great occasion.
+
+His toilet over, he put on his best hat with a flourish, and set 
+out.
+
+Louise stayed at home all the morning, waiting for his return.  And 
+at last she heard him on the stairs.
+
+"Puh!" he said, and stood still in the middle of the room.
+
+"Well?  Did you get it?"
+
+He laughed, wiped his forehead, and drew a green-covered book from 
+his coat-pocket.  "Here we are, my girl--there's fifty crowns a 
+month for three years.  It's going to be a bit of a pinch, with 
+fees and books, and living and clothes into the bargain.  But we'll 
+do it.  Father was one of the right sort, I don't care what they 
+say."
+
+"But how did you manage it?  What did the schoolmaster say?"
+
+"'Do you suppose that you--you with your antecedents--could ever 
+pass into the Technical College?' he said.  And I told him I HAD 
+passed.  'Good heavens!  How could you possibly qualify?' and he 
+shifted his glasses down his nose.  And then:  'Oh, no! it's no 
+good coming here with tales of that sort, my lad.'  Well, then I 
+showed him the certificate, and he got much meeker.  'Really!' he 
+said, and 'Dear me!' and all that.  But I say, Louise--there's 
+another Holm entered for the autumn term."
+
+"Peer, you don't mean--your half-brother?"
+
+"And old Dressing-gown said it would never do--never!  But I said 
+it seemed to me there must be room in the world for me as well, and 
+I'd like that bank book now, I said.  'You seem to fancy you have 
+some legal right to it,' he said, and got perfectly furious.  Then 
+I hinted that I'd rather ask a lawyer about it and make sure, and 
+at that he regularly boiled with rage and waved his arms all about.  
+But he gave in pretty soon all the same--said he washed his hands 
+of the whole thing.  'And besides,' he said, 'your name's Troen, 
+you know--Peer Troen.'  Ho-ho-ho--Peer Troen!  Wouldn't he like it!  
+Tra-la-la-la!--I say, let's go out and get a little fresh air."
+
+Peer said nothing then or after about Klaus Brock, and Klaus 
+himself was going off home for the summer holidays.  As the summer 
+wore on the town lay baking in the heat, reeking of drains, and the 
+air from the stable came up to the couple in the garret so heavy 
+and foul that they were sometimes nearly stifled.
+
+"I'll tell you what," said Peer one day, "we really must spend a 
+few shillings more on house rent and get a decent place to live 
+in."
+
+And Louise agreed.  For till the time came for him to join the 
+College in the autumn, Peer was obliged to stick to the workshops; 
+he could not afford a holiday just now.
+
+One morning he was just starting with a working gang down to 
+Stenkjaer to repair some damage in the engine-room of a big Russian 
+grain boat, when Louise came and asked him to look at her throat.  
+"It hurts so here," she said.
+
+Peer took a spoon and pressed down her tongue, but could not see 
+anything wrong.  "Better go and see the doctor, and make sure," he 
+said.
+
+But the girl made light of it.  "Oh, nonsense!" she said; "it's not 
+worth troubling about."
+
+Peer was away for over a week, sleeping on board with the rest.  
+When he came back, he hurried home, suddenly thinking of Louise and 
+her sore throat.  He found the job-master greasing the wheels of a 
+carriage, while his wife leaned out of a window scolding at him.  
+"Your sister," repeated the carter, turning round his face with its 
+great red lump of nose--"she's gone to hospital--diphtheria 
+hospital--she has.  Doctor was here over a week ago and took her 
+off.  They've been here since poking round and asking who she was 
+and where she belonged--well, we didn't know.  And asking where you 
+were, too--and we didn't know either.  She was real bad, if you ask 
+me--"
+
+Peer hastened off.  It was a hot day, and the air was close and 
+heavy.  On he went--all down the whole length of Sea Street, 
+through the fishermen's quarter, and a good way further out round 
+the bay.  And then he saw a cart coming towards him, an ordinary 
+work-cart, with a coffin on it.  The driver sat on the cart, and 
+another man walked behind, hat in hand.  Peer ran on, and at last 
+came in sight of the long yellow building at the far end of the 
+bay.  He remembered all the horrible stories he had heard about the 
+treatment of diphtheria patients--how their throats had to be cut 
+open to give them air, or something burned out of them with red-hot 
+irons--oh!  When at last he had reached the high fence and rung the 
+bell, he stood breathless and dripping with sweat, leaning against 
+the gate.
+
+There was a sound of steps within, a key was turned, and a porter 
+with a red moustache and freckles about his hard blue eyes thrust 
+out his head.
+
+"What d'you want to go ringing like that for?"
+
+"Froken Hagen--Louise Hagen--is she better?  How--how is she?"
+
+"Lou--Louise Hagen?  A girl called Louise Hagen?  Is it her you've 
+come to ask about?"
+
+"Yes.  She's my sister.  Tell me--or--let me in to see her."
+
+"Wait a bit.  You don't mean a girl that was brought in here about 
+a week ago?"
+
+"Yes, yes--but let me in."
+
+"We've had no end of bother and trouble about that girl, trying to 
+find out where she came from, and if she had people here.  But, of 
+course, this weather, we couldn't possibly keep her any longer.  
+Didn't you meet a coffin on a cart as you came along?"
+
+"What--what--you don't mean--?"
+
+"Well, you should have come before, you know.  She did ask a lot 
+for some one called Peer.  And she got the matron to write 
+somewhere--wasn't it to Levanger?  Were you the fellow she was 
+asking for?  So you came at last!  Oh, well--she died four or five 
+days ago.  And they're just gone now to bury her, in St. Mary's 
+Churchyard."
+
+Peer turned round and looked out over the bay at the town, that lay 
+sunlit and smoke-wreathed beyond.  Towards the town he began to 
+walk, but his step grew quicker and quicker, and at last he took 
+off his cap and ran, panting and sobbing as he went.  Have I been 
+drinking? was the thought that whirled through his brain, or why 
+can't I wake?  What is it?  What is it?  And still he ran.  There 
+was no cart in sight as yet; the little streets of the fisher-
+quarter were all twists and turns.  At last he reached Sea Street 
+once more, and there--there far ahead was the slow-moving cart.  
+Almost at once it turned off to the right and disappeared, and when 
+Peer reached the turning, it was not to be seen.  Still he ran on 
+at haphazard.  There seemed to be other people in the streets--
+children flying red balloons, women with baskets, men with straw 
+hats and walking-sticks.  But Peer marked his line, and ran 
+forward, thrusting people aside, upsetting those in his way, and 
+dashing on again.  In King Street he came in sight of the cart once 
+more, nearer this time.  The man walking behind it with his hat in 
+his hand had red curling hair, and walked with a curtsying gait, 
+giving at the knees and turning out his toes.  No doubt he made his 
+living as mourner at funerals to which no other mourners came.  As 
+the cart turned into the churchyard Peer came up with it, and tried 
+to follow at a walk, but stumbled and could hardly keep his feet.  
+The man behind the cart looked at him.  "What's the matter with 
+you?" he asked.  The driver looked round, but drove on again at 
+once.
+
+The cart stopped, and Peer stood by, leaning against a tree for 
+support.  A third man came up--he seemed to be the gravedigger--and 
+he heard the three discussing how long they might have to wait for 
+the parson.  "The time's just about up, isn't it?" said the driver, 
+taking out his watch.  "Ay, the clerk said he'd be here by now," 
+agreed the gravedigger, and blew his nose.
+
+Soon the priest came in sight, wearing his black robe and white 
+ruff; there were doubtless to be other funerals that day.  Peer 
+sank down on a bench and looked stupidly on while the coffin was 
+lifted from the cart, carried to the grave, and lowered down.  A 
+man with spectacles and a red nose came up with a hymn-book, and 
+sang something over the grave.  The priest lifted the spade--and at 
+the sound of the first spadeful of earth falling on Louise's 
+coffin, Peer started as if struck, and all but fell from his seat.
+
+When he looked up again, the place was deserted.  The bell was 
+ringing, and a crowd was collecting in another part of the 
+churchyard.  Peer sat where he was, quite still.
+
+In the evening, when the gravedigger came to lock the gates, he had 
+to take the young man by the shoulder and shake him to his senses.  
+"Locking-up time," he said.  "You must go now."
+
+Peer rose and tried to walk, and by and by he was stumbling blindly 
+out through the gate and down the street.  And after a time he 
+found himself climbing a flight of stairs above a stable-yard.  
+Once in his room, he flung himself down on the bed as he was, and 
+lay there still.
+
+The close heat of the day had broken in a downpour of rain, which 
+drummed upon the roof above his head, and poured in torrents 
+through the gutters.  Instinctively Peer started up: Louise was out 
+in the rain--she would need her cloak.  He was on his feet in a 
+moment, as if to find it--then he stopped short, and sank slowly 
+back upon the bed.
+
+He drew up his feet under him, and buried his head in his arms.  
+His brain was full of changing, hurrying visions, of storm and 
+death, of human beings helpless in a universe coldly and 
+indifferently ruled by a will that knows no pity.
+
+Then for the first time it was as if he lifted up his head against 
+Heaven itself and cried:  "There is no sense in all this.  I will 
+not bear it."
+
+Later in the night, when he found himself mechanically folding his 
+hands for the evening prayer he had learnt to say as a child, he 
+suddenly burst out laughing, and clenched his fists, and cried 
+aloud:  "No, no, no--never--never again."
+
+Once more it came to him that there was something in God like the 
+schoolmaster--He took the side of those who were well off already.  
+"Yes, they who have parents and home and brothers and sisters and 
+worldly goods--them I protect and care for.  But here's a boy alone 
+in the world, struggling and fighting his way on as best he can--
+from him I will take the only thing he has.  That boy is nothing to 
+any one.  Let him be punished because he is poor, and cast down to 
+the earth, for there is none to care for him.  That boy is nothing 
+to any one--nothing."  Oh, oh, oh!--he clenched his fists and beat 
+them against the wall.
+
+His whole little world was broken to pieces.  Either God did not 
+exist at all, or He was cold and pitiless--one way of it was as bad 
+as the other.  The heavenly country dissolved into cloud and melted 
+away, and above was nothing but empty space.  No more folding of 
+your hands, like a fool!  Walk on the earth, and lift up your head, 
+and defy Heaven and fate, as you defied the schoolmaster.  Your 
+mother has no need of you to save her--she is not anywhere any 
+more.  She is dead--dead and turned to clay; and more than that 
+there is not, for her or for you or any other being in this world.
+
+Still he lay there.  He would fain have slept, but seemed instead 
+to sink into a vague far-away twilight that rocked him--rocked him 
+on its dark and golden waves.  And now he heard a sound--what was 
+it?  A violin.  "The mighty host in white array."  Louise--is it 
+you--and playing?  He could see her now, out there in the twilight.  
+How pale she was!  But still she played.  And now he understood 
+what that twilight was.
+
+It was a world beyond the consciousness of daily life--and that 
+world belonged to him.  "Peer, let me stay here."  And something in 
+him answered:  "Yes, you shall stay, Louise.  Even though there is 
+no God and no immortality, you shall stay here."  And then she 
+smiled.  And still she played.  And it was as though he were 
+building a little vaulted chapel for her in defiance of Heaven and 
+of God--as though he were ringing out with his own hands a great 
+eternal chime for her sake.  What was happening to him?  There was 
+none to comfort him, yet it ended, as he lay there, with his 
+pouring out something of his innermost being, as an offering to all 
+that lives, to the earth and the stars, until all seemed rocking, 
+rocking with him on the stately waves of the psalm.  He lay there 
+with fast-closed eyes, stretching out his hands as though afraid to 
+wake, and find it all nothing but a beautiful dream.
+
+
+
+Chapter VII
+
+
+The two-o'clock bell at the Technical College had just begun to 
+ring, and a stream of students appeared out of the long straggling 
+buildings and poured through the gate, breaking up then into little 
+knots and groups that went their several ways into the town.
+
+It was a motley crowd of young men of all ages from seventeen to 
+thirty or more.  Students of the everlasting type, sent here by 
+their parents as a last resource, for--"he can always be an 
+engineer"; young sparks who paid more attention to their toilet 
+than their books, and hoped to "get through somehow" without 
+troubling to work; and stiff youths of soldierly bearing, who had 
+been ploughed for the Army, but who likewise could "always be 
+engineers."  There were peasant-lads who had crammed themselves 
+through their Intermediate at a spurt, and now wore the College cap 
+above their rough grey homespun, and dreamed of getting through in 
+no time, and turning into great men with starched cuffs and pince-
+nez.  There were pale young enthusiasts, too, who would probably 
+end as actors; and there were also quondam actors, killed by the 
+critics, but still sufficiently alive, it seemed, "to be 
+engineers."  And as the young fellows hurried on their gay and 
+careless way through the town, an older man here and there might 
+look round after them with a smile of some sadness.  It was easy to 
+say what fate awaited most of them.  College ended, they would be 
+scattered like birds of passage throughout the wide world, some to 
+fall by sunstroke in Africa, or be murdered by natives in China, 
+others to become mining kings in the mountains of Peru, or heads of 
+great factories in Siberia, thousands of miles from home and 
+friends.  The whole planet was their home.  Only a few of them--not 
+always the shining lights--would stay at home, with a post on the 
+State railways, to sit in an office and watch their salaries mount 
+by increments of L12 every fifth year.
+
+"That's a devil of a fellow, that brother of yours that's here," 
+said Klaus Brock to Peer one day, as they were walking into town 
+together with their books under their arms.
+
+"Now, look here, Klaus, once for all, be good enough to stop 
+calling him my brother.  And another thing--you're never to say a 
+word to any one about my father having been anything but a farmer.  
+My name's Holm, and I'm called so after my father's farm.  Just 
+remember that, will you?"
+
+"Oh, all right.  Don't excite yourself."
+
+"Do you suppose I'd give that coxcomb the triumph of thinking I 
+want to make up to him?"
+
+"No, no, of course not."  Klaus shrugged his shoulders and walked 
+on, whistling.
+
+"Or that I want to make trouble for that fine family of his?  No, I 
+may find a way to take it out of him some day, but it won't be that 
+way."
+
+"Well, but, damn it, man! you can surely stand hearing what people 
+say about him."  And Klaus went on to tell his story.  Ferdinand 
+Holm, it seemed, was the despair of his family.  He had thrown up 
+his studies at the Military Academy, because he thought soldiers 
+and soldiering ridiculous.  Then he had made a short experiment 
+with theology, but found that worse still; and finally, having 
+discovered that engineering was at any rate an honest trade, he had 
+come to anchor at the Technical College.  "What do you say to 
+that?" asked Klaus.
+
+"I don't see anything so remarkable about it."
+
+"Wait a bit, the cream of the story's to come.  A few weeks ago he 
+thrashed a policeman in the street--said he'd insulted a child, or 
+something.  There was a fearful scandal--arrest, the police-court, 
+fine, and so forth.  And last winter what must he do but get 
+engaged, formally and publicly engaged, to one of his mother's 
+maids.  And when his mother sent the girl off behind his back, he 
+raised the standard of revolt and left home altogether.  And now he 
+does nothing but breathe fire and slaughter against the upper 
+classes and all their works.  What do you say to that?"
+
+"My good man, what the deuce has all this got to do with me?"
+
+"Well, I think it's confoundedly plucky of him, anyhow," said 
+Klaus.  "And for my part I shall get to know him if I can.  He's 
+read an awful lot, they say, and has a damned clever head on his 
+shoulders."
+
+On his very first day at the College, Peer had learned who 
+Ferdinand Holm was, and had studied him with interest.  He was a 
+tall, straight-built fellow with reddish-blond hair and freckled 
+face, and wore a dark tortoiseshell pince-nez.  He did not wear the 
+usual College cap, but a stiff grey felt hat, and he looked about 
+four or five and twenty.
+
+"Wait!" thought Peer to himself--"wait, my fine fellow!  Yes, you 
+were there, no doubt, when they turned me out of the churchyard 
+that day.  But all that won't help you here.  You may have got the 
+start of me at first, and learned this, that, and the other, but--
+you just wait."
+
+But one morning, out in the quadrangle, he noticed that Ferdinand 
+Holm in his turn was looking at him, in fact was putting his 
+glasses straight to get a better view of him--and Peer turned round 
+at once and walked away.
+
+Ferdinand, however, had been put into a higher class almost at 
+once, on the strength of his matriculation.  Also he was going in 
+for a different branch of the work--roads and railway construction--
+so that it was only in the quadrangle and the passages that the 
+two ever met.
+
+But one afternoon, soon after Christmas, Peer was standing at work 
+in the big designing-room, when he heard steps behind him, and, 
+turning round, saw Klaus Brock and--Ferdinand Holm.
+
+"I wanted to make your acquaintance," said Holm, and when Klaus had 
+introduced them, he held out a large white hand with a red seal-
+ring on the first finger.  "We're namesakes, I understand, and 
+Brock here tells me you take your name from a country place called 
+Holm."
+
+"Yes.  My father was a plain country farmer," said Peer, and at 
+once felt annoyed with himself for the ring of humility the words 
+seemed to have.
+
+"Well, the best is good enough," said the other with a smile.  "I 
+say, though, has the first-term class gone as far as this in 
+projection drawing?  Excuse my asking.  You see, we had a good deal 
+of this sort of thing at the Military Academy, so that I know a 
+little about it."
+
+Thought Peer:  "Oh, you'd like to give me a little good advice, 
+would you, if you dared?"  Aloud he said:  "No, the drawing was on 
+the blackboard--the senior class left it there--and I thought I'd 
+like to see what I could make out of it."
+
+The other sent him a sidelong glance.  Then he nodded, said, "Good-
+bye--hope we shall meet again," and walked off, his boots creaking 
+slightly as he went.  His easy manners, his gait, the tone of his 
+voice, all seemed to irritate and humiliate Peer.  Never mind--just 
+let him wait!
+
+Days passed, and weeks.  Peer soon found another object to work for 
+than getting the better of Ferdinand Holm.  Louise's dresses hung 
+still untouched in his room, her shoes stood under the bed; it 
+still seemed to him that some day she must open the door and walk 
+in.  And when he lay there alone at night, the riddle was always 
+with him:  Where is she now?--why should she have died?--would he 
+never meet her again?  He saw her always as she had stood that day 
+playing to the sick folks in the hospital ward.  But now she was 
+dressed in white.  And it seemed quite natural now that she had 
+wings.  He heard her music too--it cradled and rocked him.  And all 
+this came to be a little world apart, where he could take refuge 
+for Sunday peace and devotion.  It had nothing to do with faith or 
+religion, but it was there.  And sometimes in the midst of his work 
+in the daytime he would divine, as in a quite separate consciousness,
+the tones of a fiddle-bow drawn across the strings, like reddish
+waves coming to him from far off, filling him with harmony, till he
+smiled without knowing it.
+
+Often, though, a sort of hunger would come upon him to let his 
+being unfold in a great wide wave of organ music in the church.  
+But to church he never went any more.  He would stride by a church 
+door with a kind of defiance.  It might indeed be an Almighty Will 
+that had taken Louise from him, but if so he did not mean to give 
+thanks to such a Will or bow down before it.  It was as though he 
+had in view a coming reckoning--his reckoning with something far 
+out in eternity--and he must see to it that when that time came he 
+could feel free--free.
+
+On Sunday mornings, when the church bells began to ring, he would 
+turn hastily to his books, as if to find peace in them.  Knowledge--
+knowledge--could it stay his hunger for the music of the hymn?  
+When he had first started work at the shops, he had often and often 
+stood wide-eyed before some miracle--now he was gathering the power 
+to work miracles himself.  And so he read and read, and drank in 
+all that he could draw from teacher or book, and thought and 
+thought things out for himself.  Fixed lessons and set tasks were 
+all well enough, but Peer was for ever looking farther; for him 
+there were questions and more questions, riddles and new riddles--
+always new, always farther and farther on, towards the unknown.  He 
+had made as yet but one step forward in physics, mathematics, 
+chemistry; he divined that there were worlds still before him, and 
+he must hasten on, on, on.  Would the day ever come when he should 
+reach the end?  What is knowledge?  What use do men make of all 
+that they have learned?  Look at the teachers, who knew so much--
+were they greater, richer, brighter beings than the rest?  Could 
+much study bring a man so far that some night he could lift up a 
+finger and make the stars themselves break into song?  Best drive 
+ahead, at any rate.  But, again, could knowledge lead on to that 
+ecstasy of the Sunday psalm, that makes all riddles clear, that 
+bears a man upwards in nameless happiness, in which his soul 
+expands till it can enfold the infinite spaces?  Well, at any rate 
+the best thing was to drive ahead, drive ahead both early and late.
+
+One day that spring, when the trees in the city avenues were 
+beginning to bud, Klaus Brock and Ferdinand Holm were sitting in a 
+cafe in North Street.  "There goes your friend," said Ferdinand; 
+and looking from the window they saw Peer Holm passing the post-
+office on the other side of the road.  His clothes were shabby, his 
+shoes had not been cleaned, he walked slowly, his fair head with 
+its College cap bent forward, but seemed nevertheless to notice all 
+that was going on in the street.
+
+"Wonder what he's going pondering over now," said Klaus.
+
+"Look there--I suppose that's a type of carriage he's never seen 
+before.  Why, he has got the driver to stop--"
+
+"I wouldn't mind betting he'll crawl in between the wheels to find 
+out whatever he's after," laughed Klaus, drawing back from the 
+window so as not to be seen.
+
+"He looks pale and fagged out," said Ferdinand, shifting his 
+glasses.  "I suppose his people aren't very well off?"
+
+Klaus opened his eyes and looked at the other.  "He's not 
+overburdened with cash, I fancy."
+
+They drank off their beer, and sat smoking and talking of other 
+things, until Ferdinand remarked casually:  "By the way--about your 
+friend--are his parents still alive?"
+
+Klaus was by no means anxious to go into Peer's family affairs, and 
+answered briefly--No, he thought not.
+
+"I'm afraid I'm boring you with questions, but the fact is the 
+fellow interests me rather.  There is something in his face, 
+something--arresting.  Even the way he walks--where is it I've seen 
+some one walk like that before?  And he works like a steam-engine, 
+I hear?"
+
+"Works!" repeated Klaus.  "He'll ruin his health before long, the 
+way he goes on grinding.  I believe he's got an idea that by much 
+learning he can learn at last to--  Ha-ha-ha!"
+
+"To do what?"
+
+"Why--to understand God!"
+
+Ferdinand was staring out of the window.  "Funny enough," he said.
+
+"I ran across him last Sunday, up among the hills.  He was out 
+studying geology, if you please.  And if there's a lecture anywhere 
+about anything--whether it's astronomy or a French poet--you can 
+safely swear he'll be sitting there, taking notes.  You can't 
+compete with a fellow like that!  He'll run across a new name 
+somewhere--Aristotle, for instance.  It's something new, and off he 
+must go to the library to look it up.  And then he'll lie awake for 
+nights after, stuffing his head with translations from the Greek.  
+How the deuce can any one keep up with a man who goes at things 
+that way?  There's one thing, though, that he knows nothing about."
+
+"And that is?"
+
+"Well, wine and women, we'll say--and fun in general.  One thing he 
+isn't, by Jove!--and that's YOUNG."
+
+"Perhaps he's not been able to afford that sort of thing," said 
+Ferdinand, with something like a sigh.
+
+The two sat on for some time, and every now and then, when Klaus 
+was off his guard, Ferdinand would slip in another little question 
+about Peer.  And by the time they had finished their second glass, 
+Klaus had admitted that people said Peer's mother had been a--well--
+no better than she should be.
+
+"And what about his father?" Ferdinand let fall casually.
+
+Klaus flushed uncomfortably at this.  "Nobody--no--nobody knows 
+much about him," he stammered.  "I'd tell you if I knew, hanged if 
+I wouldn't.  No one has an idea who it was.  He--he's very likely 
+in America."
+
+"You're always mighty mysterious when you get on the subject of his 
+family, I've noticed," said Ferdinand with a laugh.  But Klaus 
+thought his companion looked a little pale.
+
+A few days later Peer was sitting alone in his room above the 
+stables, when he heard a step on the stairs, the door opened, and 
+Ferdinand Holm walked in.
+
+Peer rose involuntarily and grasped at the back of his chair as if 
+to steady himself.  If this young coxcomb had come--from the 
+schoolmaster, for instance--or to take away his name--why, he'd 
+just throw him downstairs, that was all.
+
+"I thought I'd like to look you up, and see where you lived," began 
+the visitor, laying down his hat and taking a seat.  "I've taken 
+you unawares, I see.  Sorry to disturb you.  But the fact is 
+there's something I wanted to speak to you about."
+
+"Oh, is there?" and Peer sat down as far as conveniently possible 
+from the other.
+
+"I've noticed, even in the few times we've happened to meet, that 
+you don't like me.  Well, you know, that's a thing I'm not going to 
+put up with."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Peer, hardly knowing whether to laugh or 
+not.
+
+"I want to be friends with you, that's all.  You probably know a 
+good deal more about me than I do about you, but that need not 
+matter.  Hullo--do you always drum with your fingers on the table 
+like that?  Ha-ha-ha!  Why, that was a habit of my father's, too."
+
+Peer stared at the other in silence.  But his fingers stopped 
+drumming.
+
+"I rather envy you, you know, living as you do.  When you come to 
+be a millionaire, you'll have an effective background for your 
+millions.  And then, you must know a great deal more about life 
+than we do; and the knowledge that comes out of books must have 
+quite another spiritual value for you than for the rest of us, 
+who've been stuffed mechanically with 'lessons' and 'education' and 
+so forth since we were kids.  And now you're going in for 
+engineering?"
+
+"Yes," said Peer.  His face added pretty clearly, "And what concern 
+is it of yours?"
+
+"Well, it does seem to me that the modern technician is a priest in 
+his way--or no, perhaps I should rather call him a descendant of 
+old Prometheus.  Quite a respectable ancestry, too, don't you 
+think?  But has it ever struck you that with every victory over 
+nature won by the human spirit, a fragment of their omnipotence is 
+wrested from the hands of the gods?  I always feel as if we were 
+using fire and steel, mechanical energy and human thought, as 
+weapons of revolt against the Heavenly tyranny.  The day will come 
+when we shall no longer need to pray.  The hour will strike when 
+the Heavenly potentates will be forced to capitulate, and in their 
+turn bend the knee to us.  What do you think yourself?  Jehovah 
+doesn't like engineers--that's MY opinion."
+
+"Sounds very well," said Peer briefly.  But he had to admit to 
+himself that the other had put into words something that had been 
+struggling for expression in his own mind.
+
+"Of course for the present we two must be content with smaller 
+things," Ferdinand went on.  "And I don't mind admitting that 
+laying out a bit of road, or a bit of railway, or bridging a ditch 
+or so, isn't work that appeals to me tremendously.  But if a man 
+can get out into the wide world, there are things enough to be done 
+that give him plenty of chance to develop what's in him--if there 
+happens to be anything.  I used to envy the great soldiers, who 
+went about to the ends of the earth, conquering wild tribes and 
+founding empires, organising and civilising where they went.  But 
+in our day an engineer can find big jobs too, once he gets out in 
+the world--draining thousands of square miles of swamp, or 
+regulating the Nile, or linking two oceans together.  That's the 
+sort of thing I'm going to take a hand in some day.  As soon as 
+I've finished here, I'm off.  And we'll leave it to the engineers 
+to come, say in a couple of hundred years or so, to start in 
+arranging tourist routes between the stars.  Do you mind my 
+smoking?"
+
+"No, please do," said Peer.  "But I'm sorry I haven't--"
+
+"I have--thanks all the same."  Ferdinand took out his cigar-case, 
+and when Peer had declined the offered cigar, lit one himself.
+
+"Look here," he said, "won't you come out and have dinner with me 
+somewhere?"
+
+Peer started at his visitor.  What did all this mean?
+
+"I'm a regular Spartan, as a rule, but they've just finished 
+dividing up my father's estate, so I'm in funds for the moment, and 
+why shouldn't we have a little dinner to celebrate?  If you want to 
+change, I can wait outside--but come just as you are, of course, if 
+you prefer."
+
+Peer was more and more perplexed.  Was there something behind all 
+this?  Or was the fellow simply an astonishingly good sort?  Giving 
+it up at last, he changed his collar and put on his best suit and 
+went.
+
+For the first time in his life he found himself in a first-class 
+restaurant, with small tables covered with snow-white tablecloths, 
+flowers in vases, napkins folded sugar-loaf shape, cut-glass bowls, 
+and coloured wine-glasses.  Ferdinand seemed thoroughly at home, 
+and treated his companion with a friendly politeness.  And during 
+the meal he managed to make the talk turn most of the time on 
+Peer's childhood and early days.
+
+When they had come to the coffee and cigars, Ferdinand leaned 
+across the table towards him, and said:  "Look here, don't you 
+think we two ought to say thee and thou* to each other?"
+
+
+* "Tutoyer," the mode of address of intimate friendship or 
+relationship.
+
+
+"Oh, yes!" said Peer, really touched now.
+
+"We're both Holms, you know."
+
+"Yes.  So we are."
+
+"And, after all, who knows that there mayn't be some sort of 
+connection?  Come, now, don't look like that!  I only want you to 
+look on me as your good friend, and to come to me if ever there's 
+anything I can do.  We needn't live in each other's pockets, of 
+course, when other people are by--but we must take in Klaus Brock 
+along with us, don't you think?"
+
+Peer felt a strong impulse to run away.  Did the other know 
+everything?  If so, why didn't he speak straight out?
+
+As the two walked home in the clear light of the spring evening, 
+Ferdinand took his companion's arm, and said:  "I don't know if 
+you've heard that I'm not on good terms with my people at home.  
+But the very first time I saw you, I had a sort of feeling that we 
+two belonged together.  Somehow you seemed to remind me so of--
+well, to tell the truth, of my father.  And he, let me tell you, 
+was a gallant gentleman--"
+
+Peer did not answer, and the matter went no farther then.
+
+But the next few days were an exciting time for Peer.  He could not 
+quite make out how much Ferdinand knew, and nothing on earth would 
+have induced him to say anything more himself.  And the other asked 
+no questions, but was just a first-rate comrade, behaving as if 
+they had been friends for years.  He did not even ask Peer any more 
+about his childhood, and never again referred to his own family.  
+Peer was always reminding himself to be on his guard, but could not 
+help feeling glad all the same whenever they were to meet.
+
+He was invited one evening, with Klaus, to a wine-party at 
+Ferdinand's lodging, and found himself in a handsomely furnished 
+room, with pictures on the walls, and photographs of his host's 
+parents.  There was one of his father as a young man, in uniform; 
+another of his grandfather, who had been a Judge of the Supreme 
+Court.  "It's very good of you to be so interested in my people," 
+said Ferdinand with a smile.  Klaus Brock looked from one to the 
+other, wondering to himself how things really stood between the 
+two.
+
+The summer vacation came round, and the students prepared to break 
+up and go their various ways.  Klaus was to go home.  And one day 
+Ferdinand came to Peer and said:  "Look here, old man.  I want you 
+to do me a great favour.  I'd arranged to go to the seaside this 
+summer, but I've a chance of going up to the hills, too.  Well, I 
+can't be in two places at once--couldn't you take on one of them 
+for me?  Of course I'd pay all expenses."  "No, thank you!" said 
+Peer, with a laugh.  But when Klaus Brock came just before leaving 
+and said:  "See here, Peer.  Don't you think you and I might club 
+together and put a marble slab over--Louise's grave?", Peer was 
+touched, and clapped him on the shoulder.  "What a good old fellow 
+you are, Klaus," he said.
+
+Later in the summer Peer set out alone on a tramp through the 
+country, and whenever he saw a chance, he would go up to one of the 
+farms and say:  "Would you like to have a good map of the farm?  
+It'll cost ten crowns and my lodging while I'm at it."  It made a 
+very pleasant holiday for him, and he came home with a little money 
+in his pocket to boot.
+
+His second year at the school was much like the first.  He plodded 
+along at his work.  And now and then his two friends would come and 
+drag him off for an evening's jollification.  But after he had been 
+racketing about with the others, singing and shouting through the 
+sleeping town--and at last was alone and in his bed in the 
+darkness, another and a very different life began for him, face to 
+face with his innermost self.  Where are you heading for, Peer?  
+What are you aiming at in all your labours?  And he would try to 
+answer devoutly, as at evening prayers:  Where?  Why, of course, I 
+am going to be a great engineer.  And then?  I will be one of the 
+Sons of Prometheus, that head the revolt against the tyranny of 
+Heaven.  And then?  I will help to raise the great ladder on which 
+men can climb aloft--higher and higher, up towards the light, and 
+the spirit, and mastery over nature.  And then?  Live happily, 
+marry and have children, and a rich and beautiful home.  And then?  
+Oh, well, one fine day, of course, one must grow old and die.  And 
+then?  And then?  Aye, what then?
+
+At these times he found a shadowy comfort in taking refuge in the 
+world where Louise stood--playing, as he always saw her--and 
+cradling himself on the smooth red billows of her music.  But why 
+was it that here most of all he felt that hunger for--for something 
+more?
+
+Ferdinand finished his College course, and went out, as he had 
+said, into the great world, and Klaus went with him.  And so 
+throughout his third year Peer was mostly to be seen alone, always 
+with books under his arm, and head bent forward.
+
+Just as he was getting ready to go up for his final examination, a 
+letter from Ferdinand arrived, written from Egypt.  "Come over 
+here, young fellow," he wrote.  "We have got good billets at last 
+with a big British firm--Brown Bros., of London--a firm that's 
+building railways in Canada, bridges in India, harbour works in 
+Argentina, and canals and barrages here in Egypt.  We can get you a 
+nice little post as draughtsman to begin with, and I enclose funds 
+for the passage out.  So come along."
+
+But Peer did not go at once.  He stayed on another year at the 
+College, as assistant to the lecturer on mechanics, while himself 
+going through the road and railway construction course, as his 
+half-brother had done.  Some secret instinct urged him not to be 
+left behind even in this.
+
+As the year went on the letters from his two comrades became more 
+and more pressing and tempting.  "Out here," wrote Klaus, "the 
+engineer is a missionary, proclaimer, not Jehovah, but the power 
+and culture of Europe.  You're bound to take a hand in that, my 
+boy.  There's work worthy of a great general waiting for you here."
+
+At last, one autumn day, when the woods stood yellow all around the 
+town, Peer drove away from his home with a big new travelling-trunk 
+strapped to the driver's seat.  He had been up to the churchyard 
+before starting, with a little bunch of flowers for Louise's grave.  
+Who could say if he would ever see it again?
+
+At the station he stood for a moment looking back over the old city 
+with its cathedral, and the ancient fortress, where the sentry was 
+pacing back and forth against the skyline.  Was this the end of his 
+youth?  Louise--the room above the stables--the hospital, the 
+lazarette, the College. . . .  And there lay the fjord, and far out 
+somewhere on the coast there stood no doubt a little grey fisher-
+hut, where a pock-marked goodwife and her bow-legged goodman had 
+perhaps even now received the parcel of coffee and tobacco sent 
+them as a parting gift.
+
+And so Peer journeyed to the capital, and from there out into the 
+wide world.
+
+
+
+BOOK II
+
+
+Chapter I
+
+
+Some years had passed--a good many years--and once more summer 
+had come, and June.  A passenger steamer, bound from Antwerp to
+Christiania, was ploughing her way one evening over a sea so
+motionlessly calm that it seemed a single vast mirror filled with a
+sky of grey and pink-tinged clouds.  There were plenty of passengers
+on board, and no one felt inclined for bed; it was so warm, so
+beautiful on deck.  Some artists, on their way home from Paris or
+Munich, cast about for amusements to pass the time; some ordered
+wine, others had unearthed a concertina, and very soon, no one knew
+how, a dance was in full swing.  "No, my dear," said one or two
+cautious mothers to their girls, "certainly not."  But before long
+the mothers were dancing themselves.  Then there was a doctor in
+spectacles, who stood up on a barrel and made a speech; and
+presently two of the artists caught hold of the grey-bearded captain
+and chaired him round the deck.  The night was so clear, the skies
+so ruddily beautiful, the air so soft, and out here on the open sea
+all hearts were light and happy.
+
+"Who's that wooden-faced beggar over there that's too high and 
+mighty for a little fun?" asked Storaker the painter, of his friend 
+the sculptor Praas.
+
+"That fellow?  Oh, he's the one that was so infernally instructive 
+at dinner, when we were talking about Egyptian vases."
+
+"So it is, by Jove!  Schoolmaster abroad, I should think.  When we 
+got on to Athens and Greek sculpture he condescended to set us 
+right about that, too."
+
+"I heard him this morning holding forth to the doctor on 
+Assyriology.  No wonder he doesn't dance!"
+
+The passenger they were speaking of was a man of middle height, 
+between thirty and forty apparently, who lay stretched in a deck-
+chair a little way off.  He was dressed in grey throughout, from 
+his travelling-cap to the spats above his brown shoes.  His face 
+was sallow, and the short brown beard was flecked with grey.  But 
+his eyes had gay little gleams in them as they followed the 
+dancers.  It was Peer Holm.
+
+As he sat there watching, it annoyed him to feel that he could not 
+let himself go like the others.  But it was so long since he had 
+mixed with his own countrymen, that he felt insecure of his footing 
+and almost like a foreigner among them.  Besides, in a few hours 
+now they should sight the skerries on the Norwegian coast; and the 
+thought awoke in him a strange excitement--it was a moment he had 
+dreamed of many and many a time out there in the wide world.
+
+After a while stillness fell on the decks around him, and he too 
+went below, but lay down in his cabin without undressing.  He 
+thought of the time when he had passed that way on the outward 
+voyage, poor and unknown, and had watched the last island of his 
+native land sink below the sea-rim.  Much had happened since then--
+and now that he had at last come home, what life awaited him there?
+
+A little after two in the morning he came on deck again, but stood 
+still in astonishment at finding that the vessel was now boring her 
+way through a thick woolly fog.  The devil! thought he, beginning 
+to tramp up and down the deck impatiently.  It seemed that his 
+great moment was to be lost--spoiled for him!  But suddenly he 
+stopped by the railing, and stood gazing out into the east.
+
+What was that?  Far out in the depths of the woolly fog a glowing 
+spot appeared; the grey mass around grew alive, began to move, to 
+redden, to thin out as if it were streaming up in flames.  Ah! now 
+he knew!  It was the globe of the sun, rising out of the sea.  On 
+board, every point where the night's moisture had lodged began to 
+shine in gold.  Each moment it grew clearer and lighter, and the 
+eye reached farther.  And before he could take in what was 
+happening, the grey darkness had rolled itself up into mounds, into 
+mountains, that grew buoyant and floated aloft and melted away.  
+And there, all revealed, lay the fresh bright morning, with a clear 
+sun-filled sky over the blue sea.
+
+It was time now to get out his field-glasses.  For a long time he 
+stood motionless, gazing intently through them.
+
+There!  Was it his fancy?  No, there far ahead he can see clearly 
+now a darker strip between sky and sea.  It's the first skerry.  It 
+is Norway, at last!
+
+Peer felt a sudden catch in his breath; he could hardly stand 
+still, but he stopped again and again in his walk to look once more 
+at the far-off strip of grey.  And now there were seabirds too, 
+with long necks and swiftly-beating wings.  Welcome home!
+
+And now the steamer is ploughing in among the skerries, and a world 
+of rocks and islets unfolds on every side.  There is the first red 
+fisher-hut.  And then the entrance to Christiansand, between wooded 
+hills and islands, where white cottages shine out, each with its 
+patch of green grassland and its flagstaff before it.
+
+Peer watched it all, drinking it in like nourishment.  How good it 
+all tasted--he felt it would be long before he had drunk his fill.
+
+Then came the voyage up along the coast, all through a day of 
+brilliant sunshine and a luminous night.  He saw the blue sounds 
+with swarms of white gulls hovering above them, the little coast-
+towns with their long white-painted wooden houses, and flowers in 
+the windows.  He had never passed this way before, and yet 
+something in him seemed to nod and say:  "I know myself again 
+here."  All the way up the Christiania Fjord there was the scent of 
+leaves and meadows; big farms stood by the shore shining in the 
+sun.  This was what a great farm looked like.  He nodded again.  So 
+warm and fruitful it all seemed, and dear to him as home--though he 
+knew that, after all, he would be little better than a tourist in 
+his own country.  There was no one waiting for him, no one to take 
+him in.  Still, some day things might be very different.
+
+As the ship drew alongside the quay at Christiania, the other 
+passengers lined the rail, friends and relations came aboard, there 
+were tears and laughter and kisses and embraces.  Peer lifted his 
+hat as he passed down the gangway, but no one had time to notice 
+him just now.  And when he had found a hotel porter to look after 
+his luggage, he walked up alone through the town, as if he were a 
+stranger.
+
+The light nights made it difficult to sleep--he had actually 
+forgotten that it was light all night long.  And this was a capital 
+city--yet so touchingly small, it seemed but a few steps wherever 
+he went.  These were his countrymen, but he knew no one among them; 
+there was no one to greet him.  Still, he thought again, some day 
+all this might be very different.
+
+At last, one day as he stood looking at the window of a 
+bookseller's shop, he heard a voice behind him:  "Why, bless me! 
+surely it's Peer Holm!"  It was one of his fellow-students at the 
+Technical College, Reidar Langberg, pale and thin now as ever.  He 
+had been a shining light at the College, but now--now he looked 
+shabby, worn and aged.
+
+"I hardly knew you again," said Peer, grasping the other's hand.
+
+"And you're a millionaire, so they say--and famous, out in the big 
+world?"
+
+"Not quite so bad as that, old fellow.  But what about you?"
+
+"I?  Oh, don't talk about me."  And as they walked down the street 
+together, Langberg poured out his tale, of how times were 
+desperately bad, and conditions at home here simply strangled a 
+man.  He had started ten or twelve years ago as a draughtsman in 
+the offices of the State Railways, and was still there, with a 
+growing family--and "such pay--such pay, my dear fellow!"  He threw 
+up his eyes and clasped his hands despairingly.
+
+"Look here," said Peer, interrupting him.  "Where is the best place 
+in Christiania to go and have a good time in the evening?"
+
+"Well, St. Hans Hill, for instance.  There's music there."
+
+"Right--will you come and dine with me there, to-night--shall we 
+say eight o'clock?"
+
+"Thanks.  I should think I would!"
+
+Peer arrived in good time, and engaged a table on a verandah.  
+Langberg made his appearance shortly after, dressed in his well-
+saved Sunday best--faded frock-coat, light trousers bagged at the 
+knees, and a straw hat yellow with age.
+
+"It's a pleasure to have someone to talk to again," said Peer.  
+"For the last year or so I've been knocking about pretty much by 
+myself."
+
+"Is it as long as that since you left Egypt?"
+
+"Yes; longer.  I've been in Abyssinia since then."
+
+"Oh, of course, I remember now.  It was in the papers.  Building a 
+railway for King Menelik, weren't you?"
+
+"Oh, yes.  But the last eighteen months or so I've been idling--
+running about to theatres and museums and so forth.  I began at 
+Athens and finished up with London.  I remember one day sitting on 
+the steps of the Parthenon declaiming the Antigone--and a moment 
+with some meaning in it seemed to have come at last."
+
+"But, dash it, man, you're surely not comparing such trifles with a 
+thing like the great Nile Barrage?  You were on that for some 
+years, weren't you?  Do let's hear something about that.  Up by the 
+first cataract, wasn't it?  And hadn't you enormous quarries there 
+on the spot?  You see, even sitting at home here, I haven't quite 
+lost touch.  But you--good Lord! what things you must have seen!  
+Fancy living at--what was the name of the town again?"
+
+"Assuan," answered Peer indifferently, looking out over the 
+gardens, where more and more visitors kept arriving.
+
+"They say the barrage is as great a miracle as the Pyramids.  How 
+many sluice-gates are there again--a hundred and . . . ?"
+
+"Two hundred and sixteen," said Peer.  "Look!" he broke off.  "Do 
+you know those girls over there?"  He nodded towards a party of 
+girls in light dresses who were sitting down at a table close by.
+
+Langberg shook his head.  He was greedy for news from the great 
+world without, which he had never had the luck to see.
+
+"I've often wondered," he went on, "how you managed to come to the 
+front so in that sort of work--railways and barrages, and so forth--
+when, your original line was mechanical engineering.  Of course 
+you did do an extra year on the roads and railway side; but . . ."
+
+Oh, this shining light of the schools!
+
+"What do you say to a glass of champagne?" said Peer.  "How do you 
+like it?  Sweet or dry?"
+
+"Why, is there any difference?  I really didn't know.  But when 
+one's a millionaire, of course . . ."
+
+"I'm not a millionaire," said Peer with a smile, and beckoned to a 
+waiter.
+
+"Oh! I heard you were.  Didn't you invent a new motor-pump that 
+drove all the other types out of the field?  And besides--that 
+Abyssinian railway.  Oh well, well!" he sighed, "it's a good thing 
+somebody's lucky.  The rest of us shouldn't complain.  But how 
+about the other two--Klaus Brock and Ferdinand Holm?  What are they 
+doing now?"
+
+"Klaus is looking after the Khedive's estates at Edfina.  
+Agriculture by steam power; his own railway lines to bring in the 
+produce, and so on.  Yes, Klaus has ended up in a nice little place 
+of his own.  His district's bigger than the kingdom of Denmark."
+
+"Good heavens!"  Langberg nearly fell off his chair.  "And 
+Ferdinand Holm; what about him?"
+
+"Oh, he's got bigger things on hand.  Went nosing about the Libyan 
+desert, and found that considerable tracts of it have water-veins 
+only a few yards beneath the surface.  If so, of course, it's only 
+a question of proper plant to turn an enormous area into a paradise 
+for corn-growing."
+
+"Good gracious!  What a discovery!" gasped the other, almost 
+breathless now.
+
+Peer looked out over the fjord, and went on:  "Last year he managed 
+at last to get the Khedive interested, and they've started a joint-
+stock company now, with a capital of some millions.  Ferdinand is 
+chief engineer."
+
+"And what's his salary?  As much as fifty thousand crowns?"
+
+"His pay is two hundred thousand francs a year," said Peer, not 
+without some fear that his companion might faint.  "Yes, he's an 
+able fellow, is Ferdinand."
+
+It took Langberg some time to get his breath again.  At last he 
+asked, with a sidelong glance:
+
+"And you and Klaus Brock--I suppose you've put your millions in his 
+company?"
+
+Peer smiled as he sat looking out over the garden.  Lifting his 
+glass, "Your good health," he said, for all answer.
+
+"Have you been in America, too?" went on the other.  "No, I suppose 
+not!"
+
+"America?  Yes, a few years back, when I was with Brown Bros., they 
+sent me over one time to buy plant.  Nothing so surprising in that, 
+is there?"
+
+"No, no, of course not.  I was only thinking--you went about there, 
+I daresay, and saw all the wonderful things--the miracles of 
+science they're always producing."
+
+"My dear fellow, if you only knew how deadly sick I am of miracles 
+of science!  What I'm longing for is a country watermill that takes 
+twenty-four hours to grind a sack of corn."
+
+"What?  What do you say?"  Langberg bounced in his chair.  "Ha-ha-
+ha!  You're the same old man, I can see."
+
+"I'm perfectly serious," said Peer, lifting his glass towards the 
+other.  "Come.  Here's to our old days together!"
+
+"Aye--thanks, a thousand thanks--to our old days together!--Ah, 
+delicious!  Well, then, I suppose you've fallen in love away down 
+there in the land of the barbarians?  Haven't you?  Ha-ha-ha!"
+
+"Do you call Egypt a land of barbarians?"
+
+"Well, don't the fellahs still yoke their wives to their ploughs?"
+
+"A fellah will sit all night long outside his hut and gaze up at 
+the stars and give himself time to dream.  And a merchant prince in 
+Vienna will dictate business letters in his automobile as he's 
+driving to the theatre, and write telegrams as he sits in the 
+stalls.  One fine day he'll be sitting in his private box with a 
+telephone at one ear and listening to the opera with the other.  
+That's what the miracles of science are doing for us.  Awe-
+inspiring, isn't it?"
+
+"And you talk like that--a man that's helped to harness the Nile, 
+and has built railways through the desert?"
+
+Peer shrugged his shoulders, and offered the other a cigar from his 
+case.  A waiter appeared with coffee.
+
+"To help mankind to make quicker progress--is that nothing?"
+
+"Lord!  What I'd like to know is, where mankind are making for, 
+that they're in such a hurry."
+
+"That the Nile Barrage has doubled the production of corn in Egypt--
+created the possibilities of life for millions of human beings--is 
+that nothing?"
+
+"My good fellow, do you really think there aren't enough fools on 
+this earth already?  Have we too little wailing and misery and 
+discontent and class-hatred as it is?  Why must we go about to 
+double it?"
+
+"But hang it all, man--what about European culture?  Surely you 
+felt yourself a sort of missionary of civilisation, where you have 
+been."
+
+"The spread of European civilisation in the East simply means that 
+half a dozen big financiers in London or Paris take a fancy to a 
+certain strip of Africa or Asia.  They press a button, and out come 
+all the ministers and generals and missionaries and engineers with 
+a bow:  At your service, gentlemen!
+
+"Culture!  One wheel begets ten new ones.  Brr-rrr!  And the ten 
+again another hundred.  Brr-rr-rrr--more speed, more competition--
+and all for what?  For culture?  No, my friend, for money.  
+Missionary!  I tell you, as long as Western Europe with all its 
+wonders of modern science and its Christianity and its political 
+reforms hasn't turned out a better type of humanity than the mean 
+ruck of men we have now--we'd do best to stay at home and hold our 
+counfounded jaw.  Here's ourselves!" and Peer emptied his glass.
+
+This was a sad hearing for poor Langberg.  For he had been used to 
+comfort himself in his daily round with the thought that even he, 
+in his modest sphere, was doing his share in the great work of 
+civilising the world.
+
+At last he leaned back, watching the smoke from his cigar, and 
+smiling a little.
+
+"I remember a young fellow at the College," he said, "who used to 
+talk a good deal about Prometheus, and the grand work of liberating 
+humanity, by stealing new and ever new fire from Olympus."
+
+"That was me--yes," said Peer with a laugh.  "As a matter of fact, 
+I was only quoting Ferdinand Holm."
+
+"You don't believe in all that now?"
+
+"It strikes me that fire and steel are rapidly turning men into 
+beasts.  Machinery is killing more and more of what we call the 
+godlike in us."
+
+"But, good heavens, man!  Surely a man can be a Christian even 
+if . . ."
+
+"Christian as much as you like.  But don't you think it might soon 
+be time we found something better to worship than an ascetic on a 
+cross?  Are we to keep on for ever singing Hallelujah because we've 
+saved our own skins and yet can haggle ourselves into heaven?  Is 
+that religion?"
+
+"No, no, perhaps not.  But I don't know . . ."
+
+"Neither do I.  But it's all the same; for anyhow no such thing as 
+religious feeling exists any longer.  Machinery is killing our 
+longings for eternity, too.  Ask the good people in the great 
+cities.  They spend Christmas Eve playing tunes from The Dollar 
+Princess on the gramophone."
+
+Langberg sat for a while watching the other attentively.  Peer sat 
+smoking slowly; his face was flushed with the wine, but from time 
+to time his eyes half-closed, and his thoughts seemed to be 
+wandering in other fields than these.
+
+"And what do you think of doing now you are home again?" asked his 
+companion at last.
+
+Peer opened his eyes.  "Doing?  Oh, I don't know.  Look about me 
+first of all.  Then perhaps I may find a cottar's croft somewhere 
+and settle down and marry a dairymaid.  Here's luck!"
+
+The gardens were full now of people in light summer dress, and in 
+the luminous evening a constant ripple of laughter and gay voices 
+came up to them.  Peer looked curiously at the crowd, all strangers 
+to him, and asked his companion the names of some of the people.  
+Langberg pointed out one or two celebrities--a Cabinet Minister 
+sitting near by, a famous explorer a little farther off.  "But I 
+don't know them personally," he added.  "Can't afford society on 
+that scale, of course."
+
+"How beautiful it is here!" said Peer, looking out once more at the 
+yellow shimmer of light above the fjord.  "And how good it is to be 
+home again!"
+
+
+
+Chapter II
+
+
+He sat in the train on his way up-country, and from the carriage 
+window watched farms and meadows and tree-lined roads slide past.  
+Where was he going?  He did not know himself.  Why should not a man 
+start off at haphazard, and get out when the mood takes him?  At 
+last he was able to travel through his own country without having 
+to think of half-pennies.  He could let the days pass over his head 
+without care or trouble, and give himself good leisure to enjoy any 
+beauty that came in his way.
+
+There is Mjosen, the broad lake with the rich farmlands and long 
+wooded ridges on either side.  He had never been here before, yet 
+it seemed as if something in him nodded a recognition to it all.  
+Once more he sat drinking in the rich, fruitful landscape--the 
+wooded hills, the fields and meadows seemed to spread themselves 
+out over empty places in his mind.
+
+But later in the day the landscape narrowed and they were in 
+Gudbrandsdalen, where the sunburned farms are set on green slopes 
+between the river and the mountains.  Peer's head was full of 
+pictures from abroad, from the desert sands with their scorched 
+palm-trees to the canals of Venice.  But here--he nodded again.  
+Here he was at home, though he had never seen the place before; 
+just this it was which had been calling to him all through his long 
+years of exile.
+
+At last on a sudden he gathered up his traps and got out, without 
+the least idea even of the name of the station.  A meal at the 
+hotel, a knapsack on his back, and hey!--there before him lies the 
+road, up into the hills.
+
+Alone?  What matter, when there are endless things that greet him 
+from every side with "Welcome home!"  The road is steep, the air 
+grows lighter, the homesteads smaller.  At last the huts look like 
+little matchboxes--from the valley, no doubt, it must seem as if 
+the people up here were living among the clouds.  But many and many 
+a youth must have followed this road in the evenings, going up to 
+court his Mari or his Kari at the saeter-hut, the same road and the 
+same errand one generation after another.  To Peer it seemed as if 
+all those lads now bore him company--aye, as if he discovered in 
+himself something of wanton youth that had managed to get free at 
+last.
+
+Puh!  His coat must come off and his cap go into the knapsack.  
+Now, as the valley sinks and sinks farther beneath him, the view 
+across it widens farther and farther out over the uplands beyond.  
+Brown hills and blue, ridges livid or mossy-grey in the setting 
+sun, rising and falling wave behind wave, and beyond all a great 
+snowfield, like a sea of white breakers foaming against the sky.  
+But surely he had seen all this before?
+
+Ah! now he knew; it was the Lofoten Sea over again--with its white 
+foam-crested combers and long-drawn, heavy-breathing swell--a 
+rolling ocean turned to rock.  Peer halted a moment leaning on his 
+stick, and his eyes half-closed.  Could he not feel that same 
+ocean-swell rising and sinking in his own being?  Did not the same 
+waves surge through the centuries, carrying the generations away 
+with them upon great wanderings?  And in daily life the wave rolls 
+us along in the old familiar rhythm, and not one in ten thousand 
+lifts his head above it to ask: whither and why!  Even now just 
+such a little wave has hold of him, taking him--whither and why?  
+Well, the coming days might show; meanwhile, there beyond was the 
+sea of stone rolling its eternal cadence under the endless sky.
+
+He wiped his forehead and turned and went his way.
+
+But what is that far off in the north-east? three sisters in white 
+shawls, lifting their heads to heaven--that must be Rondane.  And 
+see how the evening sun is kindling the white peaks to purple and 
+gold.
+
+Puh!--only one more hill now, and here is the top at last.  And 
+there ahead lie the great uplands, with marsh and mound and 
+gleaming tarns.  Ah, what a relief!  What wonder that his step 
+grows lighter and quicker?  Before he knows it he is singing aloud 
+in mere gaiety of heart.  Ah, dear God, what if after all it were 
+not too late to be young!
+
+A saeter.  A little hut, standing on a patch of green, with split-
+stick fence and a long cow-house of rough planks--it must be a 
+saeter!  And listen--isn't that a girl singing?  Peer slipped 
+softly through the gate and stood listening against the wall of the 
+byre.  "Shap, shap, shap," went the streams of milk against the 
+pail.  It must be a fairy sitting milking in there.  Then came the 
+voice:
+
+
+      Oh, Sunday eve, oh, Sunday eve,
+      Ever wast thou my dearest eve!
+
+
+"Shap, shap, shap!" went the milk once more in the pail--and 
+suddenly Peer joined in:
+
+
+      Oh bright, oh gentle Sunday eve--
+      Wilt ever be my dearest eve!
+
+
+The milking stopped, a cowbell tinkled as the cow turned her 
+inquiring face, and a girl's light-brown head of hair was thrust 
+out of the doorway--soon followed by the girl herself, slender, 
+eighteen, red-cheeked, fresh and smiling.
+
+"Good evening," said Peer, stretching out his hand.
+
+The girl looked at him for a moment, then cast a glance at her own 
+clothes--as women will when they see a man who takes their fancy.
+
+"An' who may you be?" she asked.
+
+"Can you cook me some cream-porridge?"
+
+"A' must finish milking first, then."
+
+Here was a job that Peer could help with.  He took off his 
+knapsack, washed his hands, and was soon seated on a stool in the 
+close sweet air of the shed, milking busily.  Then he fetched 
+water, and chopped some wood for the fire, the girl gazing at him 
+all the time, no doubt wondering who this crazy person could be.  
+When the porridge stood ready on the table, he insisted on her 
+sitting down close to him and sharing the meal.  They ate a little, 
+and then laughed a little, and then chatted, and then ate and then 
+laughed again.  When he asked what he had to pay, the girl said:  
+"Whatever you like"--and he gave her two crowns and then bent her 
+head back and kissed her lips.  "What's the man up to?" he heard 
+her gasp behind him as he passed out; when he had gone a good way 
+and turned to look back, there she was in the doorway, shading her 
+eyes and watching him.
+
+Whither away now?  Well, he was pretty sure to reach some other 
+inhabited place before night.  This, he felt, was not his abiding-
+place.  No, it was not here.
+
+It was nearly midnight when he stood by the shore of a broad 
+mountain lake, beneath a snow-flecked hill-side.  Here were a 
+couple of saeters, and across the lake, on a wooded island, stood a 
+small frame house that looked like some city people's summer 
+cottage.  And see--over the lake, that still mirrored the evening 
+red, a boat appeared moving towards the island, and two white-
+sleeved girls sat at the oars, singing as they rowed.  A strange 
+feeling came over him.  Here--here he would stay.
+
+In the saeter-hut stood an enormously fat woman, with a rope round 
+her middle, evidently ready to go to bed.  Could she put him up for 
+the night?  Why, yes, she supposed so--and she rolled off into 
+another room.  And soon he was lying in a tiny chamber, in a bed 
+with a mountainous mattress and a quilt.  There was a fresh smell 
+from the juniper twigs strewed about the newly-washed floor, and 
+the cheeses, which stood in rows all round the shelf-lined walls.  
+Ah! he had slept in many places and fashions--at sea in a Lofoten 
+boat; on the swaying back of a camel; in tents out in the moonlit 
+desert; and in palaces of the Arabian Nights, where dwarfs fanned 
+him with palm-leaves to drive away the heat, and called him pasha.  
+But here, at last, he had found a place where it was good to be.  
+And he closed his eyes, and lay listening to the murmur of a little 
+stream outside in the light summer night, till he fell asleep.
+
+Late in the forenoon of the next day he was awakened by the entry 
+of the old woman with coffee.  Then a plunge into the blue-green 
+water of the mountain lake, a short swim, and back to find grilled 
+trout and new-baked waffles and thick cream for lunch.
+
+Yes, said the old woman, if he could get along with the sort of 
+victuals she could cook, he might stay here a few days and welcome.  
+The bed was standing there empty, anyway.
+
+
+
+Chapter III
+
+
+So Peer stays on and goes fishing.  He catches little; but time 
+goes leisurely here, and the summer lies soft and warm over the 
+brown and blue hillsides.  He has soon learned that a merchant 
+named Uthoug, from Ringeby, is living in the house on the island, 
+with his wife and daughter.  And what of it?
+
+Often he would lie in his boat, smoking his pipe, and giving 
+himself up to quiet dreams that came and passed.  A young girl in a 
+white boat, moving over red waters in the evening--a secret meeting 
+on an island--no one must know just yet. . . .  Would it ever 
+happen to him?  Ah, no.
+
+The sun goes down, there come sounds of cow-bells nearing the 
+saeters, the musical cries and calls of the saeter-girls, the 
+lowing of the cattle.  The mountains stand silent in the distance, 
+their snow-clad tops grown golden; the stream slides rippling by, 
+murmuring on through the luminous nights.
+
+Then at last came the day of all days.
+
+He had gone out for a long tramp at random over the hills, making 
+his way by compass, and noting landmarks to guide him back.  Here 
+was a marsh covered with cloud-berries--the taste brought back his 
+own childhood.  He wandered on up a pale-brown ridge flecked with 
+red heather--and what was that ahead?  Smoke?  He made towards it.  
+Yes, it was smoke.  A ptarmigan fluttered out in front of him, with 
+a brood of tiny youngsters at her heels--Lord, what a shave!--he 
+stopped short to avoid treading on them.  The smoke meant someone 
+near--possibly a camp of Lapps.  Let's go and see.
+
+He topped the last mound, and there was the fire just below.  Two 
+girls jumped to their feet; there was a bright coffee-kettle on the 
+fire, and on the moss-covered ground close by bread and butter and 
+sandwiches laid out on a paper tablecloth.
+
+Peer stopped short in surprise.  The girls gazed at him for a 
+moment, and he at them, all three with a hesitating smile.
+
+At last Peer lifted his hat and asked the way to Rustad saeter.  It 
+took them some time to explain this, and then they asked him the 
+time.  He told them exactly to the minute, and then showed them his 
+watch so that they might see for themselves.  All this took more 
+time.  Meanwhile, they had inspected each other, and found no 
+reason to part company just yet.  One of the girls was tall, 
+slender of figure, with a warm-coloured oval face and dark brown 
+hair.  Her eyebrows were thick and met above the nose, delightful 
+to look at.  She wore a blue serge dress, with the skirt kilted up 
+a little, leaving her ankles visible.  The other was a blonde, 
+smaller of stature, and with a melancholy face, though she smiled 
+constantly.  "Oh," she said suddenly, "have you a pocket-knife by 
+any chance?"
+
+"Oh yes!"  Peer was just moving off, but gladly seized the 
+opportunity to stay a while.
+
+"We've a tin of sardines here, and nothing to open it with," said 
+the dark one.
+
+"Let me try," said Peer.  As luck would have it, he managed to cut 
+himself a little, and the two girls tumbled over each other to tie 
+up the wound.  It ended, of course, with their asking him to join 
+their coffee-party.
+
+"My name is Merle Uthoug," said the dark one, with a curtsy.
+
+"Oh, then, it's your father who has the place on the island in the 
+lake?"
+
+"My name's only Mork--Thea Mork.  My father is a lawyer, and we 
+have a little cottage farther up the lake," said the blonde.
+
+Peer was about to introduce himself, when the dark girl interrupted:
+"Oh, we know you already," she said.  "We've seen you out rowing 
+on the lake so often.  And we had to find out who you were.  
+We have a good pair of glasses . . ."
+
+"Merle!" broke in her companion warningly.
+
+". . . and then, yesterday, we sent one of the maids over 
+reconnoitring, to make inquiries and bring us a full report."
+
+"Merle!  How can you say such things?"
+
+It was a cheery little feast.  Ah! how young they were, these two 
+girls, and how they laughed at a joke, and what quantities of bread 
+and butter and coffee they all three disposed of!  Merle now and 
+again would give their companion a sidelong glance, while Thea 
+laughed at all the wild things her friend said, and scolded her, 
+and looked anxiously at Peer.
+
+And now the sun was nearing the shoulder of a hill far in the west, 
+and evening was falling.  They packed up their things, and Peer was 
+loaded up with a big bag of cloud-berries on his back, and a tin 
+pail to carry in his hand.  "Give him some more," said Merle.  
+"It'll do him good to work for a change."
+
+"Merle, you really are too bad!"
+
+"Here you are," said the girl, and slid the handle of a basket into 
+his other hand.
+
+Then they set out down the hill.  Merle sang and yodelled as they 
+went; then Peer sang, and then they all three sang together.  And 
+when they came to a heather-tussock or a puddle, they did not 
+trouble to go round, but just jumped over it, and then gave another 
+jump for the fun of the thing.
+
+They passed the saeter and went on down to the water's edge, and 
+Peer proposed to row them home.  And so they rowed across.  And the 
+whole time they sat talking and laughing together as if they had 
+known each other for years.
+
+The boat touched land just below the cottage, and a broad-
+shouldered man with a grey beard and a straw hat came down to meet 
+them.  "Oh, father, are you back again?" cried Merle, and, 
+springing ashore, she flung her arms round his neck.  The two 
+exchanged some whispered words, and the father glanced at Peer.  
+Then, taking off his hat, he came towards him and said politely, 
+"It was very kind of you to help the girls down."
+
+"This is Herr Holm, engineer and Egyptian," said Merle, "and this 
+is father."
+
+"I hear we are neighbours," said Uthoug.  "We're just going to have 
+tea, so if you have nothing better to do, perhaps you will join 
+us."
+
+Outside the cottage stood a grey-haired lady with a pale face, 
+wearing spectacles.  She had a thick white woollen shawl over her 
+shoulders, but even so she seemed to feel cold.  "Welcome," she 
+said, and Peer thought there was a tremor in her voice.
+
+There were two small low rooms with an open fireplace in the one, 
+and in it there stood a table ready laid.  But from the moment 
+Merle entered the house, she took command of everything, and 
+whisked in and out.  Soon there was the sound of fish cooking in 
+the kitchen, and a moment later she came in with a plate full of 
+lettuce, and said:  "Mr. Egyptian--you can make us an Arabian 
+salad, can't you?"
+
+Peer was delighted.  "I should think so," he said.
+
+"You'll find salt and pepper and vinegar and oil on the table 
+there, and that's all we possess in the way of condiments.  But it 
+must be a real Arabian salad all the same, if you please!"  And out 
+she went again, while Peer busied himself with the salad.
+
+"I hope you will excuse my daughter," said Fru Uthoug, turning her 
+pale face towards him and looking through her spectacles.  "She is 
+not really so wild as she seems."
+
+Uthoug himself walked up and down the room, chatting to Peer and 
+asking a great many questions about conditions in Egypt.  He knew 
+something about the Mahdi, and General Gordon, and Khartoum, and 
+the strained relations between the Khedive and the Sultan.  He was 
+evidently a diligent reader of the newspapers, and Peer gathered 
+that he was a Radical, and a man of some weight in his party.  And 
+he looked as if there was plenty of fire smouldering under his 
+reddish eyelids:  "A bad man to fall out with," thought Peer.
+
+They sat down to supper, and Peer noticed that Fru Uthoug grew less 
+pale and anxious as her daughter laughed and joked and chattered.  
+There even came a slight glow at last into the faded cheeks; the 
+eyes behind the spectacles seemed to shine with a light borrowed 
+from her daughter's.  But her husband seemed not to notice 
+anything, and tried all the time to go on talking about the Mahdi 
+and the Khedive and the Sultan.
+
+So for the first time for many years Peer sat down to table in a 
+Norwegian home--and how good it was!  Would he ever have a home of 
+his own, he wondered.
+
+After the meal, a mandolin was brought out, and they sat round the 
+fire in the great fireplace and had some music.  Until at last 
+Merle rose and said:  "Now, mother, it's time you went to bed."
+
+"Yes, dear," came the answer submissively, and Fru Uthoug said 
+good-night, and Merle led her off.
+
+Peer had risen to take leave, when Merle came in again.  "Why," she 
+said, "you're surely not going off before you've rowed Thea home?"
+
+"Oh, Merle, please . . ." put in the other.
+
+But when the two had taken their places in the boat and were just 
+about to start up the lake, Merle came running down and said she 
+might just as well come too.
+
+Half an hour later, having seen the young girl safely ashore at her 
+father's place, Merle and Peer were alone, rowing back through the 
+still night over the waters of the lake, golden in the light and 
+dark blue in the shadows.  Merle leaned back in the stern, silent, 
+trailing a small branch along the surface of the water behind.  
+After a while Peer laid in his oars and let the boat drift.
+
+"How beautiful it is!" he said.
+
+The girl lifted her head and looked round.  "Yes," she answered, 
+and Peer fancied her voice had taken a new tone.
+
+It was past midnight.  Heights and woods and saeters lay lifeless 
+in the soft suffused reddish light.  The lake-trout were not rising 
+any more, but now and again the screech of a cock-ptarmigan could 
+be heard among the withies.
+
+"What made you come just here for your holiday, I wonder," she 
+asked suddenly.
+
+"I leave everything to chance, Froken Uthoug.  It just happened so.  
+It's all so homelike here, wherever one goes.  And it is so 
+wonderful to be home in Norway again."
+
+"But haven't you been to see your people--your father and mother--
+since you came home?"
+
+"I--!  Do you suppose I have a father and mother?"
+
+"But near relations--surely you must have a brother or sister 
+somewhere in the world?"
+
+"Ah, if one only had!  Though, after all, one can get on without."
+
+She looked at him searchingly, as if trying to see whether he spoke 
+in earnest.  Then she said:
+
+"Do you know that mother dreamed of you before you came?"
+
+"Of me?"  Peer's eyes opened wide.  "What did she dream about me?"
+
+A sudden flush came to the girl's face, and she shook her head.  
+"It's foolish of me to sit here and tell you all this.  But you see 
+that was why we wanted so much to find out about you when you came.  
+And it gives me a sort of feeling of our having known each other a 
+long time."
+
+"You appear to have a very constant flow of high spirits, Froken 
+Uthoug!"
+
+"I?  Why do you think--?  Oh, well, yes.  One can come by most 
+things, you know, if one has to have them."
+
+"Even high spirits?"
+
+She turned her head and looked towards the shore.  "Some day 
+perhaps--if we should come to be friends--I'll tell you more about 
+it."
+
+Peer bent to his oars and rowed on.  The stillness of the night 
+drew them nearer and nearer together, and made them silent; only 
+now and then they would look at each other and smile.
+
+"What mysterious creature is this I have come upon?" thought Peer.  
+She might be about one-or two-and-twenty.  She sat there with bowed 
+head, and in this soft glow the oval face had a strange light of 
+dreams upon it.  But suddenly her glance came back and rested on 
+him again, and then she smiled, and he saw that her mouth was large 
+and her lips full and red.
+
+"I wish I had been all over the world, like you," she said.
+
+"Have you never been abroad, Froken Uthoug?" he asked.
+
+"I spent a winter in Berlin, once, and a few months in South 
+Germany.  I played the violin a little, you see; and I hoped to 
+take it up seriously abroad and make something of it--but--"
+
+"Well, why shouldn't you?"
+
+She was silent for a little, then at last she said:  "I suppose you 
+are sure to know about it some day, so I may just as well tell you 
+now.  Mother has been out of her mind."
+
+"My dear Froken--"
+
+"And when she's at home my--high spirits are needed to help her to 
+be more or less herself."
+
+He felt an impulse to rise and go to the girl, and take her head 
+between his hands.  But she looked up, with a melancholy smile; 
+their eyes met in a long look, and she forgot to withdraw her 
+glance.
+
+"I must go ashore now," she said at last.
+
+"Oh, so soon!  Why, we have hardly begun our talk!"
+
+"I must go ashore now," she repeated; and her voice, though still 
+gentle, was not to be gainsaid.
+
+At last Peer was alone, rowing back to his saeter.  As he rowed he 
+watched the girl going slowly up towards the cottage.  When she 
+reached the door she turned for the first time and waved to him.  
+Then she stood for a moment looking after him, and then opened the 
+door and disappeared.  He gazed at the door some time longer, as if 
+expecting to see it open again, but no sign of life was to be seen.
+
+The sun's rim was showing now above the distant ranges in the east, 
+and the white peaks in the north and west kindled in the morning 
+glow.  Peer laid in his oars again, and rested, with his elbows on 
+his knees and his head in his hands.  What could this thing be that 
+had befallen him today?
+
+How could those peaks stand round so aloof and indifferent, and 
+leave him here disconsolate and alone?
+
+What was it, this new rushing in his ears; this new rhythm of his 
+pulse?  He lay back at last in the bottom of the boat, with hands 
+clasped behind his head, and let boat and all things drift.
+
+And when the glare of the rising sun came slanting into the boat 
+and beat dazzlingly in his face, he only turned his head a little 
+and let it shine full upon him.
+
+Now she is lying asleep over there, the morning streaming red 
+through her window--of whom is she dreaming as she sleeps?
+
+Have you ever seen such eyebrows before?  To press one's lips to 
+them--to take her head between one's hand . . . and so it is to 
+save your mother that you give up your own dreams, and to warm her 
+soul that you keep that flame of gladness burning in you?  Is that 
+the sort you are?
+
+Merle--was ever such a name?  Are you called Merle?
+
+Day spreads over the heavens, kindling all the night-clouds, great 
+and small, to gold and scarlet.  And here he lies, rocking, 
+rocking, on no lake, but on a red stately-heaving ocean swell.
+
+Ah! till now your mind has been so filled with cold mechanics, with 
+calculations, with steel and fire.  More and more knowledge, ever 
+more striving to understand all things, to know all, to master all.  
+But meanwhile, the tones of the hymn died within you, and the 
+hunger for that which lies beyond all things grew ever fiercer and 
+fiercer.  You thought it was Norway that you needed--and now you 
+are here.  But is it enough?
+
+Merle--is your name Merle?
+
+There is nothing that can be likened to the first day of love.  All 
+your learning, your travel, and deeds and dreams--all has been 
+nothing but dry firewood that you have dragged and heaped together.  
+And now has come a spark, and the whole heap blazes up, casting its 
+red glow over earth and heaven, and you stretch out your cold 
+hands, and warm them, and shiver with joy that a new bliss has come 
+upon the earth.
+
+And all that you could not understand--the relation between the 
+spark of eternity in your soul and the Power above, and the whole 
+of endless space--has all of a sudden become so clear that you lie 
+here trembling with joy at seeing to the very bottom of the 
+infinite enigma.
+
+You have but to take her by the hand, and "Here are we two," you 
+say to the powers of life and death.  "Here is she and here am I--
+we two"--and you send the anthem rolling aloft--a strain from 
+little Louise's fiddle-bow mingling with it--not to the vaultings 
+of any church, but into endless space itself.  And Thou, Power 
+above, now I understand Thee.  How could I ever take seriously a 
+Power that sat on high playing with Sin and Grace--but now I see 
+Thee, not the bloodthirsty Jehovah, but a golden-haired youth, the 
+Light itself.  We two worship Thee; not with a wail of prayer, but 
+with a great anthem, that has the World-All in it.  All our powers, 
+our knowledge, our dreams--all are there.  And each has its own 
+instrument, its own voice in the mighty chorus.  The dawn reddening 
+over the hills is with us.  The goat grazing on that northern 
+hillside, dazzled with sun-gold when it turns its head to the east--
+it is with us, too.  The waking birds are with us.  A frog, 
+crawling up out of a puddle and stopping to wonder at the morning--
+it is there.  Even the little insect with diamonds on its wings--
+and the grass-blade with its pearl of dew, trying to mirror as much 
+of the sky as it can--it is there, it is there, it is there.  We 
+are standing amid Love's first day, and there is no more talk of 
+grace or doubt or faith or need of aid; only a rushing sound of 
+music rising to heaven from all the golden rivers in our hearts.
+
+The saeters were beginning to wake.  Musical cries came echoing as 
+the saeter-girls chid on the cattle, that moved slowly up to the 
+northern heights, with lowings and tinkling of bells.  But Peer lay 
+still where he was--and presently the dairy-maid at the saeter 
+caught sight of what seemed an empty boat drifting on the lake, and 
+was afraid some accident had happened.
+
+"Merle," thought Peer, still lying motionless.  "Is your name 
+Merle?"
+
+The dairy-maid was down by the waterside now, calling across toward 
+the boat.  And at last she saw a man sit up, rubbing his eyes.
+
+"Mercy on us!" she cried.  "Lord be thanked that you're there.  And 
+you haven't been in the whole blessed night!"
+
+A goat with a broken leg, set in splints, had been left to stray at 
+will about the cattle-pens and in and out of the house, while its 
+leg-bones were setting.  Peer must needs pick up the creature and 
+carry it round for a while in his arms, though it at once began 
+chewing at his beard.  When he sat down to the breakfast-table, he 
+found something so touching in the look of the cream and butter, 
+the bread and the coffee, that it seemed a man would need a heart 
+of stone to be willing to eat such things.  And when the old woman 
+said he really ought to get some food into him, he sprang up and 
+embraced her, as far as his arms would go round.  "Nice carryings 
+on!" she cried, struggling to free herself.  But when he went so 
+far as to imprint a sounding kiss on her forehead, she fetched him 
+a mighty push.  "Lord!" she said, "if the gomeril hasn't gone clean 
+out of his wits this last night!"
+
+
+
+Chapter IV
+
+
+Ringeby lay on the shore of a great lake; and was one of those busy 
+commercial towns which have sprung up in the last fifty years from 
+a nucleus consisting of a saw-mill and a flour-mill by the side of 
+a waterfall.  Now quite a number of modern factories had spread 
+upwards along the river, and the place was a town with some four 
+thousand inhabitants, with a church of its own, a monster of a 
+school building, and numbers of yellow workmen's dwellings 
+scattered about at random in every direction.  Otherwise Ringeby 
+was much like any other little town.  There were two lawyers, who 
+fought for scraps of legal business, and the editors of two local 
+papers, who were constantly at loggerheads before the Conciliation 
+Board.  There was a temperance lodge and Workers' Union and a 
+chapel and a picture palace.  And every Sunday afternoon the good 
+citizens of Ringeby walked out along the fjord, with their wives on 
+their arms.  On these occasions most of the men wore frock coats 
+and grey felt hats; but Enebak, the tanner, being hunchbacked, 
+preferred a tall silk hat, as better suited to eke out his height.
+
+On Saturday evenings, when twilight began to fall, the younger men 
+would meet at the corner outside Hammer's store, to discuss the 
+events of the week.
+
+"Have you heard the latest news?" asked Lovli, the bank cashier, of 
+his friend the telegraphist, who came up.
+
+"News?  Do you tell me that there's ever any news in this accursed 
+hole?"
+
+"Merle Uthoug has come back from the mountains--engaged to be 
+married."
+
+"The devil she is!  What does the old man say to that?"
+
+"Oh, well, the old man will want an engineer if he's to get the new 
+timber-mills into his clutches."
+
+"Is the man an engineer?"
+
+"From Egypt.  A Muhammadan, I daresay.  Brown as a coffee-berry, 
+and rolling in money."
+
+"Do you hear that, Froken Bull?  Stop a minute, here's some news 
+for you."
+
+The girl addressed turned aside and joined them.  "Oh, the same 
+piece of news that's all over the town, I suppose.  Well, I can 
+tell you, he's most tremendously nice."
+
+"Sh!" whispered the telegraphist.  Peer Holm was just coming out of 
+the Grand Hotel, dressed in a grey suit, and with a dark coat over 
+his arm.  He was trying to get a newly-lit cigar to draw, as he 
+walked with a light elastic step past the group at the corner.  A 
+little farther up the street he encountered Merle, and took her 
+arm, and the two walked off together, the young people at the 
+corner watching them as they went.
+
+"And when is it to be?" asked the telegraphist.
+
+"He wanted to be married immediately, I believe," said Froken Bull, 
+"but I suppose they'll have to wait till the banns are called, like 
+other people."
+
+Lorentz D. Uthoug's long, yellow-painted wooden house stood facing 
+the market square; the office and the big ironmonger's shop were on 
+the ground floor, and the family lived in the upper storeys.  
+"That's where he lives," people would say.  Or "There he goes," as 
+the broad, grey-bearded man passed down the street.  Was he such a 
+big man, then?  He could hardly be called really rich, though he 
+had a saw-mill and a machine-shop and a flour-mill, and owned a 
+country place some way out of the town.  But there was something of 
+the chieftain, something of the prophet, about him.  He hated 
+priests.  He read deep philosophical works, forbade his family to 
+go to church, and had been visited by Bjornson himself.  It was 
+good to have him on your side; to have him against you was fatal--
+you might just as well clear out of the town altogether.  He had a 
+finger in everything that went on; it was as if he owned the whole 
+town.  He had been known to meet a youth he had never spoken to 
+before in the street and accost him with a peremptory "Understand 
+me, young man; you will marry that girl."  Yet for all this, 
+Lorentz Uthoug was not altogether content.  True, he was head and 
+shoulders above all the Ringeby folks, but what he really wanted 
+was to be the biggest man in a place a hundred times as large.
+
+And now that he had found a son-in-law, he seemed as it were to be 
+walking quietly round this stranger from the great world, taking 
+his measure, and asking in his thoughts:  "Who are you at bottom?  
+What have you seen?  What have you read?  Are you progressive or 
+reactionary?  Have you any proper respect for what I have 
+accomplished here, or are you going about laughing in your sleeve 
+and calling me a whale among the minnows?"
+
+Every morning when Peer woke in his room at the hotel he rubbed his 
+eyes.  On the table beside his bed stood a photograph of a young 
+girl.  What?  Is it really you, Peer, that have found someone to 
+stand close to you at last?  Someone in the world who cares about 
+you.  When you have a cold, there'll be people to come round and be 
+anxious about you, and ask how you are getting on.  And this to 
+happen to you!
+
+He dined at the Uthougs' every day, and there were always flowers 
+beside his plate.  Often there would be some little surprise--a 
+silver spoon or fork, or a napkin-ring with his initials on.  It 
+was like gathering the first straws to make his new nest.  And the 
+pale woman with the spectacles looked kindly at him, as if to say:  
+"You are taking her from me, but I forgive you."
+
+One day he was sitting in the hotel, reading, when Merle came in.
+
+"Will you come for a walk?" she asked.
+
+"Good idea.  Where shall we go to-day?"
+
+"Well, we haven't been to see Aunt Marit at Bruseth yet.  We really 
+ought to go, you know.  I'll take you there to-day."
+
+Peer found these ceremonial visits to his new relatives quite 
+amusing; he went round, as it were, collecting uncles and aunts.  
+And to-day there was a new one.  Well, why not?
+
+"But--my dear girl, have you been crying?" he asked suddenly, 
+taking her head in his hands.
+
+"Oh, it's nothing.  Come--let's go now."  And she thrust him gently 
+away as he tried to kiss her.  But the next moment she dropped into 
+a chair, and sat looking thoughtfully at him through half-closed 
+eyes, nodding her head very slightly.  She seemed to be asking 
+herself:  "Who is this man?  What is this I am taking on me?  A 
+fortnight ago he was an utter stranger--"
+
+She passed her hand across her brow.  "It's mother--you know," she 
+said.
+
+"Is anything special wrong to-day?"
+
+"She's so afraid you're going to carry me off into the wide world 
+at a moment's notice."
+
+"But I've told her we're going to live here for the present."
+
+The girl drew up one side of her mouth in a smile, and her eyelids 
+almost closed.  "And what about me, then?  After living here all 
+these years crazy to get out into the world?"
+
+"And I, who am crazy to stay at home!" said Peer with a laugh.  
+"How delicious it will be to have a house and a family at last--and 
+peace and quiet!"
+
+"But what about me?"
+
+"You'll be there, too.  I'll let you live with me."
+
+"Oh! how stupid you are to-day.  If you only knew what it means, to 
+throw away the best years of one's youth in a hole like this!  And 
+besides--I could have done something worth while in music--"
+
+"Why, then, let's go abroad, by all means," said Peer, wrinkling up 
+his forehead as if to laugh.
+
+"Oh, nonsense! you know it's quite impossible to go off and leave 
+mother now.  But you certainly came at a very critical time.  For 
+anyway I was longing and longing just then for someone to come and 
+carry me off."
+
+"Aha! so I was only a sort of ticket for the tour."  He stepped 
+over and pinched her nose.
+
+"Oh! you'd better be careful.  I haven't really promised yet to 
+have you, you know."
+
+"Haven't promised?  When you practically asked me yourself."
+
+She clapped her hands together.  "Why, what shameless impudence!  
+After my saying No, No, No, for days together.  I won't, I won't, I 
+won't--I said it ever so many times.  And you said it didn't 
+matter--for YOU WOULD.  Yes, you took me most unfairly off my 
+guard; but now look out for yourself."
+
+The next moment she flung her arms round his neck.  But when he 
+tried to kiss her, she pushed him away again.  "No," she said, "you 
+mustn't think I did it for that!"
+
+Soon they were walking arm-in-arm along the country road, on their 
+way to Aunt Marit at Bruseth.  It was September, and all about the 
+wooded hills stood yellow, and the cornfields were golden and the 
+rowan berries blood-red.  But there was still summer in the air.
+
+"Ugh! how impossibly fast you walk," exclaimed Merle, stopping out 
+of breath.
+
+And when they came to a gate they sat down in the grass by the 
+wayside.  Below them was the town, with its many roofs and chimneys 
+standing out against the shining lake, that lay framed in broad 
+stretches of farm and field.
+
+"Do you know how it came about that mother is--as she is?" asked 
+Merle suddenly.
+
+"No.  I didn't like to ask you about it."
+
+She drew a stalk of grass between her lips.
+
+"Well, you see--mother's father was a clergyman.  And when--when 
+father forbade her to go to church, she obeyed him.  But she 
+couldn't sleep after that.  She felt--as if she had sold her soul."
+
+"And what did your father say to that?"
+
+"Said it was hysteria.  But, hysteria or not, mother couldn't 
+sleep.  And at last they had to take her away to a home."
+
+"Poor soul!" said Peer, taking the girl's hand.
+
+"And when she came back from there she was so changed, one would 
+hardly have known her.  And father gave way a little--more than he 
+ever used to do--and said:  'Well, well, I suppose you must go to 
+church if you wish, but you mustn't mind if I don't go with you.'  
+And so one Sunday she took my hand and we went together, but as we 
+reached the church door, and heard the organ playing inside, she 
+turned back.  'No--it's too late now,' she said.  'It's too late, 
+Merle.'  And she has never been since."
+
+"And she has always been--strange--since then?"
+
+Merle sighed.  "The worst of it is she sees so many evil things 
+compassing her about.  She says the only thing to do is to laugh 
+them away.  But she can't laugh herself.  And so I have to.  But 
+when I go away from her--oh! I can't bear to think of it."
+
+She hid her face against his shoulder, and he began stroking her 
+hair.
+
+"Tell me, Peer"--she looked up with her one-sided smile--"who is 
+right--mother or father?"
+
+"Have you been trying to puzzle that out?"
+
+"Yes.  But it's so hopeless--so impossible to come to any sort of 
+certainty.  What do you think?  Tell me what you think, Peer."
+
+They sat there alone in the golden autumn day, her head pressed 
+against his shoulder.  Why should he play the superior person and 
+try to put her off with vague phrases?
+
+"Dear Merle, I know, of course, no more than you do.  There was a 
+time when I saw God standing with a rod in one hand and a sugar-
+cake in the other--just punishment and rewards to all eternity.  
+Then I thrust Him from me, because He seemed to me so unjust--and 
+at last He vanished, melting into the solar systems on high, and 
+all the infinitesimal growths here on the earth below.  What was my 
+life, what were my dreams, my joy or sorrow, to these?  Where was I 
+making for?  Ever and always there was something in me saying:  He 
+IS!  But where?  Somewhere beyond and behind the things you know--
+it is there He is.  And so I determined to know more things, more 
+and more and more--and what wiser was I?  A steam-hammer crushes my 
+skull one day--and what has become of my part in progress and 
+culture and science?  Am I as much of an accident as a fly on an 
+ant?  Do I mean no more?  Do I vanish and leave as little trace?  
+Answer me that, little Merle--what do YOU think?"
+
+The girl sat motionless, breathing softly, with closed eyes.  Then 
+she began to smile--and her lips were full and red, and at last 
+they shaped themselves to a kiss.
+
+
+Bruseth was a large farm lying high above the town, with its garden 
+and avenues and long verandahs round the white dwelling-house.  And 
+what a view out over the lake and the country far around!  The two 
+stood for a moment at the gate, looking back.
+
+Merle's aunt--her father's sister--was a widow, rich and a notable 
+manager, but capricious to a degree, capable of being generous one 
+day and grasping the next.  It was the sorrow of her life that she 
+had no children of her own, but she had not yet decided who was to 
+be her heir.
+
+She came sailing into the room where the two young people were 
+waiting, and Peer saw her coming towards them, a tall, full-bosomed 
+woman with grey hair and florid colour.  Oho! here's an aunt for 
+you with a vengeance, he thought.  She pulled off a blue apron she 
+was wearing and appeared dressed in a black woollen gown, with a 
+gold chain about her neck and long gold earrings.
+
+"So you thought you'd come over at last," she said.  "Actually 
+remembered my existence, after all, did you, Merle?"  She turned 
+towards Peer, and stood examining him, with her hands on her hips.  
+"So that's what you look like, is it, Peer?  And you're the man 
+that was to catch Merle?  Well, you see I call you Peer at once, 
+even though you HAVE come all the way from--Arabia, is it?  Sit 
+down, sit down."
+
+Wine was brought in, and Aunt Marit of Bruseth lifted a 
+congratulatory glass toward the pair with the following words:
+
+"You'll fight, of course.  But don't overdo it, that's all.  And 
+mark my words, Peer Holm, if you aren't good to her, I'll come 
+round one fine day and warm your ears for you.  Your healths, 
+children!"
+
+The two went homewards arm-in-arm, dancing down the hillsides, and 
+singing gaily as they went.  But suddenly, when they were still 
+some way from the town, Merle stopped and pointed.  "There," she 
+whispered--"there's mother!"
+
+A solitary woman was walking slowly in the twilight over a wide 
+field of stubble, looking around her.  It was as if she were 
+lingering here to search out the meaning of something--of many 
+things.  From time to time she would glance up at the sky, or at 
+the town below, or at people passing on the road, and then she 
+would nod her head.  How infinitely far off she seemed, how utterly 
+a stranger to all the noisy doings of men!  What was she seeing 
+now?  What were her thoughts?
+
+"Let us go on," whispered Merle, drawing him with her.  And the 
+young girl suddenly began to sing, loudly, as if in an overflow of 
+spirits; and Peer guessed that it was for her mother's sake.  
+Perhaps the lonely woman stood there now in the twilight smiling 
+after them.
+
+
+One Sunday morning Merle drove up to the hotel in a light cart with 
+a big brown horse; Peer came out and climbed in, leaving the reins 
+to her.  They were going out along the fjord to look at her 
+father's big estate which in olden days had been the County 
+Governors' official residence.
+
+It is the end of September.  The sun is still warm, but the waters 
+of the lake are grey and all the fields are reaped.  Here and there 
+a strip of yellowing potato-stalks lies waiting to be dug up.  Up 
+on the hillsides horses tethered for grazing stand nodding their 
+heads slowly, as if they knew that it was Sunday.  And a faint mist 
+left by the damps of the night floats about here and there over the 
+broad landscape.
+
+They passed through a wood, and came on the other side to an avenue 
+of old ash trees, that turned up from the road and ran uphill to a 
+big house where a flag was flying.  The great white dwelling-house 
+stood high, as if to look out far over the world; the red farm-
+buildings enclosed the wide courtyard on three sides, and below 
+were gardens and broad lands, sloping down towards the lake.  
+Something like an estate!
+
+"What's the name of that place?" cried Peer, gazing at it.
+
+"Loreng."
+
+"And who owns it?"
+
+"Don't know," answered the girl, cracking her whip.
+
+Next moment the horse turned in to the avenue, and Peer caught 
+involuntarily at the reins.  "Hei! Brownie--where are you going?" 
+he cried.
+
+"Why not go up and have a look?" said Merle.
+
+"But we were going out to look at your father's place."
+
+"Well, that is father's place."
+
+Peer stared at her face and let go the reins.  "What?  What?  You 
+don't mean to say your father owns that place there?"
+
+A few minutes later they were strolling through the great, low-
+ceiled rooms.  The whole house was empty now, the farm-bailiff 
+living in the servants' quarters.  Peer grew more and more 
+enthusiastic.  Here, in these great rooms, there had been festive 
+gatherings enough in the days of the old Governors, where cavaliers 
+in uniform or with elegant shirt-frills and golden spurs had kissed 
+the hands of ladies in sweeping silk robes.  Old mahogany, pot-
+pourri, convivial song, wit, grace--Peer saw it all in his mind's 
+eye, and again and again he had to give vent to his feelings by 
+seizing Merle and embracing her.
+
+"Oh, but look here, Merle--you know, this is a fairy-tale."
+
+They passed out into the old neglected garden with its grass-grown 
+paths and well-filled carp-ponds and tumble-down pavilions.  Peer 
+rushed about it in all directions.  Here, too, there had been 
+fetes, with coloured lamps festooned around, and couples whispering 
+in the shade of every bush.  "Merle, did you say your father was 
+going to sell all this to the State?"
+
+"Yes, that's what it will come to, I expect," she answered.  "The 
+place doesn't pay, he says, when he can't live here himself to look 
+after it."
+
+"But what use can the State make of it?"
+
+"Oh, a Home for Imbeciles, I believe."
+
+"Good Lord!  I might have guessed it!  An idiot asylum--to be 
+sure."  He tramped about, fairly jumping with excitement.  "Merle, 
+look here--will you come and live here?"
+
+She threw back her head and looked at him.  "I ask you, Merle.  
+Will you come and live here?"
+
+"Do you want me to answer this moment, on the spot?"
+
+"Yes.  For I want to buy it this moment, on the spot."
+
+"Well, aren't you--"
+
+"Look, Merle, just look at it all.  That long balcony there, with 
+the doric columns--nothing shoddy about that--it's the real thing.  
+Empire.  I know something about it."
+
+"But it'll cost a great deal, Peer."  There was some reluctance in 
+her voice.  Was she thinking of her violin?  Was she loth to take 
+root too firmly?
+
+"A great deal?" he said.  "What did your father give for it?"
+
+"The place was sold by auction, and he got it cheap.  Fifty 
+thousand crowns, I think it was."
+
+Peer strode off towards the house again.  "We'll buy it.  It's the 
+very place to make into a home. . . .  Horses, cattle, sheep, 
+goats, cottars--ah! it'll be grand."
+
+Merle followed him more slowly.  "But, Peer, remember you've just 
+taken over father's machine-shops in town."
+
+"Pooh!" said Peer scornfully.  "Do you think I can't manage to run 
+that village smithy and live here too!  Come along, Merle."  And he 
+took her hand and drew her into the house again.
+
+It was useless to try to resist.  He dragged her from room to room, 
+furnishing as he went along.  "This room here is the dining-room--
+and that's the big reception-room; this will be the study--that's a 
+boudoir for you. . . .  Come now; to-morrow we'll go into 
+Christiania and buy the furniture."
+
+Merle gasped for breath.  He had got so far by this time that the 
+furnishing was complete and they were installed.  They had a 
+governess already, and he was giving parties too.  Here was the 
+ballroom.  He slipped an arm round her waist and danced round the 
+room with her, till she was carried away by his enthusiasm, and 
+stood flushed and beaming, while all she had dreamed of finding 
+some day out in the wide world seemed suddenly to unfold around her 
+here in these empty rooms.  Was this really to be her home?  She 
+stopped to take breath and to look around her.
+
+Late that evening Peer sat at the hotel with a note-book, working 
+the thing out.  He had bought Loreng; his father-in-law had been 
+reasonable, and had let him have the place, lands and woods and 
+all, for the ridiculous price he had paid himself.  There was a 
+mortgage of thirty thousand crowns on the estate.  Well, that might 
+stand as it was, for the bulk of Peer's money was tied up in 
+Ferdinand Holm's company.
+
+A few days after he carried Merle off to the capital, leaving the 
+carpenters and painters hard at work at Loreng.
+
+One day he was sitting alone at the hotel in Christiania--Merle was 
+out shopping--when there was a very discreet knock at the door.
+
+"Come in," called Peer.  And in walked a middle-sized man, of 
+thirty or more, dressed in a black frock-coat with a large-
+patterned vest, and his dark hair carefully combed over a bald 
+patch on the crown.  He had a red, cheery face; his eyes were of 
+the brightest blue, and the whole man breathed and shone with good 
+humour.
+
+"I am Uthoug junior," said the new-comer, with a bow and a laugh.
+
+"Oh--that's capital."
+
+"Just come across from Manchester--beastly voyage.  Thanks, thanks--
+I'll find a seat."  He sat down, and flung one striped trouser-leg 
+over the other.
+
+Peer sent for some wine, and in half an hour the two were firm 
+allies.  Uthoug junior's life-story to date was quickly told.  He 
+had run away from home because his father had refused to let him go 
+on the stage--had found on trial that in these days there weren't 
+enough theatres to go round--then had set up in business for 
+himself, and now had a general agency for the sale of English 
+tweeds.  "Freedom, freedom," was his idea; "lots of elbow-room--
+room to turn about in--without with your leave or by your leave to 
+father or anyone!  Your health!"
+
+
+A week later the street outside Lorentz D. Uthoug's house in 
+Ringeby was densely crowded with people, all gazing up at the long 
+rows of lighted windows.  There was feasting to-night in the great 
+man's house.  About midnight a carriage drove up to the door.  
+"That's the bridegroom's," whispered a bystander.  "He got those 
+horses from Denmark!"
+
+The street door opened, and a white figure, thickly cloaked, 
+appeared on the steps.  "The bride!" whispered the crowd.  Then a 
+slender man in a dark overcoat and silk hat.  "The bridegroom!"  
+And as the pair passed out, "Hip-hip-hip--" went the voice of the 
+general agent for English tweeds, and the hurrahs came with a will.
+
+The carriage moved off, and Peer sat, with his arm round his bride, 
+driving his horses at a sharp trot out along the fjord.  Out 
+towards his home, towards his palace, towards a new and untried 
+future.
+
+
+
+Chapter V
+
+
+A little shaggy, grey-bearded old man stood chopping and sawing in 
+the wood-shed at Loreng.  He had been there longer than anyone 
+could remember.  One master left, another took his place--what was 
+that to the little man?  Didn't the one need firewood--and didn't 
+the other need firewood just the same?  In the evening he crept up 
+to his den in the loft of the servants' wing; at meal-times he sat 
+himself down in the last seat at the kitchen-table, and it seemed 
+to him that there was always food to be had.  Nowadays the master's 
+name was Holm--an engineer he was--and the little man blinked at 
+him with his eyes, and went on chopping in the shed.  If they came 
+and told him he was not wanted and must go--why, thank heaven, he 
+was stone deaf, as everyone knew.  Thud, thud, went his axe in the 
+shed; and the others about the place were so used to it that they 
+heeded it no more than the ticking of a clock upon the wall.
+
+In the kitchen of the big house two girls stood by the window 
+peeping out into the garden and giggling.
+
+"There he is again," said Laura.  "Sh! don't laugh so loud.  There! 
+now he's stopping again!"
+
+"He's whistling to a bird," said Oliana.  "Or talking to himself 
+perhaps.  Do you think he's quite right in his head?"
+
+"Sh!  The mistress'll hear."
+
+It was no less a person than the master of Loreng himself whose 
+proceedings struck them as so comic.
+
+Peer it was, wandering about in the great neglected garden, with 
+his hands in the pockets of his knickerbockers and his cap on the 
+back of his head, stopping here and there, and moving on again as 
+the fancy took him.  Sometimes he would hum a snatch of a song, and 
+again fall to whistling; here he would pick up a twig and look at 
+it, or again it might be a bird, or perhaps an old neglected apple-
+tree that seemed worth stopping to talk to.  The best of it was 
+that these were his own lands and his own woods that lay there in 
+the rusty October sunshine.  Was all that nothing?  And the hill 
+over on the farther shore, standing on its head in the dark lake-
+mirror, clothed in a whole world of colour--yellow leaves and green 
+leaves, and light red and dark red, and golden and blood-red 
+patches, with the dark green of the pines between.  His eyes had 
+all this to rest on.  Did he really live here?  What abundant 
+fruitfulness all around him!  What a sky, so wide, so golden that 
+it seemed to ring again.  The potato-stalks lay uprooted, scattered 
+on the fields; the corn was safely housed.  And here he stood.  He 
+seemed again to be drawing in nourishment from all he saw, drinking 
+it greedily.  The empty places in his mind were filled; the sight 
+of the rich soft landscape worked on his being, giving it something 
+of its own abundant fruitfulness, its own wide repose.
+
+And--what next?
+
+"What next?" he mimicked in his thoughts, and started again 
+tramping up and down the garden paths.  What next--what next?  
+Could he not afford now to take his time--to rest a little?  Every 
+man must have an end in view--must strive to reach this goal or 
+that.  And what was his object now?  What was it he had so toiled 
+for, from those hard years in the loft above the stable even until 
+now?  What was it?  Often it seemed as if everything were going 
+smoothly, going of itself; as if one day, surely, he would find his 
+part in a great, happy world-harmony.  But had he not already found 
+it?  What more would he have?  Of course he had found it.
+
+But is this all, then?  What is there behind and beyond?  Hush! 
+have done with questioning.  Look at the beauty around you.  Here 
+is peace, peace and rest.
+
+He hurried up to the house, and in--it might help matters if he 
+could take his wife in his arms; perhaps get her to come out with 
+him a while.
+
+Merle was in the pantry, with a big apron on, ranging jars of 
+preserves on the shelves.
+
+"Here, dearest little wife," cried Peer, throwing his arms about 
+her, "what do you say to a little run?"
+
+"Now?  Do you suppose a housewife has nothing better to do than gad 
+about?  Uf! my hair! you'll make it come down."
+
+Peer took her arm and led her over to a window looking out on the 
+lake.  "There, dearest!  Isn't it lovely here?"
+
+"Peer, you've asked me that twenty times a day ever since we came."
+
+"Yes, and you never answer.  And you've never once yet run and 
+thrown your arms round my neck and said how happy you were.  And 
+it's never yet come to pass that you've given me a single kiss of 
+your own accord."
+
+"I should think not, when you steal such a lot."  And she pushed 
+him aside, and slipped under his arm, and ran out of the room.  "I 
+must go in and see mother again to-day," she said as she went.
+
+"Huit!  Of course!"  He paced up and down the room, his step 
+growing more and more impatient.  "In to mother--in to mother!  
+Always and everlastingly mother and mother and nothing else.  
+Huit!" and he began to whistle.
+
+Merle put her head in at the door.  "Peer--have you such a terrible 
+lot of spare time?"
+
+"Well, yes and no.  I'm busy enough looking about in every corner 
+here for something or another.  But I can't find it, and I don't 
+even know exactly what it is.  Oh well, yes--I have plenty of time 
+to spare."
+
+"But what about the farm?"
+
+"Well, there's the dairy-woman in the cow-house, and the groom in 
+the stables, and the bailiff to worry the tenants and workpeople.  
+What am I to do--poke around making improvements?"
+
+"But what about the machine-shop?"
+
+"Don't I go in twice a day--cycle over to see how things are going?  
+But with Rode for manager--that excellent and high-principled 
+engineer--"
+
+"Surely you could help him in some way?"
+
+"He's got to go on running along the line of rails he's used to--
+nothing else for it, my darling.  And four or five thousand crowns 
+a year, net profit--why, it's magnificent!"
+
+"But couldn't you extend the business?"
+
+He raised his eyebrows, and his mouth pursed itself up.
+
+"Extend--did you say extend?  Extend a--a doll's house!"
+
+"Oh, Peer, you shouldn't laugh at it--a thing that father took so 
+much pains to set going!"
+
+"And YOU shouldn't go worrying me to get to work again in earnest, 
+Merle.  You shouldn't really.  One of these days I might discover 
+that there's no way to be happy in the world but to drag a plough 
+and look straight ahead and forget that there's anything else in 
+existence.  It may come to that one day--but give me a little 
+breathing-space first, and you love me.  Well, good-bye for a 
+while."
+
+Merle, busying herself again in her pantry, glanced out of the 
+window and saw him disappear into the stables.  At first she had 
+gone with him when he wandered about like this, touching and 
+feeling all his possessions.  In the cattle-stalls, it might be, 
+stroking and patting, getting himself covered with hairs, and 
+chattering away in childish glee.  "Look, Merle--this cow is mine, 
+child!  Dagros her name is--and she's mine.  We have forty of them--
+and they're all mine.  And that nag there--what a sight he is!  We 
+have eight of them.  They're mine.  Yours too, of course.  But you 
+don't care a bit about it.  You haven't even hugged any of them 
+yet.  But when a man's been as poor as I've been--and suddenly 
+wakened up one day and found he owned all this--  No, wait a 
+minute, Merle--come and kiss old Brownie."  She knew the ritual 
+now--he could go over it all again and again, and each time with 
+the same happy wonder.  Was it odious of her that she was beginning 
+to find it a little comic?  And how did it come about that often, 
+when she might be filled with the deepest longing for him, and he 
+burst in upon her boisterously, hungry for her caresses, she would 
+grow suddenly cold, and put him aside?  What was the matter?  Why 
+did she behave like this?
+
+Perhaps it was because he was so much the stronger, so overwhelming 
+in his effect on her that she had to keep a tight hold on herself 
+to avoid being swept clean away and losing her identity.  At one 
+moment they might be sitting in the lamplight, chatting easily 
+together, and so near in heart and mind; and the next it would be 
+over--he would suddenly have started up and be pacing up and down 
+the room, delivering a sort of lecture.  Merle--isn't it marvellous,
+the spiritual life of plants?  And then would come a torrent of talk
+about strange plant-growths in the north and in the south, plants
+whose names she had never even heard--their struggle for existence,
+their loves and longings, their heroism in disease, the divine
+marvel of their death.  Their inventions, their wisdom, aye, their
+religious sense--is it not marvellous, Merle?  From this it was only
+a step to the earth's strata, fossils, crystals--a fresh lecture.
+And finally he would sum up the whole into one great harmony of
+development, from the primary cell-life to the laws of gravitation
+that rule the courses of the stars.  Was it not marvellous?  One
+common rhythm beating through the universe--a symphony of worlds!--
+And then he must have a kiss!
+
+But she could only draw back and put him gently aside.  It was as 
+if he came with all his stored-up knowledge--his lore of plants and 
+fossils, crystals and stars--and poured it all out in a caress.  
+She could almost have cried out for help.  And after hurrying her 
+through the wonders of the universe in this fashion, he would 
+suddenly catch her up in his arms, and whirl her off in a 
+passionate intoxication of the senses till she woke at last like a 
+castaway on an island, hardly knowing where or what she was.  She 
+laughed, but she could have found it in her heart to weep.  Could 
+this be love?  In this strong man, whose life till now had been all 
+study and work, the stored-up feeling burst vehemently forth, now 
+that it had found an outlet.  But why did it leave her so cold?
+
+When Peer came in from the stables, humming a tune, he found her in 
+the sitting-room, dressed in a dark woollen dress with a red ribbon 
+round her throat.
+
+He stopped short:  "By Jove--how that suits you, Merle!"
+
+She let her eyes linger on him for a moment, and then came up and 
+threw her arms round his neck.
+
+"Did he have to go to the stables all alone today?"
+
+"Yes; I've been having a chat with the young colt."
+
+"Am I unkind to you, Peer?"
+
+"You?--you!"
+
+"Not even if I ask you to drive me in to see mother?"
+
+"Why, that's the very thing.  The new horse I bought yesterday from 
+Captain Myhre should be here any minute--I'm just waiting for it."
+
+"A new horse--to ride?"
+
+"Yes.  Hang it--I must get some riding.  I had to handle Arab 
+horses for years.  But we'll try this one in the gig first."
+
+Merle was still standing with her arms round his neck, and now she 
+pressed her warm rich lips to his, close and closer.  It was at 
+such moments that she loved him--when he stood trembling with a joy 
+unexpected, that took him unawares.  She too trembled, with a 
+blissful thrill through soul and body; for once and at last it was 
+she who gave.
+
+"Ah!" he breathed at last, pale with emotion.  "I--I'd be glad to 
+die like that."
+
+A little later they stood on the balcony looking over the courtyard,
+when a bearded farm-hand came up with a big light-maned chestnut
+horse prancing in a halter.  The beast stood still in the middle of
+the yard, flung up its head, and neighed, and the horses in the
+stable neighed in answer.
+
+"Oh, what a beauty!" exclaimed Merle, clapping her hands.
+
+"Put him into the gig," called Peer to the stable-boy who had come 
+out to take the horse.
+
+The man touched his cap.  "Horse has never been driven before, sir, 
+I was to say."
+
+"Everything must have a beginning," said Peer.
+
+Merle glanced at him.  But they were both dressed to go out when 
+the chestnut came dancing up before the door with the gig.  The 
+white hoofs pawed impatiently, the head was high in the air, and 
+the eyes flashed fire--he wasn't used to having shafts pressing on 
+his sides and wheels rumbling just behind him.  Peer lit a cigar.
+
+"You're not going to smoke?" Merle burst out.
+
+"Just to show him I'm not excited," said Peer.  No sooner had they 
+taken their seats in the gig than the beast began to snort and 
+rear, but the long lash flicked out over its neck, and a minute 
+later they were tearing off in a cloud of dust towards the town.
+
+
+Winter came--and a real winter it was.  Peer moved about from one 
+window to another, calling all the time to Merle to come and look.  
+He had been away so long--the winter of Eastern Norway was all 
+new to him.  Look--look!  A world of white--a frozen white 
+tranquillity--woods, plains, lakes all in white, a fairy-tale in 
+sunlight, a dreamland at night under the great bright moon.  There 
+was a ringing of sleigh-bells out on the lake, and up in the snow-
+powdered forest; the frost stood thick on the horses' manes and the 
+men's beards were hung with icicles.  And in the middle of the 
+night loud reports of splitting ice would come from the lake--
+sounds to make one sit up in bed with a start.
+
+Driving's worth while in weather like this--come, Merle.  The new 
+stallion from Gudbrandsdal wants breaking in--we'll take him.  
+Hallo! and away they go in their furs, swinging out over the frozen 
+lake, whirling on to the bare glassy ice, where they skid and come 
+near capsizing, and Merle screams--but they get on to snow, and 
+hoofs and runners grip again.  None of your galloping--trot now, 
+trot!  And Peer cracks his whip.  The black, long-maned 
+Gudbrandsdaler lifts his head and trots out.  And the evening 
+comes, and under the wide and starry sky they dash up again to 
+Loreng--Loreng that lies there lighting them home with its long 
+rows of glowing windows.  A glorious day, wife!
+
+Or they would go out on ski over the hills to the woodmen's huts in 
+the forest, and make a blazing fire in the big chimney and drink 
+steaming coffee.  Then home again through one of those pale winter 
+evenings with a violet twilight over woods and fields and lake, 
+over white snow and blue.  Far away on the brown hillside in the 
+west stands a farmhouse, with all its windows flaming with the 
+reflection from a golden cloud.  Here they come rushing, the wind 
+of their passing shaking the snow from the pines; on, on, over 
+deep-rutted woodcutters' roads, over stumps and stones--falling, 
+bruising themselves, burying their faces deep in the snow, but 
+dragging themselves up again, smiling to each other and rushing on 
+again.  Then, reaching home red and dripping, they lean the ski up 
+against the wall, and stamp the snow off their boots.
+
+"Merle," said Peer, picking the ice from his beard, "we must have a 
+bottle of Burgundy at dinner to-night."
+
+"Yes--and shall we ring up and ask someone to come over?"
+
+"Someone--from outside?  Can't we two have a little jollification 
+all to ourselves?"
+
+"Yes, yes, of course, if you like."
+
+A shower-bath--a change of underclothes--how delicious!  And--an 
+idea!  He'll appear at dinner in evening dress, just for a 
+surprise.  But as he entered the room he stopped short.  For there 
+stood Merle herself in evening dress--a dress of dark red velvet, 
+with his locket round her neck and the big plaits of hair rolled 
+into a generous knot low on her neck.  Flowers on the table--the 
+wine set to warm--the finest glass, the best silver--ptarmigan--how 
+splendid!  They lift their glasses filled with the red wine and 
+drink to each other.
+
+The frozen winter landscape still lingered in their thoughts, but 
+the sun had warmed their souls; they laughed and jested, held each 
+other's hands long, and sat smiling at each other in long silences.
+
+"A glorious day to-day, Merle.  And to-morrow we die."
+
+"What do you say!--to-morrow!"
+
+"Or fifty years hence.  It comes to the same thing."  He pressed 
+her hand and his eyes half closed.
+
+"But this evening we're together--and what could we want more?"
+
+Then he fell to talking of his Egyptian experiences.  He had once 
+spent a month's holiday in visiting ruined cities with Maspero, the 
+great Maspero himself, going with him to Luxor, to Karnak, with its 
+great avenues of sphinxes, to El Amarna and Shubra.  They had 
+looked on ancient cities of temples and king's mausoleums, where 
+men thousands of years dead lay as if lost in thought, with eyes 
+wide open, ready at any moment to rise and call out:  Slave, is the 
+bath ready?  There in the middle of a cornfield rises an obelisk.  
+You ask what it is--it is all that is left of a royal city.  There, 
+too, a hundred thousand years ago maybe, young couples have sat 
+together, drinking to each other in wine, revelling in all the 
+delights of love--and where are they now?  Aye, where are they, can 
+you tell me?
+
+"When that journey was over, Merle, I began to think that it was 
+not mere slime of the Nile that fertilised the fields; it was the 
+mouldered bodies of the dead.  I rode over dust that had been human 
+fingers, lips that had clung in kisses.  Millions and millions of 
+men and women have lived on those river-banks, and what has become 
+of them now?  Geology.  And I thought of the millions of prayers 
+wailed out there to the sun and stars, to stone idols in the 
+temples, to crocodiles and snakes and the river itself, the sacred 
+river.  And the air, Merle--the air received them, and vibrated for 
+a second--and that was all.  And even so our prayers go up, to this 
+very day.  We press our warm lips to a cold stone, and think to 
+leave an impression.  Skaal!"
+
+But Merle did not touch her glass; she sat still, with her eyes on 
+the yellow lampshade.  She had not yet given up all her dreams of 
+going forth and conquering the world with her music--and he sat 
+there rolling out eternity itself before her, while he and she 
+herself, her parents, all, all became as chaff blown before the 
+wind and vanished.
+
+"What, won't you drink with me?  Well, well--then I must pledge you 
+by myself.  Skaal!"
+
+And being well started on his travellers' tales he went on with 
+them, but now in a more cheerful vein, so that she found it 
+possible to smile.  He told of the great lake-swamps, with their 
+legions of birds, ibis, pelicans, swans, flamingos, herons, and 
+storks--a world of long beaks and curved breasts and stilt-like 
+legs and shrieking and beating of wings.  Most wonderful of all it 
+was to stand and watch and be left behind when the birds of passage 
+flew northward in their thousands in the spring.  My love to 
+Norway, he would say, as they passed.  And in the autumn to see 
+them return, grey goose, starling, wagtail, and all the rest.  "How 
+goes it now at home?" he would think--and "Next time I'll go with 
+you," he would promise himself year after year.
+
+"And here I am at last!  Skaal!"
+
+"Welcome home," said Merle, lifting her glass with a smile.
+
+He rang the bell.  "What do you want?" her eyes asked.
+
+"Champagne," said Peer to the maid, who appeared and vanished 
+again.
+
+"Are you crazy, Peer?"
+
+He leaned back, flushed and in happy mood, lit a cigarette and told 
+of his greatest triumph out there; it was after he had finished his 
+work at the cataracts, and had started again with a branch of the 
+English firm in Alexandria.  One morning in walked the Chief and 
+said:  "Now, gentlemen, here's a chance for a man that has the 
+stuff in him to win his spurs--who's ready?"  And half a score of 
+voices answered "I."  "Well, here's the King of Abyssinia suddenly 
+finds he must be in the fashion and have a railway--couple of 
+hundred miles of it--what do you say to that?"  "Splendid," we 
+cried in chorus.  "Well, but we've got to compete with Germans, and 
+Swiss, and Americans--and we've got to win."  "Of course"--a louder 
+chorus still.  "Now, I'm going to take two men and give them a free 
+hand.  They'll go up there and survey and lay out lines, and work 
+out the whole project thoroughly, both from the technical and the 
+financial side--and a project that's better and cheaper than the 
+opposition ones.  Eight months' work for a good man, but I must 
+have it done in four.  Take along assistants and equipment--all you 
+need--and a thousand pounds premium to the man who puts it through 
+so that we get the job."
+
+"Peer--were you sent?"  Merle half rose from her seat in her 
+excitement.
+
+"I--and one other."
+
+"Who was that?"
+
+"His name was Ferdinand Holm."
+
+Merle smiled her one-sided smile, and looked at him through her 
+long lashes.  She knew it had been the dream of his life to beat 
+that half-brother of his in fair fight.  And now!
+
+"And what came of it?" she asked, with a seeming careless glance at 
+the lamp.
+
+Peer flung away his cigarette.  "First an expedition up the Nile, 
+then a caravan journey, camels and mules and assistants and 
+provisions and instruments and tents and quinine--heaps of quinine.  
+Have you any idea, I wonder, what a job like that means?  The line 
+was to run through forests and tunnels, over swamps and torrents 
+and chasms, and everything had to be planned and estimated at top 
+speed--material, labour, time, cost and all.  It was all very well 
+to provide for the proper spans and girders for a viaduct, and 
+estimate for thoroughly sound work in casting and erecting--but 
+even then it would be no good if the Germans could come along and 
+say their bridge looked handsomer than ours.  It was a job that 
+would take a good man eight months, and I had to get it done in 
+four.  There are just twelve hours in a day, it's true--but then 
+there are twelve more hours in the night.  Fever?  Well, yes.  And 
+sunstroke--yes, both men and beasts went down with that.  Maps got 
+washed out by the rain.  I lost my best assistant by snakebite.  
+But such things didn't count as hindrances, they couldn't be 
+allowed to delay the work.  If I lost a man, it simply meant so 
+much more work for me.  After a couple of months a blacksmith's 
+hammer started thumping in the back of my head, and when I closed 
+my eyes for a couple of hours at night, little fiery snakes went 
+wriggling about in my brain.  Tired out?  When I looked in the 
+glass, my eyes were just two red balls in my head.  But when the 
+four months were up, I was back in the Chief's office."
+
+"And--and Ferdinand Holm?"
+
+"Had got in the day before."
+
+Merle shifted a little in her seat.  "And so--he won?"
+
+Peer lit another cigarette.  "No," he said--the cigarette seemed to 
+draw rather badly--"I won.  And that's how I came to be building 
+railways in Abyssinia."
+
+"Here's the champagne," said Merle.  And as the wine foamed in the 
+glasses, she rose and drank to him.  She said nothing, only looked 
+at him with eyes half veiled, and smiled.  But a wave of fire went 
+through him from head to foot.
+
+"I feel like playing to-night," she said.
+
+It was rarely that she played, though he had often begged her to.  
+Since they had been married she had seemed loth to touch her 
+violin, feeling perhaps some vague fear that it would disturb her 
+peace and awaken old longings.
+
+Peer sat on the sofa, leaning forward with his head in his hands, 
+listening.  And there she stood, at the music-stand, in her red 
+dress, flushed and warm, and shining in the yellow lamplight, 
+playing.
+
+Then suddenly the thought of her mother came to her, and she went 
+to the telephone.  "Mother--are you there, mother?  Oh, we've had 
+such a glorious day."  And the girl ran on, as if trying to light 
+up her mother's heart with some rays of the happiness her own happy 
+day had brought her.
+
+A little later Peer lay in bed, while Merle flitted about the room, 
+lingering over her toilet.
+
+He watched her as she stood in her long white gown before the 
+toilet-table with the little green-shaded lamps, doing her hair for 
+the night in a long plait.  Neither of them spoke.  He could see 
+her face in the glass, and saw that her eyes were watching him, 
+with a soft, mysterious glance--the scent of her hair seemed to 
+fill the place with youth.
+
+She turned round towards him and smiled.  And he lay still, 
+beckoning her towards him with shining eyes.  All that had passed 
+that evening--their outing, and the homeward journey in the violet 
+dusk, their little feast, and his story, the wine--all had turned 
+to love in their hearts, and shone out now in their smile.
+
+It may be that some touch of the cold breath of the eternities was 
+still in their minds, the remembrance of the millions on millions 
+that die, the flight of the aeons towards endless darkness; yet in 
+spite of all, the minutes now to come, their warm embrace, held a 
+whole world of bliss, that out-weighed all, and made Peer, as he 
+lay there, long to send out a hymn of praise into the universe, 
+because it was so wonderful to live.
+
+He began to understand why she lingered and took so long.  It was a 
+sign that she wanted to surprise him, that her heart was kind.  And 
+her light breathing seemed even now to fill the room with love.
+
+Outside in the night the lake-ice, splitting into new crevices, 
+sent up loud reports; and the winter sky above the roof that 
+sheltered them was lit with all its stars.  
+
+
+
+Chapter VI
+
+
+For the next few years Peer managed his estate and his workshop, 
+without giving too much of his time to either.  He had his bailiff 
+and his works-manager, and the work went on well enough in its 
+accustomed grooves.  If anyone had asked him what he actually did 
+himself all the time, he would have found it hard to answer.  He 
+seemed to be going round gathering up something not clearly 
+defined.  There was something wanting--something missed that now 
+had to be made good.  It was not knowledge now, but life--life in 
+his native land, the life of youth, that he reached out to grasp.  
+The youth in him, that had never had free play in the years of 
+early manhood, lay still dammed up, and had to find an outlet.
+
+There were festive gatherings at Loreng.  Long rows of sleighs 
+drove in the winter evenings up from the town and back again.  
+Tables were spread and decked with glass and flowers, the rooms 
+were brightly lit, and the wine was good.  And sometimes in the 
+long moonlit nights respectable citizens would be awakened by noisy 
+mirth in the streets of the little town, and, going to the window 
+in their night-shirts, would see sleighs come galloping down, with 
+a jangle of bells, full of laughing, singing young people, 
+returning from some excursion far up in the hills, where there had 
+been feasting and dancing.  Here a young lawyer--newly married and 
+something of a privileged buffoon--was sitting on the lap of 
+somebody else's wife, playing a concertina, and singing at the top 
+of his voice.  "Some of that Loreng man's doings again," people 
+would say.  "The place has never been the same since he came here."  
+And they would get back to bed again, shaking their heads and 
+wondering what things were coming to.
+
+Peer drove out, too, on occasion, to parties at the big country 
+houses round, where they would play cards all night and have 
+champagne sent up to their rooms next morning, the hosts being men 
+who knew how to do things in style.  This was glorious.  Not 
+mathematics or religion any more--what he needed now was to 
+assimilate something of the country life of his native land.  He 
+was not going to be a stranger in his own country.  He wanted to 
+take firm root and be able to feel, like others, that he had a spot 
+in the world where he was at home.
+
+Then came the sunny day in June when he stood by Merle's bed, and 
+she lay there smiling faintly her one-sided smile, with a newborn 
+girl on her arm.  
+
+"What are we to call her, Peer?"
+
+"Why, we settled that long ago.  After your mother, of course."
+
+"Of course her name's to be Louise," said Merle, turning the tiny 
+red face towards her breast.
+
+This came as a fresh surprise.  She had been planning it for weeks 
+perhaps, and now it took him unawares like one of her spontaneous 
+caresses, but this time a caress to his inmost soul.
+
+He made a faint attempt at a joke.  "Oh well, I never have any say 
+in my own house.  I suppose you must have it your own way."  He 
+stroked her forehead; and when she saw how deeply moved he was, she 
+smiled up at him with her most radiant smile.
+
+On one of the first days of the hay-harvest, Peer lay out on a 
+sunny hillside with his head resting on a haycock, watching his 
+people at work.  The mowing machine was buzzing down by the lake, 
+the spreader at work on the hill-slopes, the horses straining in 
+front, the men sitting behind driving.  The whole landscape lay 
+around him breathing summer and fruitfulness.  And he himself lay 
+there sunk in his own restful quiet.
+
+A woman in a light dress and a yellow straw hat came down the field 
+road, pushing a child's cart before her.  It was Merle, and Merle 
+was looking round her, and humming as she came.  Since the birth of 
+her child her mind was at peace; it was clear that she was scarcely 
+dreaming now of conquering the world with her music--there was a 
+tiny being in the little cart that claimed all her dreams.  Never 
+before had her skin been so dazzling, her smile so red; it was as 
+if her youth now first blossomed out in all its fullness; her eyes 
+seemed opened wide in a dear surprise.
+
+After a while Peer went down and drove the mowing machine himself.  
+He felt as if he must get to work somehow or other to provide for 
+his wife and child.
+
+But suddenly he stopped, got down, and began to walk round the 
+machine and examine it closely.  His face was all alert now, his 
+eyes keen and piercing.  He stared at the mechanism of the blades, 
+and stood awhile thinking.
+
+What was this?  A happy idea was beginning to work in his mind.  
+Vague only as yet--there was still time to thrust it aside.  
+Should he?
+
+
+Warm mild days and luminous nights.  Sometimes he could not sleep 
+for thinking how delicious it was to lie awake and see the sun come 
+up.
+
+On one such night he got up and dressed.  A few minutes later there 
+was a trampling of hoofs in the stable-yard and the chestnut 
+stallion appeared, with Peer leading him.  He swung himself into 
+the saddle, and trotted off down the road, a white figure in his 
+drill suit and cork helmet.
+
+Where was he going?  Nowhere.  It was a change, to be up at an 
+unusual hour and see the day break on a July morning.
+
+He trotted along at an easy pace, rising lightly in the stirrups, 
+and enjoying the pleasant warmth the rider feels.  All was quiet 
+around him, the homesteads still asleep.  The sky was a pearly 
+white, with here and there a few golden clouds, reflected in the 
+lake below.  And the broad meadows still spread their many-coloured 
+flower-carpet abroad; there was a scent in the air of leaf and 
+meadow-grass and pine, he drew in deep breaths of it and could have 
+sung aloud.
+
+He turned into the by-road up the hill, dismounting now and again 
+to open a gate; past farms and little cottages, ever higher and 
+higher, till at last he reached the topmost ridge, and halted in a 
+clearing.  The chestnut threw up his head and sniffed the air; 
+horse and rider were wet with the dew-drip from the trees, that 
+were now just flushing in the first glow of the coming sun.  Far 
+below was the lake, reflecting sky and hills and farmsteads, all 
+asleep.  And there in the east were the red flames--the sun--the 
+day.
+
+The horse pawed impatiently at the ground, eager to go on, but Peer 
+held him back.  He sat there gazing under the brim of his helmet at 
+the sunrise, and felt a wave of strange feeling passing through his 
+mind.
+
+It seemed to him impossible that he should ever reach a higher 
+pitch of sheer delight in life.  He was still young and strong; all 
+the organs of his body worked together in happy harmony.  No cares 
+to weigh upon his mind, no crushing responsibilities; the future 
+lying calm and clear in the light of day, free from dizzy dreams.  
+His hunger after knowledge was appeased; he felt that what he had 
+learned and seen and gathered was beginning to take living organic 
+form in his mind.
+
+But then--what then?
+
+The great human type of which you dreamed--have you succeeded in 
+giving it life in yourself?
+
+You know what is common knowledge about the progress of humanity; 
+its struggle towards higher forms, its gropings up by many ways 
+toward the infinite which it calls God.
+
+You know something of the life of plants; the nest of a bird is a 
+mystery before which you could kneel in worship.  A rock shows you 
+the marks of a glacier that scraped over it thousands of years ago, 
+and looking on it you have a glimpse of the gigantic workings of 
+the solar system.  And on autumn evenings you look up at the stars, 
+and the light and the death and the dizzy abysses of space above 
+you send a solemn thrill through your soul.
+
+And this has become a part of yourself.  The joy of life for you is 
+to grasp all you can compass of the universe, and let it permeate 
+your thought and sense on every side.
+
+But what then?  Is this enough?  Is it enough to rest thus in 
+yourself?
+
+Have you as yet raised one stepping-stone upon which other men can 
+climb and say:  Now we can see farther than before?
+
+What is your inner being worth, unless it be mirrored in action?
+
+If the world one day came to be peopled with none but supermen--
+what profit in that, as long as they must die?
+
+What is your faith?
+
+Ah, this sense of exile, of religious homelessness!  How many times 
+have you and Merle lain clasping each other's hands, your thoughts 
+wandering together hand in hand, seeking over earth or among the 
+stars for some being to whom you might send up a prayer; no slavish 
+begging cry for grace and favour, but a jubilant thanksgiving for 
+the gift of life.
+
+But where was He?
+
+He is not.  And yet--He is.
+
+But the ascetic on the cross is a God for the sick and aged.  What 
+of us others?  When shall the modern man, strong, scientifically 
+schooled, find a temple for the sacred music, the anthem of 
+eternity in his soul?
+
+The sun rose up from behind a distant hill-crest, scattering gold 
+over the million spires of the pine-forest.  Peer bent forward, 
+with red-gleaming dewdrops on his hand and his white sleeve, and 
+patted the neck of his restless beast.
+
+It was two o'clock.  The fires of morning were lit in the clouds 
+and in all the waters over the earth.  The dew in the meadows and 
+the pearls on the wings of butterflies began to glisten.
+
+"Now then, Bijou!--now for home!"
+
+And he dashed off down the grass-grown forest paths, the chestnut 
+snorting as he galloped.
+
+
+
+Chapter VII
+
+
+"Hei, Merle;  We're going to have distinguished visitors--where in 
+the world have you got to!"  Peer hurried through the rooms with an 
+open telegram in his hand, and at last came upon his wife in the 
+nursery.  "Oh, is it here you are?"
+
+"Yes--but you shout so, I could hear you all through the house.  
+Who is it that's coming?"
+
+"Ferdinand Holm and Klaus Brock.  Coming to the christening after 
+all.  Great Caesar!--what do you say to that, Merle?"
+
+Merle was pale, and her cheeks a little sunken.  Two years more had 
+passed, and she had her second child now on her knee--a little boy 
+with big wondering eyes.
+
+"How fine for you, Peer!" she said, and went on undressing the 
+child.
+
+"Yes; but isn't it splendid of them to set off and come all that 
+way, just because I asked them?  By Jove, we must look sharp and 
+get the place smartened up a bit."
+
+And sure enough the whole place was soon turned upside-down--
+cartloads of sand coming in for the garden walks and the courtyard, 
+and painters hard at work repainting the houses.  And poor Merle 
+knew very well that there would be serious trouble if anything 
+should be amiss with the entertainment indoors.
+
+At last came the hot August day when the flags were hoisted in 
+honour of the expected guests.  Once more the hum of mowing 
+machines and hay-rakes came from the hill-slopes, and the air was 
+so still that the columns of smoke from the chimneys of the town 
+rose straight into the air.  Peer had risen early, to have a last 
+look round, inspecting everything critically, from the summer dress 
+Merle was to wear down to the horses in the stable, groomed till 
+their coats shone again.  Merle understood.  He had been a fisher-
+boy beside the well-dressed son of the doctor, and something meaner 
+yet in relation to the distinguished Holm family.  And there was 
+still so much of the boy in him that he wanted to show now at his 
+very best.
+
+A crowd of inquisitive idlers had gathered down on the steamboat 
+landing when the boat swung in and lay by the pier.  The pair of 
+bays in the Loreng carriage stood tossing their heads and twitching 
+and stamping as the flies tormented them; but at last they got 
+their passengers and were given their heads, setting off with a 
+wild bound or two that scattered those who had pressed too near.  
+But in the carriage they could see the two strangers and the 
+engineer, all three laughing and gesticulating, and talking all at 
+once.  And in a few moments they vanished in a cloud of dust, 
+whirling away beside the calm waters of the fjord.
+
+Some way behind them a cart followed, driven by one of the stable-
+boys from Loreng, and loaded with big brass-bound leather trunks 
+and a huge chest, apparently of wood, but evidently containing 
+something frightfully heavy.
+
+Merle had finished dressing, and stood looking at herself in the 
+glass.  The light summer dress was pretty, she thought, and the red 
+bows at neck and waist sat to her satisfaction.  Then came the roll 
+of wheels outside, and she went out to receive her guests.
+
+"Here they are," cried Peer, jumping down.  "This is Ferdinand 
+Pasha, Governor-General of the new Kingdom of Sahara--and this is 
+His Highness the Khedive's chief pipe-cleaner and body-eunuch."
+
+A tall, stooping man with white hair and a clean-shaven, dried-up 
+face advanced towards Merle.  It was Ferdinand Holm.  "How do you 
+do, Madam?" he said, giving her a dry, bony hand.
+
+"Why, this is quite a baronial seat you have here," he added, 
+looking round and settling his pince-nez.
+
+His companion was a round, plump gentleman, with a little black 
+goatee beard and dark eyes that blinked continually.  But his smile 
+was full of mirth, and the grip of his hand felt true.  So this was 
+Klaus Brock.
+
+Peer led his two friends in through the rooms, showing them the 
+view from the various windows.  Klaus broke into a laugh at last, 
+and turned to Merle:  "He's just the same as ever," he said--"a 
+little stouter, to be sure--it's clear you've been treating him 
+well, madam."  And he bowed and kissed her hand.
+
+There was hock and seltzer ready for them--this was Merle's idea, 
+as suitable for a hot day--and when the two visitors had each drunk 
+off a couple of glasses, with an:  "Ah! delicious!", Peer came 
+behind her, stroked her hand lightly and whispered, "Thanks, Merle--
+first-rate idea of yours."
+
+"By the way," exclaimed Ferdinand Holm suddenly, "I must send off a 
+telegram.  May I use the telephone a moment?"
+
+"There he goes--can't contain himself any longer!" burst out Klaus 
+Brock with a laugh.  "He's had the telegraph wires going hard all 
+the way across Europe--but you might let us get inside and sit down 
+before you begin again here."
+
+"Come along," said Peer.  "Here's the telephone."
+
+When the two had left the room, Klaus turned to Merle with a smile.  
+"Well, well--so I'm really in the presence of Peer's wife--his wife 
+in flesh and blood.  And this is what she looks like!  That fellow 
+always had all the luck."  And he took her hand again and kissed 
+it.  Merle drew it away and blushed.
+
+"You are not married, then, Mr. Brock?"
+
+"I?  Well, yes and no.  I did marry a Greek girl once, but she ran 
+away.  Just my luck."  And he blinked his eyes and sighed with an 
+expression so comically sad that Merle burst out laughing.
+
+"And your friend, Ferdinand Holm?" she asked.
+
+"He, dear lady--he--why, saving your presence, I have an idea 
+there's a select little harem attached to that palace of his."
+
+Merle turned towards the window and shook her head with a smile.
+
+An hour later the visitors came down from their rooms after a wash 
+and a change of clothes, and after a light luncheon Peer carried 
+them off to show them round the place.  He had added a number of 
+new buildings, and had broken new land.  The farm had forty cows 
+when he came, now he had over sixty.  "Of course, all this is a 
+mere nothing for fellows like you, who bring your harvest home in 
+railway trains," he said.  "But, you see, I have my home here."  
+And he waved his hand towards the house and the farmstead round.
+
+Later they drove over in the light trap to look at the workshop, 
+and here he made no excuses for its being small.  He showed off the 
+little foundry as if it had been a world-famous seat of industry, 
+and maintained his serious air while his companions glanced 
+sideways at him, trying hard not to smile.
+
+The workmen touched their caps respectfully, and sent curious 
+glances at the strangers.
+
+"Quite a treat to see things on the Norwegian scale again," 
+Ferdinand Holm couldn't resist saying at last.
+
+"Yes, isn't it charming!" cried Peer, putting on an air of 
+ingenuous delight.  "This is just the size a foundry should be, if 
+its owner is to have a good time and possess his soul in peace."
+
+Ferdinand Holm and Brock exchanged glances.  But next moment Peer 
+led them through into a side-room, with tools and machinery 
+evidently having no connection with the rest.
+
+"Now look out," said Klaus.  "This is the holy of holies, you'll 
+see.  He's hard at it working out some new devilry here, or I'm a 
+Dutchman."
+
+Peer drew aside a couple of tarpaulins, and showed them a mowing 
+machine of the ordinary type, and beside it another, the model of a 
+new type he had himself devised.
+
+"It's not quite finished yet," he said.  "But I've solved the main 
+problem.  The old single knife-blade principle was clumsy; dragged, 
+you know.  But with two blades--a pair of shears, so to speak--
+it'll work much quicker."  And he gave them a little lecture, 
+showing how much simpler his mechanism was, and how much lighter 
+the machine would be.
+
+"And there you are," said Klaus.  "It's Columbus's egg over again."
+
+"The patent ought to be worth a million," said Ferdinand Holm, 
+slowly, looking out of the window.
+
+"Of course the main thing is, to make the work easier and cheaper 
+for the farmers," said Peer, with a rather sly glance at Ferdinand.
+
+Dinner that evening was a festive meal.  When the liqueur brandy 
+went round, Klaus greeted it with enthusiasm.  "Why, here's an old 
+friend, as I live!  Real Lysholmer!--well, well; and so you're 
+still in the land of the living?  You remember the days when we 
+were boys together?"  He lifted the little glass and watched the 
+light play in the pale spirit.  And the three old friends drank 
+together, singing "The first full glass," and then "The second 
+little nip," with the proper ceremonial observances, just as they 
+had done in the old days, at their student wine-parties.
+
+The talk went merrily, one good story calling up another.  But 
+Merle could not help noticing the steely gleam of Ferdinand Holm's 
+eyes, even when he laughed.
+
+The talk fell on new doings in Egypt, and as Peer heard more and 
+more of these, it seemed to her that his look changed.  His glance, 
+too, seemed to have that glint of steel, there was something 
+strange and absent in his face; was he feeling, perhaps, that wife 
+and children were but a drag on a man, after all?  He seemed like 
+an old war-horse waking suddenly at the sound of trumpets.
+
+"There's a nice little job waiting for you, by the way," said 
+Ferdinand Holm, lifting his glass to Peer.
+
+"Very kind of you, I'm sure.  A sub-directorship under you?"
+
+"You're no good under any one.  You belong on top."  Ferdinand 
+illustrated his words with a downward and an upward pointing of the 
+finger.  "The harnessing of the Tigris and Euphrates will have to 
+be taken in hand.  It's only a question of time."
+
+"Thanks very much!" said Peer, his eyes wide open now.
+
+"The plan's simply lying waiting for the right man.  It will be 
+carried out, it may be next year, it may be in ten years--whenever 
+the man comes along.  I would think about it, if I were you."
+
+All looked at Peer; Merle fastened her eyes on him, too.  But he 
+laughed.  "Now, what on earth would be the satisfaction to me of 
+binding in bands those two ancient and honourable rivers?"
+
+"Well, in the first place, it would mean an increase of many 
+millions of bushels in the corn production of the world.  Wouldn't 
+you have any satisfaction in that?"
+
+"No," said Peer, with a touch of scorn.
+
+"Or regular lines of communication over hundreds of thousands of 
+square miles of the most fertile country on the globe?"
+
+"Don't interest me," said Peer.
+
+"Ah!"  Ferdinand Holm lifted his glass to Merle.  "Tell me, dear 
+lady, how does it feel to be married to an anachronism?"
+
+"To--to what?" stammered Merle.
+
+"Yes, your husband's an anachronism.  He might, if he chose, be one 
+of the kings, the prophets, who lead the van in the fight for 
+civilisation.  But he will not; he despises his own powers, and one 
+day he will start a revolution against himself.  Mark my words.  
+Your health, dear lady!"
+
+Merle laughed, and lifted her glass, but hesitatingly, and with a 
+side-glance towards Peer.
+
+"Yes, your husband is no better now than an egoist, a collector of 
+happy days."
+
+"Well, and is that so very wicked?"
+
+"He sits ravelling out his life into a multitude of golden 
+threads," went on Ferdinand with a bow, his steely eyes trying to 
+look gentle.
+
+"But what is wrong in that?" said the young wife stoutly.
+
+"It is wrong.  It is wasting his immortal soul.  A man has no right 
+to ravel out his life, even though the threads are of gold.  A 
+man's days of personal happiness are forgotten--his work endures.  
+And your husband in particular--why the deuce should HE be so 
+happy?  The world-evolution uses us inexorably, either for light or 
+for fuel.  And Peer--your husband, dear lady--is too good for 
+fuel."
+
+Merle glanced again at her husband.  Peer laughed, but then 
+suddenly compressed his lips and looked down at his plate.
+
+Then the nurse came in with little Louise, to say good-night, and 
+the child was handed round from one to the other.  But when the 
+little fair-haired girl came to Ferdinand Holm, he seemed loth to 
+touch her, and Merle read his glance at Peer as meaning:  "Here is 
+another of the bonds you've tied yourself up with."
+
+"Excuse me," he said suddenly, looking at his watch, "I'm afraid I 
+must ask for the use of the telephone again.  Pardon me, Fru Holm."  
+And he rose and left the room.  Klaus looked at the others and 
+shook his head.  "That man would simply expire if he couldn't send 
+a telegram once an hour," he said with a laugh.
+
+Coffee was served out on the balcony, and the men sat and smoked.  
+It was a dusky twilight of early autumn; the hills were dark blue 
+now and distant; there was a scent of hay and garden flowers.  
+After a while Merle rose and said good-night.  And in her thoughts, 
+when she found herself alone in her bedroom, she hardly knew 
+whether to be displeased or not.  These strange men were drawing 
+Peer far away from all that had been his chief delight since she 
+had known him.  But it was interesting to see how different his 
+manner was towards the two friends.  Klaus Brock he could jest and 
+laugh with, but with Ferdinand Holm he seemed always on his guard, 
+ready to assert himself, and whenever he contradicted him it was 
+always with a certain deference.
+
+The great yellow disc of the moon came up over the hills in the 
+east, drawing a broad pillar of gold across the dark water.  And 
+the three comrades on the balcony sat watching it for a while in 
+silence.
+
+"So you're really going to go on idling here?" asked Ferdinand at 
+last, sipping his liqueur.
+
+"Is it me you mean?" asked Peer, bending slightly forward.
+
+"Well, I gather you're going round here simply being happy from 
+morning to night.  I call that idling."
+
+"Thanks."
+
+"Of course, you're very unhappy in reality.  Everyone is, as long 
+as he's neglecting his powers and aptitudes."
+
+"Very many thanks," said Peer, with a laugh.  Klaus sat up in his 
+chair, a little anxious as to what was coming.
+
+Ferdinand was still looking out over the lake.  "You seem to 
+despise your own trade--as engineer?"
+
+"Yes," said Peer.
+
+"And why?"
+
+"Why, I feel the lack of some touch of beauty in our ceaseless 
+craving to create something new, something new, always something 
+new.  More gold, more speed, more food--are these things not all we 
+are driving at?"
+
+"My dear fellow, gold means freedom.  And food means life.  And 
+speed carries us over the dead moments.  Double the possibilities 
+of life for men, and you double their numbers."
+
+"And what good will it do to double their numbers?  Two thousand 
+million machine-made souls--is that what you want?"
+
+"But hang it all, man," put in Klaus Brock eagerly, "think of our 
+dear Norway at least.  Surely you don't think it would be a 
+misfortune if our population increased so far that the world could 
+recognise our existence."
+
+"I do," said Peer, looking away over the lake.
+
+"Ah, you're a fanatic for the small in size and in numbers."
+
+"I am loth to see all Norway polluted with factories and 
+proletariat armies.  Why the devil can't we be left in peace?"
+
+"The steel will not have it," said Ferdinand Holm, as if speaking 
+to the pillar of moonlight on the water.
+
+"What?  Who did you say?"  Peer looked at him with wide eyes.
+
+Ferdinand went on undisturbed:  "The steel will not have peace.  
+And the fire will not.  And Prometheus will not.  The human spirit 
+has still too many steps to climb before it reaches the top.  
+Peace?  No, my friend--there are powers outside you and me that 
+determine these things."
+
+Peer smiled, and lit a new cigar.  Ferdinand Holm leaned back in 
+his chair and went on, addressing himself apparently to the moon.  
+"Tigris and Euphrates--Indus and Ganges--and all the rest of this 
+planet--regulate and cultivate the whole, and what is it after all?  
+It's only a question of a few years.  It is only a humble 
+beginning.  In a couple of centuries or so there will be nothing 
+left to occupy us any more on this little globe of ours.  And then 
+we'll have to set about colonising other worlds."
+
+There was silence for a moment.  Then Peer spoke.
+
+"And what do we gain by it all?" he asked.
+
+"Gain?  Do you imagine there will ever be any 'thus far and no 
+farther' for the spirit of man?  Half a million years hence, all 
+the solar systems we know of now will be regulated and ordered by 
+the human spirit.  There will be difficulties, of course.  
+Interplanetary wars will arise, planetary patriotism, groups of 
+planetary powers in alliances and coalitions against other groups.  
+Little worlds will be subjugated by the bigger ones, and so on.  Is 
+there anything in all this to grow dizzy over?  Great heavens--can 
+anyone doubt that man must go on conquering and to conquer for 
+millions of years to come?  The world-will goes its way.  We cannot 
+resist.  Nobody asks whether we are happy.  The will that works 
+towards the infinite asks only whom it can use for its ends, and 
+who is useless.  Viola tout."
+
+"And when I die," asked Peer--"what then?"
+
+"You!  Are you still going about feeling your own pulse and wanting 
+to live for ever?  My dear fellow, YOU don't exist.  There is just 
+one person on our side--the world-will.  And that includes us all.  
+That's what I mean by 'we.'  And we are working towards the day 
+when we can make God respect us in good earnest.  The spirit of man 
+will hold a Day of Judgment, and settle accounts with Olympus--
+with the riddle, the almighty power beyond.  It will be a great 
+reckoning.  And mark my words--that is the one single religious 
+idea that lives and works in each and every one of us--the thing 
+that makes us hold up our heads and walk upright, forgetting that 
+we are slaves and things that die."
+
+Suddenly he looked at his watch.  "Excuse me a moment.  If the 
+telegraph office is open . . ." and he rose and went in.
+
+When he returned, Klaus and Peer were talking of the home of their 
+boyhood and their early days together.
+
+"Remember that time we went shark-fishing?" asked Klaus.
+
+"Oh yes--that shark.  Let me see--you were a hero, weren't you, and 
+beat it to death with your bare fists--wasn't that it?"  And then 
+"Cut the line, cut the line, and row for your lives," he mimicked, 
+and burst out laughing.
+
+"Oh, shut up now and don't be so witty," said Klaus.  "But tell me, 
+have you ever been back there since you came home?"
+
+Peer told him that he had been to the village last year.  His old 
+foster-parents were dead, and Peter Ronningen too; but Martin 
+Bruvold was there still, living in a tiny cottage with eight 
+children.
+
+"Poor devil!" said Klaus.
+
+Ferdinand Holm had sat down again, and now he nodded towards the 
+moon.  "An old chum of yours?  Well, why don't we send him a 
+thousand crowns?"
+
+There was a little pause.  "I hope you'll let me join you," went on 
+Ferdinand, taking a note for five hundred crowns from his waistcoat 
+pocket.  "You don't mind, do you?"
+
+Peer glanced at him and took the note.  "I'm delighted for poor old 
+Martin's sake," he said, putting the note in his waistcoat pocket.  
+"That'll make fifteen hundred for him."
+
+Klaus Brock looked from one to the other and smiled a little.  The 
+talk turned on other things for a while, and then he asked:
+
+"By the way, Peer, have you seen that advertisement of the British 
+Carbide Company's?"
+
+"No, what about?"
+
+"They want tenders for the damming and harnessing of the Besna 
+River, with its lake system and falls.  That should be something in 
+your line."
+
+"No," said Ferdinand sharply.  "I told you before--that job's too 
+small for him.  Peer's going to the Euphrates."
+
+"What would it amount to, roughly?" said Peer, addressing no one in 
+particular.
+
+"As far as I could make out, it should be a matter of a couple of 
+million crowns or thereabout," said Klaus.
+
+"That's not a thing for Peer," said Ferdinand, rising and lifting 
+his hand to hide a yawn.  "Leave trifles like that to the trifling 
+souls.  Good-night, gentlemen."
+
+A couple of hours later, when all was silent throughout the house, 
+Peer was still up, wandering to and fro in soft felt slippers in 
+the great hall.  Now and again he would stop, and look out of the 
+window.  Why could he not sleep?  The moon was paling, the day 
+beginning to dawn.
+
+
+
+Chapter VIII
+
+
+The next morning Merle was alone in the pantry when she heard steps 
+behind her, and turned her head.  It was Klaus Brock.
+
+"Good-morning, madam--ah! so this is what you look like in morning 
+dress.  Why, morning neglige might have been invented for you, if I 
+may say so.  You might be a Ghirlandajo.  Or no, better still, 
+Aspasia herself."
+
+"You are up early," said Merle drily.
+
+"Am I?  What about Ferdinand Holm then?  He has been up since 
+sunrise, sitting over his letters and accounts.  Anything I can 
+help you with?  May I move that cheese for you?--Well, well! you 
+are strong.  But there, I'm always de trop where women are 
+concerned."
+
+"Always de trop?" repeated Merle, watching him through her long 
+lashes.
+
+"Yes--my first and only love--do you know who she was?"
+
+"No, indeed.  How should I?"
+
+"Well, it was Louise--Peer's little sister.  I wish you could have 
+known her."
+
+"And since then?"  Merle let her eyes rest on this flourishing 
+gentleman, who looked as if he could never have had a trouble in 
+the world.
+
+"Since then, dear lady?--since then?  Let me see.  Why, at this 
+moment I really can't remember ever having met any other woman 
+except . . ."
+
+"Except . . . ?"
+
+"Except yourself, madam."  And he bowed.
+
+"You are TOO kind!"
+
+"And, that being so, don't you think it's your plain duty, as a 
+hospitable hostess, to grant me . . ."
+
+"Grant you--what?  A piece of cheese?"
+
+"Why, no, thanks.  Something better.  Something much better than 
+that."
+
+"What, then?"
+
+"A kiss.  I might as well have it now."  As he took a step nearer, 
+she looked laughingly round for a way of escape, but he was between 
+her and the door.
+
+"Well," said Merle, "but you must do something to make yourself 
+useful first.  Suppose you ran up that step-ladder for me."
+
+"Delighted.  Why, this is great fun!"  The slight wooden ladder 
+creaked under the weight of his solid form as he climbed.  "How 
+high am I to go?"
+
+"To reach the top shelf--that's it.  Now, you see that big brown 
+jar?  Careful--it's cranberries."
+
+"Splendid--I do believe we're to have cranberry preserve at 
+dinner."  By standing on tiptoe he managed to reach and lift the 
+heavy jar, and stood holding it, his face flushed with his 
+exertions.
+
+"And now, little lady?"
+
+"Just stay there a moment and hold it carefully; I have to fetch 
+something."  And she hurried out.
+
+Klaus stood at the top of the ladder, holding the heavy jar.  He 
+looked round.  What was he to do with it?  He waited for Merle to 
+return--but she did not appear.  Someone was playing the piano in 
+the next room.  Should he call for help?  He waited on, getting 
+redder and redder in the face.  And still no Merle came.
+
+With another mighty effort he set the jar back in its place, and 
+then climbed down the ladder and walked into the drawing-room, very 
+red and out of breath.  In the doorway he stopped short and stared.
+
+"What--well, I'll--  And she's sitting here playing the piano!"
+
+"Yes.  Aren't you fond of music, Herr Brock?"
+
+"I'll pay you out for this," he said, shaking a finger at her.  
+"Just you wait and see, little lady, if I don't pay you out, with 
+interest!"  And he turned and went upstairs, chuckling as he went.
+
+Peer was sitting at the writing-table in his study when Klaus came 
+in.  "I'm just sealing up the letter with the money for Martin 
+Bruvold," he said, setting the taper to a stick of sealing wax.  
+"I've signed it:  'From the shark fishers.'"
+
+"Yes, it was a capital idea of Ferdinand's.  What d'you think the 
+poor old fellow'll say when he opens it and the big notes tumble 
+out?"
+
+"I'd like to see his face," said Peer, as he wrote the address on 
+the envelope.
+
+Klaus dropped into a leather armchair and leaned back comfortably.  
+"I've been downstairs flirting a little with your wife," he said.  
+"Your wife's a wonder, Peer."
+
+Peer looked at him, and thought of the old days when the heavy-
+built, clumsy doctor's son had run about after the servant-girls in 
+the town.  He had still something of his old lurching walk, but 
+intercourse with the ladies of many lands had polished him and 
+given lightness and ease to his manner.
+
+"What was I going to say?" Klaus went on.  "Oh yes--our friend 
+Ferdinand's a fine fellow, isn't he?"
+
+"Yes, indeed."
+
+"I felt yesterday exactly as I used to feel when we three were 
+together in the old days.  When I listen to his talk I can't help 
+agreeing with him--and then you begin to speak, and what you say, 
+too, seems to be just what I've been thinking in my inmost soul.  
+Do you think I've become shallow, Peer?"
+
+"Well, your steam ploughs look after themselves, I suppose, and the 
+ladies of your harem don't trouble you overmuch.  Do you read at 
+all?"
+
+"Best not say too much about that," said Klaus with a sigh, and it 
+suddenly struck Peer that his friend's face had grown older and 
+more worn.
+
+"No," said Klaus again.  "Better not say much about that.  But tell 
+me, old fellow--you mustn't mind my asking--has Ferdinand ever 
+spoken to you as his brother . . . or . . ."
+
+Peer flushed hotly.  "No," he said after a pause.
+
+"No?"
+
+"I owe more to him than to anybody in the world.  But whether he 
+regards me as a kinsman or simply as an object for his kindness to 
+wreak itself on is a matter he's always left quite vague."
+
+"It's just like him.  He's a queer fellow.  But there's another 
+thing. . . ."
+
+"Well?" said Peer, looking up.
+
+"It's--er--again it's rather a delicate matter to touch on.  I 
+know, of course, that you're in the enviable position of having 
+your fortune invested in the best joint-stock company in the 
+world--"
+
+"Yes; and so are you."
+
+"Oh, mine's a trifle compared with yours.  Have you still the whole 
+of your money in Ferdinand's company?"
+
+"Yes.  I've been thinking of selling a few shares, by the way.  As 
+you may suppose, I've been spending a good deal just lately--more 
+than my income."
+
+"You mustn't sell just now, Peer.  They're--I daresay you've seen 
+that they're down--below par, in fact."
+
+"What--below par!  No, I had no idea of that."
+
+"Oh, only for the time being, of course.  Just a temporary drop.  
+There's sure to be another run on them soon, and they'll go up 
+again.  But the Khedive has the controlling interest, you know, and 
+he's rather a ticklish customer.  Ferdinand is all for extension--
+wants to keep on buying up new land--new desert, that is.  
+Irrigation there's just a question of power--that's how he looks at 
+it.  And of course the bigger the scale of the work the cheaper the 
+power will work out.  But the Khedive's holding back.  It may be 
+just a temporary whim--may be all right again to-morrow.  But you 
+never know.  And if you think Ferdinand's the man to give in to a 
+cranky Khedive, you're much mistaken.  His idea now is to raise all 
+the capital he can lay hands on, and buy him out!  What do you say 
+to that?  Buy the Khedive clean out of the company.  It's a large 
+order.  And if I were you, old man, as soon as the shares go up 
+again a bit, I'd sell out some of my holding, and put the money 
+into something at home here.  After all, there must be plenty of 
+quite useful things to be had here."
+
+Peer frowned, and sat for a while looking straight before him.  
+"No," he said at last.  "As things stand between Ferdinand Holm and 
+me--well, if either of us goes back on the other, it's not going to 
+be me."
+
+"Ah, in that case--I beg your pardon," said Klaus, and he rose and 
+departed.
+
+The christening was a great occasion, with a houseful of guests, 
+and a great deal of speechmaking.  The host was the youngest and 
+gayest of the party.  The birth of his son should be celebrated in 
+true Ethiopian fashion, he declared--with bonfires and boating 
+parties.
+
+The moon was hidden that evening behind thick dark clouds, but the 
+boats full of guests glided over the black water to the accompaniment
+of music and laughter.  The young madcap of a lawyer was there,
+again sitting on the lap of someone else's wife, and playing a
+concertina, till people in the farms on shore opened their windows
+and put their heads out to listen.
+
+Later on the bonfires blazed up all along the lake shore and shone 
+like great flaming suns in the water below.  The guests lay on the 
+grass in little groups round picnic suppers, and here and there a 
+couple wandered by themselves, talking in whispers.
+
+Merle and Peer stood together for a moment beside one of the 
+bonfires.  Their faces and figures were lit by the red glow; they 
+looked at each other and exchanged a smile.  He took her hand and 
+led her outside the circle of light from the fire, and pointed over 
+to their home, with all its windows glowing against the dark.
+
+"Suppose this should be the last party we give, Merle."
+
+"Peer, what makes you say that?"
+
+"Oh, nothing--only I have a sort of feeling, as if something had 
+just ended and something new was to begin.  I feel like it, 
+somehow.  But I wanted to thank you, too, for all the happy times 
+we've had."
+
+"But Peer--what--"  She got no farther, for Peer had already left 
+her and joined a group of guests, where he was soon as gay as the 
+rest.
+
+Then came the day when the two visitors were to leave.  Their 
+birthday gift to the young gentleman so lately christened Lorentz 
+Uthoug stood in the drawing-room; it was a bust in red granite, the 
+height of a man, of the Sun-god Re Hormachis, brought with them by 
+the godfathers from Alexandria.  And now it sat in the drawing-room 
+between palms in pots, pressing its elbows against its sides and 
+gazing with great dead eyes out into endless space.
+
+Peer stood on the quay waving farewell to his old comrades as the 
+steamer ploughed through the water, drawing after it a fan-shaped 
+trail of little waves.
+
+And when he came home, he walked about the place, looking at farms 
+and woods, at Merle and the children, with eyes that seemed to her 
+strange and new.
+
+Next night he stayed up once more alone, pacing to and fro in the 
+great hall, and looking out of the windows into the dark.
+
+Was he ravelling out his life into golden threads that vanished and 
+were forgotten?
+
+Was he content to be fuel instead of light?
+
+What was he seeking?  Happiness?  And beyond it?  As a boy he had 
+called it the anthem, the universal hymn.  What was it now?  God?  
+But he would hardly find Him in idleness.
+
+You have drawn such nourishment as you could from joy in your home, 
+from your marriage, your fatherhood, nature, and the fellowmen 
+around you here.  There are unused faculties in you that hunger for 
+exercise; that long to be set free to work, to strive, to act.
+
+You should take up the barrage on the Besna, Peer.  But could you 
+get the contract?  If you once buckle-to in earnest, no one is 
+likely to beat you--you'll get it, sure enough.  But do you really 
+want it?
+
+Are you not working away at a mowing-machine as it is?  Better own 
+up that you can't get on without your old craft, after all--that 
+you must for ever be messing and meddling with steel and fire.  You 
+can't help yourself.
+
+All the things your eyes have been fixed on in these last years 
+have been only golden visions in a mist.  The steel has its own 
+will.  The steel is beginning to wake in you--singing--singing--
+bent on pressing onward.  You have no choice.
+
+The world-will goes on its way.  Go with it or be cast overboard as 
+useless.
+
+And still Peer walked up and down, up and down.
+
+Next morning he set off for the capital.  Merle watched the 
+carriage as it drove away, and thought to herself:  "He was right.  
+Something new is beginning."
+
+
+
+Chapter IX
+
+
+There came a card from Peer, with a brief message:  "Off to inspect 
+the ground."  A fortnight later he came home, loaded with maps and 
+plans.  "Of course I'm late for the fair, as usual," he said.  "But 
+wait a bit."
+
+He locked himself into his room.  At last Merle knew what it was 
+like to have him at work.  She could hear him in the mornings, 
+walking up and down and whistling.  Then silence--he would be 
+standing over his table, busy with notes and figures.  Then steps 
+again.  Now he was singing--and this was a novelty to himself.  It 
+was as if he carried in him a store of happiness, a treasure laid 
+by of love, and the beauty of nature, and happy hours, and now it 
+found its way out in song.  Why should he not sing over the plans 
+for a great barrage?  Mathematics are dry work enough, but at times 
+they can be as living visions, soaring up into the light.  Peer 
+sang louder.  Then silence again.  Merle never knew now when he 
+stopped work and came to bed.  She would fall asleep to the sound 
+of his singing in his own room, and when she woke he would already 
+be tramping up and down again in there; and to her his steps seemed 
+like the imperious tread of a great commander.  He was alight with 
+new visions, new themes, and his voice had a lordly ring.  Merle 
+looked at him through half-closed eyes with a lingering glance.  
+Once more he was new to her: she had never seen him like this.
+
+At last the work was finished, and he sent in his tender.  And now 
+he was more restless than ever.  For a week he waited for an 
+answer, tramping in and out of the place, going off for rides on 
+Bijou, and coming back with his horse dripping with sweat.  An 
+impatient man cannot possibly ride at any pace but a gallop.  The 
+days passed; Peer was sleepless, and ate nothing.  More days 
+passed.  At last he came bursting into the nursery one morning:  
+"Trunk call, Merle; summons to a meeting of the Company Directors.  
+Quick's the word.  Come and help me pack--sharp."  And in no time 
+he was off again to the city.
+
+Now it was Merle's turn to walk up and down in suspense.  It 
+mattered little to her in itself whether he got the work or not, 
+but she was keenly anxious that he should win.
+
+A couple of days later a telegram came:  "Hurrah, wife!"  And Merle 
+danced round the room, waving the telegram above her head.
+
+The next day he was back home again and tramping up and down the 
+room.  "What do you think your father will say to it, Merle--ha!"
+
+"Father?  Say to what?"
+
+"When I ask him to be my surety for a couple of hundred thousand 
+crowns?"
+
+"Is father to be in it, too?"  Merle looked at him open-eyed.
+
+"Oh, if he doesn't want to, we'll let him off.  But at any rate 
+I'll ask him first.  Goodbye."  And Peer drove off into town.
+
+In Lorentz Uthoug's big house you had to pass through the hardware 
+shop to get to his office, which lay behind.  Peer knocked at the 
+door, with a portfolio under his arm.  Herr Uthoug had just lit the 
+gas, and was on the point of sitting down at his American roll-top 
+desk, when Peer entered.  The grey-bearded head with the close 
+thick hair turned towards him, darkened by the shadow from the 
+green shade of the burner.
+
+"You, is it?" said he.  "Sit down.  You've been to Christiania, I 
+hear.  And what are you busy with now?"
+
+They sat down opposite each other.  Peer explained, calmly and with 
+confidence.
+
+"And what does the thing amount to?" asked Uthoug, his face coming 
+out of the shadow and looking at Peer in the full light.
+
+"Two million four hundred thousand."
+
+The old man laid his hairy hands on the desk and rose to his feet, 
+staring at the other and breathing deeply.  The sum half-stunned 
+him.  Beside it he himself and his work seemed like dust in the 
+balance.  Where were all his plans and achievements now, his 
+greatness, his position, his authority in the town?  Compared with 
+amounts like this, what were the paltry sums he had been used to 
+handle?
+
+"I--I didn't quite catch--" he stammered.  "Did you say two 
+millions?"
+
+"Yes.  I daresay it seems a trifle to you," said Peer.  "Indeed, 
+I've handled contracts myself that ran to fifty million francs."
+
+"What?  How much did you say?"  Uthoug began to move restlessly 
+about the room.  He clutched his hair, and gazed at Peer as if 
+doubting whether he was quite sober.
+
+At the same time he felt it would never do to let himself be so 
+easily thrown off his balance.  He tried to pull himself together.
+
+"And what do you make out of it?" he asked.
+
+"A couple of hundred thousand, I hope."
+
+"Oh!"  A profit on this scale again rather startled the old man.  
+No, he was nothing; he never had been anything in this world!
+
+"How do you know that you will make so much?"
+
+"I've calculated it all out."
+
+"But if--but how can you be sure of it?  Suppose you've got your 
+figures wrong?"  His head was thrust forward again into the full 
+light.
+
+"I'm in the habit of getting my figures right," said Peer.
+
+When he broached the question of security, the old man was in the 
+act of moving away from him across the room.  But he stopped short, 
+and looked back over his shoulder.
+
+"What?  Security?  You want me to stand security for two million 
+crowns?"
+
+"No; the Company asks for a guarantee for four hundred thousand."
+
+After a pause the old man said:  "I see.  Yes, I see.  But--but I'm 
+not worth as much as that altogether."
+
+"I can put in three hundred thousand of the four myself, in shares.  
+And then, of course, I have the Loreng property, and the works.  
+But put it at a round figure--will you guarantee a hundred 
+thousand?"
+
+There was another pause, and then the reply came from the far end 
+of the room to which Uthoug had drifted:  "Even that's a big sum."
+
+"Of course if you would rather not, I could make other arrangements.
+My two friends, who have just been here--"  He rose and began to
+gather up his papers.
+
+"No, no; you mustn't be in such a hurry.  Why, you come down on a 
+man like an avalanche.  You must give me time to think it over--
+till to-morrow at least.  And the papers--at any rate, I must have 
+a look at them."
+
+Uthoug passed a restless and troubled night.  The solid ground 
+seemed to have failed him; his mind could find no firm foothold.  
+His son-in-law must be a great man--he should be the last to doubt 
+it.  But a hundred thousand--to be ventured, not in landed 
+property, or a big trade deal, but on the success of a piece of 
+construction work.  This was something new.  It seemed fantastic--
+suited to the great world outside perhaps, or the future.  Had he 
+courage enough to stand in?  Who could tell what accidents, what 
+disasters might not happen?  No!  He shook his head.  He could not.  
+He dared not.  But--the thing tempted him.  He had always wanted to 
+be something more than a whale among the minnows.  Should he risk 
+it?  Should he not?  It meant staking his whole fortune, his 
+position, everything, upon the outcome of a piece of engineering 
+that he understood nothing whatever about.  It was sheer 
+speculation; it was gambling.  No, he must say:  No.  Then he was 
+only a whale among the minnows, after all.  No, he must say:  Yes.  
+Good God!  He clenched his hands together; they were clammy with 
+sweat, and his brain was in a whirl.  It was a trial, a temptation.  
+He felt an impulse to pray.  But what good could that do--since he 
+had himself abolished God.
+
+Next day Merle and Peer were rung up by telephone and asked to come 
+in to dinner with the old folks.
+
+But when they were all sitting at table, they found it impossible 
+to keep the conversation going.  Everyone seemed shy of beginning 
+on the subject they were all thinking about.  The old man's face 
+was grey with want of sleep; his wife looked from one to the other 
+through her spectacles.  Peer was calm and smiling.
+
+At last, when the claret came round, Fru Uthoug lifted her glass 
+and drank to Peer.  "Good fortune!" she said.  "We won't be the 
+ones to stand in your way.  Since you think it is all right, of 
+course it is.  And we all hope it will turn out well for you, 
+Peer."
+
+Merle looked at her parents; she had sat through the meal anxious 
+and troubled, and now the tears rose into her eyes.
+
+"Thanks," said Peer, lifting his glass and drinking to his host and 
+hostess.  "Thanks," he repeated, bowing to old Uthoug.  The matter 
+was arranged.  Evidently the two old folks had talked it over 
+together and come to an agreement.
+
+It was settled, but all four felt as if the solid ground were 
+rocking a little under their feet.  All their future, their fate, 
+seemed staked upon a throw.
+
+A couple of days later, a day of mild October sunshine, Peer 
+happened to go into the town, and, catching sight of his mother-in-
+law at the window, he went off and bought some flowers, and took 
+them up to her.
+
+She was sitting looking out at the yellow sky in the west, and she 
+hardly turned her head as she took the flowers.  "Thanks, Peer," 
+she said, and continued gazing out at the sky.
+
+"What are you thinking of, dear mother?" asked Peer.
+
+"Ah! it isn't a good thing always to tell our thoughts," she said, 
+and she turned her spectacled eyes so as to look out over the lake.
+
+"I hope it was something pleasant?"
+
+"I was thinking of you, Peer.  Of you and Merle."
+
+"It is good of you to think of us."
+
+"You see, Peer, there is trouble coming for you.  A great deal of 
+trouble."  She nodded her head towards the yellow sky in the west.
+
+"Trouble?  Why?  Why should trouble come to us?"
+
+"Because you are happy, Peer."
+
+"What?  Because I am--?"
+
+"Because all things blossom and flourish about you.  Be sure that 
+there are unseen powers enough that grudge you your happiness."
+
+Peer smiled.  "You think so?" he asked.
+
+"I know it," she answered with a sigh, gazing out into the 
+distance.  "You have made enemies of late amongst all those envious 
+shadows that none can see.  But they are all around us.  I see them 
+every day; I have learned to know them, in all these years.  I have 
+fought with them.  And it is well for Merle that she has learned to 
+sing in a house so full of shadows.  God grant she may be able to 
+sing them away from you too."
+
+When Peer left the house he felt as if little shudders of cold were 
+passing down his back.  "Pooh!" he exclaimed as he reached the 
+street.  "She is not right in her head."  And he hurried to his 
+carriole and drove off home.
+
+"Old Rode will be pleased, anyhow," he thought.  "He'll be his own 
+master in the workshop now--the dream of his life.  Well, everyone 
+for himself.  And the bailiff will have things all his own way at 
+Loreng for a year or two.  Well, well!  Come up, Brownie!"
+
+
+
+Chapter X
+
+
+"Peer, you're surely not going away just now?  Oh, Peer, you 
+mustn't.  You won't leave me alone, Peer!"
+
+"Merle, dear, now do be sensible.  No, no--do let go, dear."  He 
+tried to disengage her hands that were clasped behind his neck.
+
+"Peer, you have never been like this before.  Don't you care for me 
+any more--or the children?"
+
+"Merle, dearest, you don't imagine that I like going.  But you 
+surely don't want me to have another big breach this year.  It 
+would be sheer ruin, I do assure you.  Come, come now; let me go."
+
+But she held him fast.  "And what happens to those dams up there is 
+more to you now than what becomes of me!"
+
+"You will be all right, dear.  The doctor and the nurse have 
+promised to be on the spot the moment you send word.  And you 
+managed so well before. . . .  I simply cannot stay now, Merle.  
+There's too much at stake.  There, there, goodbye!  Be sure you 
+telegraph--"  He kissed her over the eyes, put her gently down into 
+a chair, and hurried out of the room, feeling her terrified glance 
+follow him as he went.
+
+The April sun had cleared away the snow from the lowlands, but when 
+Peer stepped out of the train up in Espedal he found himself back 
+in winter--farms and fields still covered, and ridges and peaks 
+deep in white dazzling snow.  And soon he was sitting wrapped in 
+his furs, driving a miserable dun pony up a side-valley that led 
+out on to the uplands.
+
+The road was a narrow track through the snow, yellow with horse-
+dung, and a mass of holes and ruts, worn by his own teams that had 
+hauled their heavy loads of cement this way all through that winter 
+and the last, up to the plateau and across the frozen lakes to 
+Besna.
+
+The steel will on.  The steel cares nothing for human beings.  
+Merle must come through it alone.
+
+When a healthy, happy man is hampered and thwarted in a great work 
+by annoyances and disasters, he behaves like an Arab horse on a 
+heavy march.  At first it moves at a brisk trot, uphill and 
+downhill, and it goes faster and faster as its strength begins to 
+flag.  And when at last it is thoroughly out of breath and ready to 
+drop, it breaks into an easy gallop.
+
+This was not the work he had once dreamed of finding.  Now, as 
+before, his hunger for eternal things seemed ever at the side of 
+his accomplishment, asking continually:  Whither?  Why? and What 
+then?
+
+But by degrees the difficulties had multiplied and mounted, till at 
+last his whole mind was taken up by the one thought--to put it 
+through.  Good or bad in itself--he must make a success of it.  He 
+had undertaken it, and he must see it through.  He must not be 
+beaten.
+
+And so he fought on.  It was merely a trial of strength; a fight 
+with material difficulties.  Aye, but was that all it was?  Were 
+there not times when he felt himself struggling with something 
+greater, something worse?  A new motive force seemed to have come 
+into his life--misfortune.  A power outside his own will had begun 
+to play tricks with him.
+
+Your calculations may be sound, correct in every detail, and yet 
+things may go altogether wrong.
+
+Who could include in his calculations the chance that a perfectly 
+sober engineer will get drunk one day and give orders so crazy that 
+it costs tens of thousands to repair the damage?  Who could foresee 
+that against all probability a big vein of water would be tapped in 
+tunnelling, and would burst out, flooding the workings and 
+overwhelming the workmen--so that the next day a train of unpainted 
+deal coffins goes winding out over the frozen lakes?
+
+More than once there had been remarks and questions in the 
+newspapers:  "Another disaster at the Besna Falls.  Who is to 
+blame?"
+
+It was because he himself was away on a business journey and 
+Falkman had neglected to take elementary precautions that the big 
+rock-fall occurred in the tunnel, killing four men, and destroying 
+the new Belgian rock-drill, that had cost a good hundred thousand, 
+before it had begun to work.  This sort of thing was not faulty 
+calculation--it was malicious fate.
+
+"Come up, boy!  We must get there to-night.  The flood mustn't have 
+a chance this year to lay the blame on me because I wasn't on the 
+spot."
+
+And then, to cap the other misfortunes, his chief contractor for 
+material had gone bankrupt, and now prices had risen far above the 
+rates he had allowed for--adding fresh thousands to the extra 
+expenditure.
+
+But he would put the thing through, even if he lost money by it.  
+His envious rivals who had lately begun to run down his projects in 
+the technical papers--he would make them look foolish yet.
+
+And then?
+
+Well, it may be that the Promethean spirit is preparing a settling 
+day for the universe somewhere out in infinity.  But what concern 
+is that of mine?  What about my own immortal soul?
+
+Silence--push on, push on.  There may be a snowstorm any minute.  
+Come up--get along, you scarecrow.
+
+The dun struggles on to the end of a twelve-mile stage, and then 
+the valley ends and the full blast from the plateau meets them.  
+Here lies the posting station, the last farm in the valley.  He 
+swings into the yard and is soon sitting in the room over a cup of 
+coffee and a pipe.
+
+Merle?  How are things with Merle now?
+
+Ah! here comes his own horse, the big black stallion from 
+Gudbrandsdal.  This beast's trot is a different thing from the poor 
+dun's--the sleigh flies up to the door.  And in a moment Peer is 
+sitting in it again in his furs.
+
+Ah! what a relief to have a fresh horse, and one that makes light 
+of the load behind him.  Away he goes at a brisk trot, with lifted 
+head and bells jingling, over the frozen lakes.  Here and there on 
+the hillslopes a grey hut or two show out--saeters, which have lain 
+there unchanged for perhaps a couple of thousand years.  But a new 
+time is coming.  The saeter-horns will be heard no longer, and the 
+song of the turbines will rise in their place.
+
+An icy wind is blowing; the horse throws up its head and snorts.  
+Big snowflakes come driving on the wind, and soon a regular 
+snowstorm is raging, lashing the traveller's face till he gasps.  
+First the horse's mane and tail grow white with snow, then its 
+whole body.  The drifts grow bigger, the black has to make great 
+bounds to clear them.  Bravo, old boy! we must get there before 
+dark.  There are brushwood brooms set out across the ice to mark 
+the way, but who could keep them in sight in a driving smother like 
+this?  Peer's own face is plastered white now, and he feels stunned 
+and dazed under the lash of the snow.
+
+He has worked under the burning suns of Egypt--and now here.  But 
+the steel will on.  The wave rolls on its way over all the world.
+
+If this snow should turn to rain now, it will mean a flood.  And 
+then the men will have to turn out to-night and work to save the 
+dams.
+
+One more disaster, and he would hardly be able to finish within the 
+contract time.  And that once exceeded, each day's delay means a 
+penalty of a thousand crowns.
+
+It is getting darker.
+
+At last there is nothing to be seen on the way but a shapeless mass 
+of snow struggling with bowed head against the storm, wading deep 
+in the loose drifts, wading seemingly at haphazard--and trailing 
+after it an indefinable bundle of white--dead white.  Behind, a 
+human being drags along, holding on for dear life to the rings on 
+the sleigh.  It is the post-boy from the last stage.
+
+At last they were groping their way in the darkness towards the 
+shore, where the electric lights of the station showed faintly 
+through the snow-fog.  And hardly had Peer got out of the sleigh 
+before the snow stopped suddenly, and the dazzling electric suns 
+shone over the place, with the workmen's barracks, the assistants' 
+quarters, the offices, and his own little plank-built house.  Two 
+of the engineers came out to meet him, and saluted respectfully.
+
+"Well, how is everything getting on?"
+
+The greybeard answered:  "The men have struck work to-day."
+
+"Struck?  What for?"
+
+"They want us to take back the machinist that was dismissed the 
+other day for drunkenness."
+
+Peer shook the snow from his fur coat, took his bag, and walked 
+over to the building, the others following.  "Then we'll have to 
+take him back," he said.  "We can't afford a strike now."
+
+
+A couple of days later Peer was lying in bed, when the post-bag was 
+brought in.  He shook the letters out over the coverlet, and caught 
+sight of one from Klaus Brook.
+
+What was this?  Why did his hand tremble as he took it up?  Of 
+course it was only one of Klaus's ordinary friendly letters.
+
+
+DEAR FRIEND,--This is a hard letter to write.  But I do hope you 
+have taken my advice and got some of your money at any rate over to 
+Norway.  Well, to be as brief as possible!  Ferdinand Holm has 
+decamped, or is in prison, or possibly worse--you know well enough 
+it's no good asking questions in a country like this when a big man 
+suddenly disappears.  He had made enemies in the highest places; he 
+was playing a dangerous game--and this is the end of it.
+
+You know what it means when a business goes into liquidation out 
+here, and no strong man on the spot to look after things.  We 
+Europeans can whistle for our share.
+
+You'll take it coolly, I know.  I've lost every penny I had--but 
+you've still got your place over there and the workshops.  And 
+you're the sort of fellow to make twice as much next time, or I 
+don't know you.  I hope the Besna barrage is to be a success.
+
+Yours ever,
+
+KLAUS BROCK.
+
+P.S.--Of course you'll understand that now my friend has been 
+thrown overboard it will very likely be my turn next.  But I can't 
+leave now--to try would rouse suspicion at once.  We foreigners 
+have some difficult balancing to do, to escape a fall.  Well, if by 
+chance you don't hear from me again, you'll know something has 
+happened!
+
+
+Outside, the water was streaming down the channels into the fall.  
+Peer lay still for a while, only one knee moving up and down 
+beneath the clothes.  He thought of his two friends.  And he 
+thought that he was now a poor man--and that the greater part of 
+the burden of the security would fall now on old Lorentz D. Uthoug.
+
+Clearly, Fate has other business on hand than making things easy 
+for you, Peer.  You must fight your fight out single-handed.
+
+
+
+Chapter XI
+
+
+One evening in the late autumn Merle was sitting at home waiting 
+for her husband.  He had been away for several weeks, so it was 
+only natural that she should make a little festivity of his return.  
+The lamps were lit in all the rooms, wood fires were crackling in 
+all the stoves, the cook was busy with his favourite dishes, and 
+little Louise, now five years old, had on her blue velvet frock.  
+She was sitting on the floor, nursing two dolls, and chattering to 
+them.  "Mind you're a good girl now, Josephine.  Your grandpa will 
+be here directly."  Merle looked in through the kitchen door:  
+"Have you brought up the claret, Bertha?  That's right.  You'd 
+better put it near the stove to warm."  Then she went round all the 
+rooms again.  The two youngest children were in bed--was there 
+anything more to be done?
+
+It would be an hour at least before he could be here, yet she could 
+not help listening all the time for the sound of wheels.  But she 
+had not finished yet.  She hurried up to the bathroom, turned on 
+the hot water, undressed, and put on an oilskin cap to keep her 
+hair dry, and soon she was splashing about with soap and sponge.  
+Why not make herself as attractive as she could, even if things did 
+look dark for them just now?
+
+A little stream of talk went on in her brain.  Strange that one's 
+body could be so great a pleasure to another.  Here he kissed you--
+and here--and here--and often he seemed beside himself with joy.  
+And do you remember--that time?  You held back and were cold often--
+perhaps too often--is it too late now?  Ah! he has other things to 
+think of now.  The time is gone by when you could be comfort enough 
+to him in all troubles.  But is it quite gone by?  Oh yes; last 
+time he came home, he hardly seemed to notice that we had a new 
+little girl, that he had never seen before.  Well, no doubt it must 
+be so.  He did not complain, and he was calm and quiet, but his 
+mind was full of a whole world of serious things, a world where 
+there was no room for wife and children.  Will it be the same this 
+evening again?  Will he notice that you have dressed so carefully 
+to please him?  Will it be a joy to him any more to feel his arms 
+around you?
+
+She stood in front of the big, white-framed mirror, and looked 
+critically at herself.  No, she was no longer young as she had 
+been.  The red in her cheeks had faded a little these last few 
+years, and there were one or two wrinkles that could not be hidden.  
+But her eyebrows--he had loved to kiss them once--they were surely 
+much as before.  And involuntarily she bent towards the glass, and 
+stroked the dark growth above her eyes as if it were his hand 
+caressing her.
+
+She came down at last, dressed in a loose blue dress with a broad 
+lace collar and blond lace in the wide sleeves.  And not to seem 
+too much dressed, she had put on a red-flowered apron to give 
+herself a housewifely look.
+
+It was past seven now.  Louise came whimpering to her, and Merle 
+sank down in a chair by the window, and took the child on her lap, 
+and waited.
+
+The sound of wheels in the night may mean the approach of fate 
+itself.  Some decision, some final word that casts us down in a 
+moment from wealth to ruin--who knows?  Peer had been to England 
+now, trying to come to some arrangement with the Company.  Sh!--was 
+that not wheels?  She rose, trembling, and listened.
+
+No, it had passed on.
+
+It was eight o'clock now, time for Louise to go to bed; and Merle 
+began undressing her.  Soon the child was lying in her little white 
+bed, with a doll on either side.  "Give Papa a tiss," she babbled, 
+"and give him my love.  And Mama, do you think he'll let me come 
+into his bed for a bit tomorrow morning?"
+
+"Oh yes, I'm sure he will.  And now lie down and go to sleep, 
+there's a good girl."
+
+Merle sat down again in the room and waited.  But at last she rose, 
+put on a cloak and went out.
+
+The town lay down there in the autumn darkness under a milk-white 
+mist of light.  And over the black hills all around rose a world of 
+stars.  Somewhere out there was Peer, far out maybe upon some 
+country road, the horse plodding on through the dark at its own 
+will, its master sitting with bowed head, brooding.
+
+"Help us, Thou above--and help him most, he has had so much 
+adversity in these last days."
+
+But the starry vault seems icy cold--it has heard the prayers of 
+millions and millions before--the hearts of men are nothing to the 
+universe.
+
+Merle drooped her head and went in again to the house.
+
+It was midnight when Peer drove up the hill towards his home.  The 
+sight of the great house with its brilliantly lighted windows 
+jarred so cruelly on his wearied mind that he involuntarily gave 
+the horse a cut with his whip.
+
+He flung the reins to the stable-boy who had come out with a 
+lantern, and walked up the steps, moving almost with a feeling of 
+awe in this great house, as if it already belonged to someone else.
+
+He opened the door of the drawing-room--no one there, but light, 
+light and comfort.  He passed through into the next room, and there 
+sat Merle, alone, in an armchair, with her head resting on the arm, 
+asleep.
+
+Had she been waiting so long?
+
+A wave of warmth passed through him; he stood still, looking at 
+her; and presently her bowed figure slowly straightened; her pale 
+face relaxed into a smile.  Without waking her, he went on into the 
+nursery, where the lights were still burning.  But here the lights 
+shone only on three little ones, lying in their clean night-
+clothes, asleep.
+
+He went back to the dining-room; more lights, and a table laid for 
+two, a snowy cloth and flowers, and a single carnation stuck into 
+his napkin--that must be from Louise--little Louise.
+
+At last Merle was awakened by the touch of his hand on her 
+shoulder.
+
+"Oh, are you there?"
+
+"Good-evening, Merle!"  They embraced, and he kissed her forehead.  
+But she could see that his mind was busy with other things.
+
+They sat down to table, and began their meal.  She could read the 
+expression of his face, his voice, his calm air--she knew they 
+meant bad news.
+
+But she would not question him.  She would only try to show him 
+that all things else could be endured, if only they two loved each 
+other.
+
+But the time had passed when an unexpected caress from her was 
+enough to send him wild with joy.  She sat there now trembling 
+inwardly with suspense, wondering if he would notice her--if he 
+could find any comfort in having her with him, still young and with 
+something of her beauty left.
+
+He looked over to her with a far-away smile.  "Merle," he asked, 
+"what do you think your father is worth altogether?"  The words 
+came like a quiet order from a captain standing on the bridge, 
+while his ship goes down.
+
+"Oh, Peer, don't think about all that to-night.  Welcome home!"  
+And she smiled and took his hand.
+
+"Thanks," he said, and pressed her fingers; but his thoughts were 
+still far off.  And he went on eating without knowing what he ate.
+
+"And what do you think?  Louise has begun the violin.  You've no 
+idea how the little thing takes to it."
+
+"Oh?"
+
+"And Asta's got another tooth--she had a wretched time, poor thing, 
+while it was coming through."
+
+It was as if she were drawing the children up to him, to show him 
+that at least he still had them.
+
+He looked at her for a moment.  "Merle, you ought never to have 
+married me.  It would have been better for you and for your people 
+too."
+
+"Oh, nonsense, Peer--you know you'll be able to make it all right 
+again."
+
+They went up to bed, and undressed slowly.  "He hasn't noticed me 
+yet," thought Merle.
+
+And she laughed a little, and said, "I was sitting thinking this 
+evening of the first day we met.  I suppose you never think of it 
+now?"
+
+He turned round, half undressed, and looked at her.  Her lively 
+tone fell strangely on his ears.  "She does not ask how I have got 
+on, or how things are going," he thought.  But as he went on 
+looking at her he began at last to see through her smile to the 
+anxious heart beneath.
+
+Ah, yes; he remembered well that far-off summer when life had been 
+a holiday in the hills, and a girl making coffee over a fire had 
+smiled at him for the first time.  And he remembered the first sun-
+red night of his love on the shining lake-mirror, when his heart 
+was filled with the rush of a great anthem to heaven and earth.
+
+She stood there still.  He had her yet.  But for the first time in 
+their lives she came to him now humbly, begging him to make the 
+best of her as she was.
+
+An unspeakable warmth began to flow through his heavy heart.  But 
+he did not rush to embrace her and whirl her off in a storm of 
+passionate delight.  He stood still, staring before him, and, 
+drawing himself up, swore to himself with fast-closed lips that he 
+would, he WOULD trample a way through, and save things for them 
+both, even yet.
+
+The lights were put out, and soon they lay in their separate beds, 
+breathing heavily in the dark.  Peer stretched himself out, with 
+his face up, thinking, with closed eyes.  He was hunting in the 
+dark for some way to save his dear ones.  And Merle lay so long 
+waiting for one caress from him that at last she had to draw out 
+her handkerchief and press it over her eyes, while her body shook 
+with a noiseless sobbing.
+
+
+
+Chapter XII
+
+
+Old Lorentz D. Uthoug rarely visited his rich sister at Bruseth, 
+but to-day he had taken his weary way up there, and the two 
+masterful old folks sat now facing each other.
+
+"So you've managed to find your way up here?" said Aunt Marit, 
+throwing out her ample bosom and rubbing her knees like a man.
+
+"Why, yes--I thought I'd like to see how you were getting on," said 
+Uthoug, squaring his broad shoulders.
+
+"Quite well, thanks.  Having no son-in-law, I'm not likely to go 
+bankrupt, I daresay."
+
+"I'm not bankrupt, either," said old Uthoug, fixing his red eyes on 
+her face.
+
+"Perhaps not.  But what about him?"
+
+"Neither is he.  He'll be a rich man before very long."
+
+"He!--rich!  Did you say rich?"
+
+"Before a year's out," answered the old man calmly.  "But you'll 
+have to help."
+
+"I!"  Aunt Marit shifted her chair backwards, gaping.  "I, did you 
+say?  Ha-ha-ha!  Just tell me, how many hundreds of thousands did 
+he lose over that ditch or drain or whatever it was?"
+
+"He was six months behind time in finishing it, I know.  But the 
+Company agreed to halve the forfeit for delay when they'd seen what 
+a masterpiece the work was."
+
+"Ah, yes--and what about the contractors, whom he couldn't pay, I 
+hear?"
+
+"He's paid them all in full now.  The Bank arranged things."
+
+"I see.  After you and he had mortaged every stick and rag you had 
+in the world.  Yes, indeed--you deserve a good whipping, the pair 
+of you!"
+
+Uthoug stroked his beard.  "From a financial point of view the 
+thing wasn't a success for him, I'll admit.  But I can show you 
+here what the engineering people say about it in the technical 
+papers.  Here's an article with pictures of him and of the 
+barrage."
+
+"Well! he'd better keep his family on pictures in the papers then," 
+said the widow, paying no attention to the paper he offered.
+
+"He'll soon be on top again," said her brother, putting the papers 
+back in his pocket.  He sat there in front of her quite unruffled.  
+He would let people see that he was not the man to be crushed by a 
+reverse; that there were other things he valued more than money.
+
+"Soon be on top?" repeated Aunt Marit.  "Has he got round you again 
+with some nonsense?"
+
+"He's invented a new mowing machine.  It's nearly finished.  And 
+the experts say it will be worth a million."
+
+"Ho! and you want to come over me with a tale like that?"  The 
+widow shifted her chair a little farther back.
+
+"You must help us to carry on through this year--both of us.  If 
+you will stand security for thirty thousand, the bank . . ."
+
+Aunt Marit of Bruseth slapped her knees emphatically.  "I'll do 
+nothing of the sort!"
+
+"For twenty thousand, then?"
+
+"Not for twenty pence!"
+
+Lorentz Uthoug fixed his gaze on his sister's face; his red eyes 
+began to glow.
+
+"You'll have to do it, Marit," he said calmly.  He took a pipe from 
+his pocket and set to work to fill and light it.
+
+The two sat for a while looking at each other, each on the alert 
+for fear the other's will should prove the stronger.  They looked 
+at each other so long that at last both smiled involuntarily.
+
+"I suppose you've taken to going to church with your wife now?" 
+asked the widow at last, her eyes blinking derision.
+
+"If I put my trust in the Lord," he said, "I might just sit down 
+and pray and let things go to ruin.  As it is, I've more faith in 
+human works, and that's why I'm here now."
+
+The answer pleased her.  The widow at Bruseth was no churchgoer 
+herself.  She thought the Lord had made a bad mistake in not giving 
+her any children.
+
+"Will you have some coffee?" she asked, rising from her seat.
+
+"Now you're talking sense," said her brother, and his eyes 
+twinkled.  He knew his sister and her ways.  And now he lit his 
+pipe and leaned back comfortably in his chair.
+
+
+
+Chapter XIII
+
+
+Once more Peer stood in his workroom down at the foundry, wrestling 
+with fire and steel.
+
+A working drawing is a useful thing; an idea in one's head is all 
+very well.  But the men he employed to turn his plans into tangible 
+models worked slowly; why not use his own hands for what had to be 
+done?
+
+When the workmen arrived at the foundry in the morning there was 
+hammering going on already in the little room.  And when they left 
+in the evening, the master had not stopped working yet.  When the 
+good citizens of Ringeby went to bed, they would look out of their 
+windows and see his light still burning.
+
+Peer had had plenty to tire him out even before he began work here.  
+But in the old days no one had ever asked if he felt strong enough 
+to do this or that.  And he never asked himself.  Now, as before, 
+it was a question of getting something done, at any cost.  And 
+never before had there been so much at stake.
+
+The wooden model of the new machine is finished already, and the 
+castings put together.  The whole thing looks simple enough, and 
+yet--what a distance from the first rough implement to this thing, 
+which seems almost to live--a thing with a brain of metal at least.  
+Have not these wheels and axles had their parents and ancestors--
+their pedigree stretching back into the past?  The steel has 
+brought forth, and its descendants again in turn, advancing always 
+toward something finer, stronger, more efficient.  And here is the 
+last stage reached by human invention in this particular work up to 
+now--yet, after all, is it good enough?  An invention successful 
+enough to bring money in to the inventor--that is not all.  It must 
+be more; it must be a world-success, a thing to make its way across 
+the prairies, across the enormous plains of India and Egypt--that 
+is what is needed.  Sleep? rest? food?  What are such things when 
+so much is at stake!
+
+There was no longer that questioning in his ear:  Why?  Whither?  
+What then?  Useless to ponder on these things.  His horizon was 
+narrowed down to include nothing beyond this one problem.  Once he 
+had dreamed of a work allied to his dreams of eternity.  This, 
+certainly, was not it.  What does the gain amount to, after all, 
+when humanity has one more machine added to it?  Does it kindle a 
+single ray of dawn the more in a human soul?
+
+Yet this work, such as it was, had now become his all.  It must and 
+should be all.  He was fast bound to it.
+
+When he looked up at the window, there seemed to be faces at each 
+pane staring in.  "What?  Not finished yet?" they seemed to say.  
+"Think what it means if you fail!"  Merle's face, and the 
+children's:  "Must we be driven from Loreng, out into the cold?"  
+The faces of old Uthoug and his wife:  "Was it for this you came 
+into an honourable family?  To bring it to ruin?"  And behind them, 
+swarming, all the town.  All knew what was at stake, and why he was 
+toiling so.  All stared at him, waiting.  The Bank Manager was 
+there too--waiting, like the rest.
+
+One can seize one's neck in iron pincers, and say:  You shall!  
+Tired? difficulties? time too short?--all that doesn't exist.  You 
+shall!  Is this thing or that impossible?  Well, make it possible.  
+It is your business to make it possible.
+
+He spent but little time at home now; a sofa in the workshop was 
+his bed.  Often Merle would come in with food for him, and seeing 
+how pale and grey and worn out he was, she did not dare to question 
+him.  She tried to jest instead.  She had trained herself long ago 
+to be gay in a house where shadows had to be driven off with 
+laughter.
+
+But one day, as she was leaving, he held her back, and looked at 
+her with a strange smile.
+
+"Well, dear?" she said, with a questioning look.
+
+He stood looking at her as before, with the same far-off smile.  He 
+was looking through her into the little world she stood for.  This 
+home, this family that he, a homeless man, had won through her, was 
+it all to go down in shipwreck?
+
+Then he kissed her eyes and let her go.
+
+And as her footsteps died away, he stood a moment, moved by a 
+sudden desire to turn to some Power above him with a prayer that he 
+might succeed in this work.  But there was no such Power.  And in 
+the end his eyes turned once more to the iron, the fire, his tools, 
+and his own hands, and it was as though he sighed out a prayer to 
+these:  "Help me--help me, that I may save my wife and children's 
+happiness."
+
+Sleep? rest? weariness?  He had only a year's grace.  The bank 
+would only wait a year.
+
+Winter and spring passed, and one day in July he came home and 
+rushed in upon Merle crying, "To-morrow, Merle!  They will be here 
+to-morrow!"
+
+"Who?"
+
+"The people to look at the machine.  We're going to try it 
+to-morrow."
+
+"Oh, Peer!" she said breathlessly, gazing at him.
+
+"It's a good thing that I had connections abroad," he went on.  
+"There's one man coming from an English firm, and another from 
+America.  It ought to be a big business."
+
+The morrow came.  Merle stood looking after her husband as he drove 
+off, his hat on the back of his head, through the haze that 
+followed the night's rain.  But there was no time to stand 
+trembling; they were to have the strangers to dinner, and she must 
+see to it.
+
+Out in the field the machine stood ready, a slender, newly painted 
+thing.  A boy was harnessing the horses.
+
+Two men in soft hats and light overcoats came up; it was old 
+Uthoug, and the Bank Manager.  They stopped and looked round, 
+leaning on their sticks; the results of the day were not a matter 
+of entire indifference to these two gentlemen.  Ah! here was the 
+big carriage from Loreng, with the two strangers and Peer himself, 
+who had been down to fetch them from the hotel.
+
+He was a little pale as he took the reins and climbed to his seat 
+on the machine, to drive it himself through the meadow of high, 
+thick timothy-grass.
+
+The horses pricked up their ears and tried to break into a gallop, 
+the noise of the machine behind them startling them as usual at 
+first, but they soon settled down to a steady pace, and the steel 
+arm bearing the shears swept a broad swath through the meadow, 
+where the grass stood shining after the rain.
+
+The two strangers walked slowly in the rear, bending down now and 
+again to look at the stubble, and see if the shears cut clean.  The 
+tall man with the heavy beard and pince-nez was the agent for John 
+Fowler of Leeds; the little clean-shaven one with the Jewish nose 
+represented Harrow & Co. of Philadelphia.
+
+Now and again they called to Peer to stop, while they investigated 
+some part of the machine.
+
+They asked him then to try it on different ground; on an uneven 
+slope, over little tussocks; and at last the agent for Fowler's 
+would have it that it should be tried on a patch of stony ground.  
+But that would spoil the shears?  Very likely, but Fowler's would 
+like to know exactly how the shears were affected by stones on the 
+ground.
+
+At last the trials were over, and the visitors nodded thoughtfully 
+to each other.  Evidently they had come on something new here.  
+There were possibilities in the thing that might drive most other 
+types out of the field, even in the intense competition that rages 
+all round the world in agricultural machinery.
+
+Peer read the expression in their eyes--these cold-blooded 
+specialists had seen the vision; they had seen gold.
+
+But all the same there was a hitch--a little hitch.
+
+Dinner was over, the visitors had left, and Merle and Peer were 
+alone.  She lifted her eyes to his inquiringly.
+
+"It went off well then?" she asked.
+
+"Yes.  But there is just one little thing to put right."
+
+"Still something to put right--after you have worked so hard all 
+these months?"  She sat down, and her hands dropped into her lap.
+
+"It's only a small detail," he said eagerly, pacing up and down.  
+"When the grass is wet, it sticks between the steel fingers above 
+the shears and accumulates there and gets in the way.  It's the 
+devil and all that I never thought of testing it myself in wet 
+weather.  But once I've got that right, my girl, the thing will be 
+a world-success."
+
+Once more the machine was set up in his workshop, and he walked 
+around it, watching, spying, thinking, racking his brain to find 
+the little device that should make all well.  All else was 
+finished, all was right, but he still lacked the single happy 
+thought, the flash of inspiration--that given, a moment's work 
+would be enough to give this thing of steel life, and wings with 
+which to fly out over the wide world.
+
+It might come at any moment, that happy thought.  And he tramped 
+round and round his machine, clenching his fists in desperation 
+because it was so slow in coming.
+
+The last touch only, the dot upon an i, was wanting.  A slight 
+change in the shape or position of the fingers, or the length of 
+the shears--what was it he wanted?  How could he sleep that night?
+
+He felt that he stood face to face with a difficulty that could 
+have been easily solved had he come fresh to the work, but that his 
+tortured brain was too worn out to overcome.
+
+But when an Arab horse is ready to drop with fatigue, then is the 
+time when it breaks into a gallop.
+
+He could not wait.  There were the faces at the window again, 
+staring and asking:  "Not finished yet?"  Merle, the children, 
+Uthoug and his wife, the Bank Manager.  And there were his 
+competitors the world over.  To-day he was a length ahead of them, 
+but by to-morrow he might be left behind.  Wait?  Rest?  No!
+
+It was autumn now, and sleepless nights drove him to a doctor, who 
+prescribed cold baths, perfect quiet, sleeping draughts, iron and 
+arsenic.  Ah, yes.  Peer could swallow all the prescriptions--the 
+one thing he could not do was rest or sleep.
+
+He would sit late into the night, prostrate with exhaustion, 
+watching the dying embers of the forge, the steel, the tools.  And 
+innumerable sparks would begin to fly before his eyes, and masses 
+of molten iron to creep about like living things over walls and 
+floor.--And over by the forge was something more defined, a misty 
+shape, that grew in size and clearness and stood at last a bearded, 
+naked demigod, with fire in one hand and sledgehammer in the other.
+
+"What?  Who is that?"
+
+"Man, do you not know me?"
+
+"Who are you, I ask?"
+
+"I have a thing to tell you: it is vain for you to seek for any 
+other faith than faith in the evolution of the universe.  It will 
+do no good to pray.  You may dream yourself away from the steel and 
+the fire, but you must offer yourself up to them at last.  You are 
+bound fast to these things.  Outside them your soul is nothing.  
+God? happiness? yourself? eternal life for you?  All these are 
+nothing.  The will of the world rolls on towards its eternal goal, 
+and the individual is but fuel for the fire."
+
+Peer would spring up, believing for a moment that someone was 
+really there.  But there was nothing, only the empty air.
+
+Now and again he would go home to Loreng, but everything there 
+seemed to pass in a mist.  He could see that Merle's eyes were red, 
+though she sang cheerily as she went about the house.  It seemed to 
+him that she had begged him to go to bed and rest, and he had gone 
+to bed.  It would be delicious to sleep.  But in the middle of the 
+night it was borne in upon him that the fault lay in the shape of 
+the shears after all, and then there was no stopping him from 
+getting up and hurrying in to the workshop.  Winter has come round 
+again, and he fights his way in through a snow-storm.  And in the 
+quiet night he lights his lamp, kindles the forge fire, screws off 
+the blades of the shears once more.  But when he has altered them 
+and fixed them in place again, he knows at once that the defect was 
+not in them after all.
+
+Coffee is a good thing for keeping the brain clear.  He took to 
+making it in the workshop for himself--and at night especially a 
+few cups did him good.  They were so satisfying too, that he felt 
+no desire for food.  And when he came to the conclusion that the 
+best thing would be to make each separate part of the machine over 
+again anew, coffee was great help, keeping him awake through many a 
+long night.
+
+It began to dawn upon him that Merle and his father-in-law and the 
+Bank Manager had taken to lurking about the place night and day, 
+watching and spying to see if the work were not nearly done.  Why 
+in the devil's name could they not leave him in peace--just one 
+week more?  In any case, the machine could not be tried before next 
+summer.  At times the workers at the foundry would be startled by 
+their master suddenly rushing out from his inner room and crying 
+fiercely:  "No one is to come in here.  I WILL be left in peace!"
+
+And when he had gone in again, they would look at each other and 
+shake their heads.
+
+One morning Merle came down and walked through the outer shops, and 
+knocked at the door of her husband's room.  There was no answer; 
+and she opened the door and went in.
+
+A moment after, the workmen heard a woman's shriek, and when they 
+ran in she was bending over her husband, who was seated on the 
+floor, staring up at her with blank, uncomprehending eyes.
+
+"Peer," she cried, shaking his shoulder--"Peer, do you hear?  Oh, 
+for God's sake--what is it, my darling--"
+
+        .        .        .        .        .        .
+
+One April day there was a stir in the little town of Ringeby, and a 
+stream of people, all in their best clothes (though it was only 
+Wednesday), was moving out along the fjord road to Loreng.  There 
+were the two editors, who had just settled one of their everlasting 
+disputes, and the two lawyers, each still intent on snatching any 
+scraps of business that offered; there were tradesmen and artisans; 
+and nearly everyone was wearing a long overcoat and a grey felt 
+hat.  But the tanner had put on a high silk hat, so as to look a 
+little taller.
+
+Where the road left the wood most of them stopped for a moment to 
+look up at Loreng.  The great white house seemed to have set itself 
+high on its hill to look out far and wide over the lake and the 
+country round.  And men talked of the great doings, the feasting 
+and magnificence, the great house had seen in days gone by, from 
+the time when the place had been a Governor's residence until a few 
+years back, when Engineer Holm was in his glory.
+
+But to-day the place was up to auction, with stock and furniture, 
+and people had walked or driven over from far around.  For the bank 
+management felt they would not be justified in giving any longer 
+grace, now that Peer Holm was lying sick in hospital, and no doctor 
+would undertake to say whether he would ever be fit to work again.
+
+The courtyard was soon crowded.  Inside, in the great hall, the 
+auctioneer was beginning to put up the lots already, but most 
+people hung back a little, as if they felt a reluctance to go in.  
+For the air in there seemed charged with lingering memories of 
+splendour and hospitality, from the days when cavaliers with 
+ruffles and golden spurs had done homage there to ladies in 
+sweeping silk robes--down to the last gay banquets to which the 
+famous engineer from Egypt had loved to gather all the gentry round 
+in the days of his prosperity.
+
+Most of the people stood on the steps and in the entrance-hall.  
+And now and again they would catch a glimpse of a pale woman, 
+dressed in black, with thick dark eyebrows, crossing the courtyard 
+to a servant's house or a storehouse to give some order for moving 
+the things.  It was Merle, now mistress here no longer.
+
+Old Lorentz D. Uthoug met his sister, the mighty lady of Bruseth, 
+on the steps.  She looked at him, and there was a gleam of derision 
+in her narrowed eyes.  But he drew himself up, and said as he 
+passed her, "You've nothing to be afraid of.  I've settled things 
+so that I'm not bankrupt yet.  And you shall have your share--in 
+full."
+
+And he strode in, a broad-shouldered, upright figure, looking 
+calmly at all men, that all might see he was not the man to be 
+crushed by a reverse.
+
+Late in the day the chestnut, Bijou, was put up for sale.  He was 
+led across the courtyard in a halter, and as he came he stopped for 
+a moment, and threw up his head, and neighed, and from the stables 
+the other horses neighed in answer.  Was it a farewell?  Did he 
+remember the day, years ago, when he had come there first, dancing 
+on his white-stockinged feet, full of youth and strength?
+
+But by the woodshed there stood as usual a little grey old man, 
+busy sawing and chopping, as if nothing at all was the matter.  One 
+master left, another took his place; one needed firewood, it seemed 
+to him, as much as the other.  And if they came and gave him 
+notice--why, thank the Lord, he was stone deaf.  Thud, thud, the 
+sound of the axe went on.
+
+A young man came driving up the hill, a florid-faced young man, 
+with very blue eyes.  He took off his overcoat in the passage, 
+revealing a long black frock coat beneath and a large-patterned 
+waistcoat.  It was Uthoug junior, general agent for English tweeds.  
+He had taken no part in his brother-in-law's business affairs, and 
+so he was able to help his father in this crisis.
+
+But the auction at Loreng went on for several days.
+
+
+
+Book III
+
+
+Chapter I
+
+
+Once more a deep valley, with sun-steeped farms on the hillsides 
+between the river and the mountain-range behind.
+
+One day about midsummer it was old Raastad himself that came down 
+to meet the train, driving a spring-cart, with a waggon following 
+behind.  Was he expecting visitors? the people at the station asked 
+him.  "Maybe I am," said old Raastad, stroking his heavy beard, and 
+he limped about looking to his horses.  Was it the folk who had 
+taken the Court-house?  "Ay, it's likely them," said the old man.
+
+The train came in, and a pale man, with grey hair and beard, and 
+blue spectacles, stepped out, and he had a wife and three children 
+with him.  "Paul Raastad?" inquired the stranger.  "Ay, that's me," 
+said the old man.  The stranger looked up at the great mountains to 
+the north, rising dizzily into the sky.  "The air ought to be good 
+here," said he.  "Ay, the air's good enough, by all accounts," said 
+Raastad, and began loading up the carts.
+
+They drove off up the hill road.  The man and his wife sat in the 
+spring-cart, the woman with a child in her lap, but a boy and a 
+girl were seated on the load in the baggage-waggon behind Raastad.  
+"Can we see the farm from here?" asked the woman, turning her head.  
+"There," said the old man, pointing.  And looking, they saw a big 
+farmstead high up on a sunny hill-slope, close under the crest, 
+and near by a long low house with a steep slate roof, the sort of 
+place where the district officers used to live in old days.  "Is 
+that the house we are to live in?" she asked again.  "Ay, that's 
+it, right enough," said old Raastad, and chirruped to his horses.
+
+The woman looked long at the farm and sighed.  So this was to be 
+their new home.  They were to live here, far from all their 
+friends.  And would it give him back his health, after all the 
+doctors' medicines had failed?
+
+A Lapland dog met them at the gate and barked at them; a couple of 
+pigs came down the road, stopped and studied the new arrivals with 
+profound attention, then wheeled suddenly and galloped off among 
+the houses.
+
+The farmer's wife herself was waiting outside the Court-house, a 
+tall wrinkled woman with a black cap on her head.  "Welcome," she 
+said, offering a rough and bony hand.
+
+The house was one of large low-ceiled rooms, with big stoves that 
+would need a deal of firewood in winter.  The furniture was a 
+mixture of every possible sort and style: a mahogany sofa, 
+cupboards with painted roses on the panels, chairs covered with 
+"Old Norse" carving, and on the walls appalling pictures of foreign 
+royal families and of the Crucifixion.  "Good Heavens!" said Merle, 
+as they went round the rooms alone: "how shall we ever get used to 
+all this?"
+
+But just then Louise came rushing in, breathless with news.  
+"Mother--father--there are goats here!"  And little Lorentz came 
+toddling in after her:  "Goats, mother," he cried, stumbling over 
+the doorstep.
+
+The old house had stood empty and dead for years.  Now it seemed to 
+have wakened up again.  Footsteps went in and out, and the stairs 
+creaked once more under the tread of feet, small, pattering, 
+exploring feet, and big feet going about on grown-up errands.  
+There was movement in every corner: a rattle of pots and pans in 
+the kitchen; fires blazed up, and smoke began to rise from the 
+chimney; people passing by outside looked up at it and saw that the 
+dead old house had come to life again.
+
+Peer was weak still after his illness, but he could help a little 
+with the unpacking.  It took very little, though, to make him out 
+of breath and giddy, and there was a sledge-hammer continually 
+thumping somewhere in the back of his head.  Suppose--suppose, 
+after all, the change here does you no good?  You are at the last 
+stage.  You've managed to borrow the money to keep you all here for 
+a year.  And then?  Your wife and children?  Hush!--better not 
+think of that.  Not that; think of anything else, only not that.
+
+Clothes to be carried upstairs.  Yes, yes--and to think it was all 
+to end in your living on other people's charity.  Even that can't 
+go on long.  If you should be no better next summer--or two years 
+hence?--what then?  For yourself--yes, there's always one way out 
+for you.  But Merle and the children?  Hush, don't think of it!  
+Once it was your whole duty to finish a certain piece of work in a 
+certain time.  Now it is your duty to get well again, to be as 
+strong as a horse by next year.  It is your duty.  If only the 
+sledge-hammer would stop, that cursed sledge-hammer in the back of 
+your head.
+
+Merle, as she went out and in, was thinking perhaps of the same 
+thing, but her head was full of so much else--getting things in 
+order and the household set going.  Food had to be bought from the 
+local shop; and how many litres of milk would she require in the 
+morning?  Where could she get eggs?  She must go across at once to 
+the Raastads' and ask.  So the pale woman in the dark dress walked 
+slowly with bowed head across the courtyard.  But when she stopped 
+to speak to people about the place, they would forget their manners 
+and stare at her, she smiled so strangely.
+
+"Father, there's a box of starlings on the wall here," said Louise 
+as she lay in bed with her arms round Peer's neck saying good-
+night.  "And there's a swallow's nest under the eaves too."
+
+"Oh, yes, we'll have great fun at Raastad--just you wait and see."
+
+Soon Merle and Peer too lay in their strange beds, looking out at 
+the luminous summer night.
+
+They were shipwrecked people washed ashore here.  But it was not so 
+clear that they were saved.
+
+Peer turned restlessly from side to side.  He was so worn to skin 
+and bone that his nerves seemed laid bare, and he could not rest in 
+any position.  Also there were three hundred wheels whirring in his 
+head, and striking out sparks that flew up and turned to visions.
+
+Rest? why had he never been content to rest in the days when all 
+went well?
+
+He had made his mark at the First Cataract, yes, and had made big 
+sums of money out of his new pump; but all the time there were the 
+gnawing questions:  Why? and whither? and what then?  He had been 
+Chief Engineer and had built a railway, and could have had 
+commissions to build more railways--but again the questions:  Why? 
+and what then?  Home, then, home and strike root in his native 
+land--well, and had that brought him rest?  What was it that drove 
+him away again?  The steel, the steel and the fire.
+
+Ah! that day when he had stepped down from the mowing machine and 
+had been ensnared by the idea of improving it.  Why had he ever 
+taken it up?  Did he need money?  No.  Or was the work at a 
+standstill?  No.  But the steel would on; it had need of a man; 
+it had taken him by the throat and said, "You shall!"
+
+Happiness?  Rest?  Ah no!  For, you see, a stored-up mass of 
+knowledge and experience turns one fine day into an army of evil 
+powers, that lash you on and on, unceasingly.  You may stumble, you 
+may fall--what does it matter?  The steel squeezes one man dry, and 
+then grips the next.  The flame of the world has need of fuel--bow 
+thy head, Man, and leap into the fire.
+
+To-day you prosper--to-morrow you are cast down into a hell on 
+earth.  What matter?  You are fuel for the fire.
+
+But I will not, I will not be swallowed up in the flame of the 
+world, even though it be the only godhead in the universe.  I will 
+tear myself loose, be something in and for myself.  I will have an 
+immortal soul.  The world-transformation that progress may have 
+wrought a thousand years hence--what is it to me?
+
+Your soul?  Just think of all your noble feelings towards that 
+true-born half-brother of yours--ha-ha-ha!  Shakespeare was wrong.  
+It's the bastard that gets cheated.
+
+"Dearest Peer, do, for God's sake, try to get to sleep."
+
+"Oh yes.  I'll get to sleep all right.  But it's so hot."  He threw 
+off the clothes and lay breathing heavily.
+
+"I'm sure you're lying thinking and brooding over things.  Can't 
+you do what the Swedish doctor told you--just try to think that 
+everything is dark all round you."
+
+Peer turns round, and everything around him is dark.  But in the 
+heart of that darkness waves arise, waves of melody, rolling 
+nearer, nearer.  It is the sound of a hymn--it is Louise standing 
+playing, his sister Louise.  And what peace--O God, what peace and 
+rest!
+
+But soon Louise fades away, she fades away, and vanishes like a 
+flame blown out.  And there comes a roaring noise, nearer and 
+nearer, grinding, crashing, rattling--and he knows now what it is 
+only too well: it is the song of the steel.
+
+The roar of steel from ships and from railway-trains, with their 
+pairs of yellow evil eyes, rushing on, full of human captives, 
+whither?  Faster, faster--driven by competition, by the steel demon 
+that hunts men on without rest or respite--that hurries on the 
+pulse of the world to fever, to hallucination, to madness.
+
+Crashing of steel girders falling, the hum of wheels, the clash of 
+cranes and winches and chains, the clang of steam-hammers at work--
+all are in that roar.  The fire flares up with hellish eyes in 
+every dark corner, and men swarm around in the red glow like evil 
+angels.  They are the slaves of steel and fire, lashed onwards, 
+never resting.
+
+Is this the spirit of Prometheus?  Look, the will of steel is 
+flinging men up into the air now.  It is conquering the heavens.  
+Why?  That it may rush the faster.  It craves for yet more speed, 
+quicker, quicker, dizzier yet, hurrying--wherefore?--whither?  
+Alas! it knows not itself.
+
+Are the children of the earth grown so homeless?  Do they fear to 
+take a moment's rest?  Do they dread to look inward and see their 
+own emptiness?  Are they longing for something they have lost--some 
+hymn, some harmony, some God?
+
+God?  They find a bloodthirsty Jehovah, and an ascetic on the 
+cross.  What gods are these for modern men?  Religious history, not 
+religion.
+
+"Peer," says Merle again, "for God's sake try to sleep."
+
+"Merle, do you think I shall get well here?"
+
+"Why, don't you feel already how splendid the air is?  Of course 
+you'll get well."
+
+He twined his fingers into hers, and at last the sound of Louise's 
+hymn came to him once more, lifting and rocking him gently till his 
+eyes closed.
+
+
+
+Chapter II
+
+
+A little road winds in among the woods, two wheel-tracks only, with 
+a carpet of brown pine-needles between; but there are trees and the 
+sky, quiet and peace, so that it's a real blessing to walk there.  
+It rises and falls so gently, that no one need get out of breath; 
+indeed, it seems to go along with one all the time, in mere 
+friendliness, whispering:  "Take it easy.  Take your time.  Have a 
+good rest here."  And so on it goes, winding in among the tree-
+trunks, slender and supple as a young girl.
+
+Peer walked here every day.  He would stop and look up into the 
+tops of the fir trees, and walk on again; then sit down for a 
+moment on a mossy stone; but only for a moment--always he was up 
+again soon and moving on, though he had nowhere to go.  But at 
+least there was peace here.  He would linger watching an insect as 
+it crept along a fir branch, or listening to the murmur of the 
+river in the valley far below, or breathing in the health-giving 
+scent of the resin, thick in the warm air.
+
+This present life of his was one way of living.  As he lay, after a 
+sleepless night, watching the window grow lighter with the dawn, he 
+would think:  Yet another new day--and nothing that I can do in it.
+
+And yet he had to get up, and dress, and go down and eat.  His 
+bread had a slightly bitter taste to him--it tasted of charity and 
+dependence, of the rich widow at Bruseth and the agent for English 
+tweeds.  And he must remember to eat slowly, to masticate each 
+mouthful carefully, to rest after meals, and above all not to 
+think--not to think of anything in the wide world.  Afterwards, he 
+could go out and in like other people, only that all his movements 
+and actions were useless and meaningless in themselves; they were 
+done only for the sake of health, or to keep thoughts away, or to 
+make the time go by.
+
+How had this come to pass?  He found it still impossible to grasp 
+how such senseless things can happen and no Providence interfere to 
+set them right.  Why should he have been so suddenly doomed to 
+destruction?  Days, weeks and months of his best manhood oozing 
+away into empty nothingness--why?  Sleeplessness and tortured 
+nerves drove him to do things that his will disowned; he would 
+storm at his wife and children if a heel so much as scraped on the 
+floor, and the remorse that followed, sometimes ending in childish 
+tears, did no good, for the next time the same thing, or worse, 
+would happen again.  This was the burden of his days.  This was the 
+life he was doomed to live.
+
+But up here on the little forest track he harms no one; and no 
+racking noises come thrusting sharp knives into his spine.  Here is 
+a great peace; a peace that does a man good.  Down on the grassy 
+slope below stands a tumble-down grey barn; it reminds him of an 
+old worn-out horse, lifting its head from grazing to gaze at you--
+a lonely forsaken creature it seems--to-morrow it will sink to the 
+ground and rise no more--yet IT takes its lot calmly and patiently.
+
+Ugh! how far he has got from Raastad.  A cold sweat breaks out over 
+his body for fear he may not have strength to walk back again 
+uphill.  Well, pull yourself together.  Rest a little.  And he lies 
+down on his back in a field of clover, and stares up at the sky.
+
+A stream of clean air, fresh from the snow, flows all day long down 
+the valley; as if Jotunheim itself, where it lies in there beneath 
+the sky, were breathing in easy well-being.  Peer fills his lungs 
+again and again with long deep draughts, drinking in the air like a 
+saving potion.  "Help me then, oh air, light, solitude! help me 
+that I may be whole once more and fit to work, for this is the one 
+and only religion left me to cling to."
+
+High above, over the two mountain ranges, a blue flood stands 
+immovable, and in its depths eternal rest is brooding.  But is 
+there a will there too, that is concerned with men on earth?  You 
+do not believe in it, and yet a little prayer mounts up to it as 
+well!  Help me--thou too.  Who?  Thou that hearest.  If Thou care 
+at all for the miserable things called men that crawl upon the 
+earth--help me!  If I once prayed for a great work that could stay 
+my hunger for things eternal, I repent me now and confess that it 
+was pride and vanity.  Make me a slave, toiling at servile tasks 
+for food, so that Merle and the children be not taken from me.  
+Hearest Thou?
+
+Does anyone in heaven find comfort in seeing men tortured by blind 
+fortune?  Are my wife and my children slaves of an unmeaning 
+chance--and yet can smile and laugh?  Answer me, if Thou hearest--
+Thou of the many names.
+
+A grasshopper is shrilling in the grass about him.  Suddenly he 
+starts up sitting.  A railway-train goes screaming past below.
+
+And so the days go on.
+
+Each morning Merle would steal a glance at her husband's face, to 
+see if he had slept; if his eyes were dull, or inflamed, or calm.  
+Surely he must be better soon!  Surely their stay here must do him 
+good.  She too had lost faith in medicines, but this air, the 
+country life, the solitude--rest, rest--surely there must soon be 
+some sign that these were helping him.
+
+Many a time she rose in the morning without having closed her eyes 
+all night.  But there were the children to look after, the house to 
+see to, and she had made up her mind to get on without a maid if 
+she possibly could.
+
+"What has taken you over to the farm so much lately?" she asked one 
+day.  "You have been sitting over there with old Raastad for hours 
+together."
+
+"I--I go over to amuse myself and pass the time," he said.
+
+"Do you talk politics?"
+
+"No--we play cards.  Why do you look at me like that?"
+
+"You never cared for cards before."
+
+"No; but what the devil am I to do?  I can't read, because of these 
+cursed eyes of mine--and the hammering in my head. . . .  And I've 
+counted all the farms up and down the valley now.  There are fifty 
+in all.  And on the farm here there are just twenty-one houses, big 
+and little.  What the devil am I to take to next?"
+
+Merle sighed.  "It is hard," she said.  "But couldn't you wait till 
+the evening to play cards--till the children are in bed--then I 
+could play with you.  That would be better."
+
+"Thank you very much.  But what about the rest of the day?  Do you 
+know what it's like to go about from dawn to dark feeling that 
+every minute is wasted, and wasted for nothing?  No, you can't know 
+it.  What am I to do with myself all through one of these endless, 
+deadly days?  Drink myself drunk?"
+
+"Couldn't you try cutting firewood for a little?"
+
+"Firewood?"  He whistled softly.  "Well, that's an idea.  Ye--yes.  
+Let's try chopping firewood for a change."
+
+Thud, thud, thud!
+
+But as he straightened his back for a breathing-space, the whirr, 
+whirr of Raastad's mowing machine came to him from the hill-slope 
+near by where it was working, and he clenched his teeth as if they 
+ached.  He was driving a mowing machine of his own invention, and 
+it was raining continually, and the grass kept sticking, sticking--
+and how to put it right--put it right?  It was as if blows were 
+falling on festering wounds in his head, making him dance with 
+pain.  Thud, thud, thud!--anything to drown the whirr of that 
+machine.
+
+But a man may use an axe with his hands, and yet have idiotic 
+fancies all the time bubbling and seething in his head.  The power 
+to hold in check the vagaries of imagination may be gone.  From all 
+sides they come creeping out in swarms, they swoop down on him like 
+birds of prey--as if in revenge for having been driven away so 
+often before--they cry: here we are!  He stood once more as an 
+apprentice in the mechanical works, riveting the plates of a 
+gigantic boiler with a compressed-air tube--cling, clang!  The 
+wailing clang of the boiler went out over the whole town.  And now 
+that same boiler is set up inside his head--cling-clang--ugh!  A 
+cold sweat breaks out upon his body; he throws down the axe; he 
+must go--must fly, escape somewhere--where, he cannot tell.  Faces 
+that he hates to think of peer out at him from every corner, 
+yapping out:  "Heh!--what did we say?  To-day a beggar--to-morrow a 
+madman in a cell."
+
+But it may happen, too, that help comes in the night.  Things come 
+back to a man that it is good to remember.  That time--and that 
+other. . . .  A woman there--and the one you met in such a place.  
+There is a picture in the Louvre, by Veronese: a young Venetian 
+woman steps out upon the marble stairway of a palace holding a 
+golden-haired boy by the hand; she is dressed in black velvet, she 
+glows with youth and happiness.  A lovers' meeting in her garden?  
+The first kiss!  Moonlight and mandolins!
+
+A shudder of pleasure passes through his weary body.  Bright 
+recollections and impressions flock towards him like spirits of 
+light--he can hear the rushing sound of their wings--he calls to 
+them for aid, and they encircle him round; they struggle with the 
+spirits of darkness for his soul.  He has known much brightness, 
+much beauty in his life--surely the bright angels are the stronger 
+and must conquer.  Ah! why had he not lived royally, amidst women 
+and flowers and wine?
+
+One morning as he was getting up, he said:  "Merle, I must and will 
+hit upon something that'll send me to bed thoroughly tired out."
+
+"Yes dear," she answered.  "Do try."
+
+"I'll try wheeling stones to begin with," he said.  "The devil's in 
+it if a day at that doesn't make a man sleep."
+
+So that day and for many days he wheeled stones from some newly 
+broken land on the hillside down to a dyke that ran along the road.
+
+Calm, golden autumn days; one farm above another rising up towards 
+the crest of the range, all set in ripe yellow fields.  One little 
+cottage stands right on the crest against the sky itself, and it, 
+too, has its tiny patch of yellow corn.  And an eagle sails slowly 
+across the deep valley from peak to peak.
+
+People passing by stared at Peer as he went about bare-headed, in 
+his shirt-sleeves, wheeling stones.  "Aye, gentlefolks have queer 
+notions," they would say, shaking their heads.
+
+"That's it--keep at it," a dry, hacking voice kept going in Peer's 
+head.  "It is idiocy, but you are doomed to it.  Shove hard with 
+those skinny legs of yours; many a jade before you has had to do 
+the same.  You've got to get some sleep tonight.  Only ten months 
+left now; and then we shall have Lucifer turning up at the cross-
+roads once more.  Poor Merle--she's beginning to grow grey.  And 
+the poor little children--dreaming of father beating them, maybe, 
+they cry out so often in their sleep.  Off now, trundle away.  Now 
+over with that load; and back for another.
+
+"You, that once looked down on the soulless toil for bread, you 
+have sunk now to something far more miserable.  You are dragging at 
+a load of sheer stupidity.  You are a galley-slave, with calamity 
+for your task-master.  As you move the chains rattle.  And that is 
+your day."
+
+He straightens himself up, wipes the sweat from his forehead, and 
+begins heaving up stones into his barrow again.
+
+How long must it last, this life in manacles?  Do you remember Job?  
+Job?  Aye, doubtless Jehovah was sitting at some jovial feast when 
+he conceived that fantasy of a drunken brain, to let Satan loose 
+upon a happy man.  Job?  His seven sons and daughters, and his 
+cattle, and his calves were restored unto him, but we read nothing 
+of any compensation made him for the jest itself.  He was made to 
+play court fool, with his boils and his tortures and his misery, 
+and the gods had their bit of sport gratis.  Job had his actual 
+outlay in cattle and offspring refunded, and that was all.  Ha-ha!
+
+Prometheus!  Is it you after all that are the friend of man among 
+the gods?  Have you indeed the power to free us all some day?  When 
+will you come, then, to raise the great revolt?
+
+Come, come--up with the barrow again--you see it is full.
+
+"Father, it's dinner-time.  Come along home," cries little Louise, 
+racing down the hill with her yellow plaits flying about her ears.  
+But she stops cautiously a little distance off--there is no knowing 
+what sort of temper father may be in.
+
+"Thanks, little monkey.  Got anything good for dinner to-day?"
+
+"Aha! that's a secret," said the girl in a teasing voice; she was 
+beaming now, with delight at finding him approachable.  "Catch me, 
+father!  I can run quicker than you can!"
+
+"I'm afraid I'm too tired just now, my little girl."
+
+"Oh, poor papa! are you tired?"  And she came up and took him by 
+the hand.  Then she slipped her arm into his--it was just as good 
+fun to walk up the hill on her father's arm like a grown-up young 
+lady.
+
+Then came the frosts.  And one morning the hilltops were turned 
+into leaden grey clouds from which the snow came sweeping down.  
+Merle stood at the window, her face grey in the clammy light.  She 
+looked down the valley to where the mountains closed it in; it 
+seemed still narrower than before; one's breath came heavily, and 
+one's mind seemed stifled under cold damp wrappings.
+
+Ugh!  Better go out into the kitchen and set to work again--work--
+work and forget.
+
+Then one day there came a letter telling her that her mother was 
+dead.
+
+
+
+Chapter III
+
+
+DEAR KLAUS BROCK,--
+
+Legendary being!  Cast down from Khedivial heights one day and up 
+again on high with Kitchener the next.  But, in Heaven's name, what 
+has taken you to the Soudan?  What made you go and risk your life 
+at Omdurman?  The same old desperation, I suppose, that you're 
+always complaining about.  And why, of all things, plant yourself 
+away in an outpost on the edge of the wilderness, to lie awake at 
+nights nursing suicidal thoughts over Schopenhauer?  You have lived 
+without principles, you say.  And wasted your youth.  And are 
+homeless now all round, with no morals, no country, no religion.  
+But will you make all this better by making things much worse?
+
+You've no reason to envy me my country life, by the way, and 
+there's no sense in your going about longing for the little church 
+of your childhood, with its Moses and hymns and God.  Well, longing 
+does no harm, perhaps, but don't ever try to find it.  The fact is, 
+old fellow, that such things are not to be found any more.
+
+I take it that religion had the same power on you in your childhood 
+as it had with me.  We were wild young scamps, both of us, but we 
+liked going to church, not for the sake of the sermons, but to bow 
+our heads when the hymn arose and join in singing it.  When the 
+waves of the organ-music rolled through the church, it seemed--to 
+me at least--as if something were set swelling in my own soul, 
+bearing me away to lands and kingdoms where all at last was as it 
+should be.  And when we went out into the world we went with some 
+echo of the hymn in our hearts, and we might curse Jehovah, but in 
+a corner of our minds the hymn lived on as a craving, a hunger for 
+some world-harmony.  All through the busy day we might bear our 
+part in the roaring song of the steel, but in the evenings, on our 
+lonely couch, another power would come forth in our minds, the 
+hunger for the infinite, the longing to be cradled and borne up on 
+the waves of eternity, whose way is past all finding out.
+
+Never believe, though, that you'll find the church of your 
+childhood now in any of our country places.  We have electric light 
+now everywhere, telephones, separators, labour unions and political 
+meetings, but the church stands empty.  I have been there.  The 
+organ wails as if it had the toothache, the precentor sneezes out a 
+hymn, the congregation does not lift the roof off with its voice, 
+for the very good reason that there is no congregation there.  And 
+the priest, poor devil, stands up in his pulpit with his black 
+moustache and pince-nez; he is an officer in the army reserve, and 
+he reads out his highly rational remarks from a manuscript.  But 
+his face says all the time--"You two paupers down there that make 
+up my congregation, you don't believe a word I am saying; but never 
+mind, I don't believe it either."  It's a tragic business when 
+people have outgrown their own conception of the divine.  And we--
+we are certainly better than Jehovah.  The dogma of the atonement, 
+based on original sin and the bloodthirstiness of God, is revolting 
+to us; we shrug our shoulders, and turn away with a smile, or in 
+disgust.  We are not angels yet, but we are too good to worship 
+such a God as that.
+
+There is some excuse for the priest, of course.  He must preach of 
+some God.  And he has no other.
+
+Altogether, it's hardly surprising that even ignorant peasants 
+shake their heads and give the church a wide berth.  What do they 
+do on Sundays, then?  My dear fellow, they have no Sunday.  They 
+sit nodding their heads over a long table, waiting for the day to 
+pass.  They remind one of plough horses, that have filled their 
+bellies, and stand snoring softly, because there's no work today.
+
+The great evolutionary scheme, with its wonders of steel and 
+miracles of science, goes marching on victoriously, I grant you, 
+changing the face of the world, hurrying its pulse to a more and 
+more feverish beat.  But what good will it do the peasant to be 
+able to fly through the air on his wheelbarrow, while no temple, no 
+holy day, is left him any more on earth?  What errand can he have 
+up among the clouds, while yet no heaven arches above his soul?
+
+This is the burning question with all of us, with you in the desert 
+as with us up here under the Pole.  To me it seems that we need One 
+who will make our religion new--not merely a new prophet, but a new 
+God.
+
+You ask about my health--well, I fancy it's too early yet to speak 
+about it.  But so much I will say:  If you should ever be in pain 
+and suffering, take it out on yourself--not on others.
+
+Greetings from us all.
+
+Yours,
+
+PEER DALESMAN.
+
+
+
+Chapter IV
+
+
+Christmas was near, the days were all grey twilight, and there was 
+a frost that set the wall-timbers cracking.  The children went 
+about blue with cold.  When Merle scrubbed the floors, they turned 
+into small skating-rinks, though there might be a big fire in the 
+stove.  Peer waded and waded through deep snow to the well for 
+water, and his beard hung like a wreath of icicles about his face.
+
+Aye, this was a winter.
+
+Old Raastad's two daughters were in the dairy making whey-cheese.  
+The door was flung open, there was a rush of frosty air, and Peer 
+stood there blinking his eyes.
+
+"Huh! what smokers you two are!"
+
+"Are we now?"  And the red-haired one and the fair-haired one both 
+giggled, and they looked at each other and nodded.  This queer 
+townsman-lodger of theirs never came near them that he didn't crack 
+jokes.
+
+"By the way, Else, I dreamed last night that we were going to be 
+married."
+
+Both the girls shrieked with delight at this.
+
+"And Mari, you were married to the bailiff."
+
+"Oh my!  That old creature down at Moen?"
+
+"He was much older.  Ninety years old he was."
+
+"Uf!--you're always at your nonsense," said the red-haired girl, 
+stirring away at her huge, steaming cauldron.
+
+Peer went out again.  The girls were hardly out of their teens, and 
+yet their faces seemed set already and stiff with earnestness.  And 
+whenever Peer had managed to set them laughing unawares, they 
+seemed frightened the next minute at having been betrayed into 
+doing something there was no profit in.
+
+Peer strode about in the crackling snow with his fur cap drawn down 
+over his ears.  Jotunheim itself lay there up north, breathing an 
+icy-blue cold out over the world.
+
+And he?  Was he to go on like this, growing hunchbacked under a 
+burden that weighed and bowed him down continually?  Why the devil 
+could he not shake it off, break away from it, and kick out bravely 
+at his evil fate?
+
+"Peer," asked Merle, standing in the kitchen, "what did you think 
+of giving the children for a Christmas present?"
+
+"Oh, a palace each, and a horse to ride, of course.  When you've 
+more money than you know what to do with, the devil take economy.  
+And what about you, my girl?  Any objection to a couple of thousand 
+crowns' worth of furs?"
+
+"No, but seriously.  The children haven't any ski--nor a hand-
+sleigh."
+
+"Well, have you the money to buy them?  I haven't."
+
+"Suppose you tried making them yourself?"
+
+"Ski?"  Peer turned over the notion, whistling.  "Well, why not?  
+And a sleigh?  We might manage that.  But what about little Asta?--
+she's too little for that sort of thing."
+
+"She hasn't any bed for her doll."
+
+Peer whistled again.  "There's something in that.  That's an idea.  
+I'm not so handless yet that I couldn't--"
+
+He was soon hard at it.  There were tools and a joiner's bench in 
+an outhouse, and there he worked.  He grew easily tired; his feet 
+tried constantly to take him to the door, but he forced himself to 
+go on.  Is there anything in the notion that a man can get well by 
+simply willing it?  I will, will, will.  The thought of others 
+besides himself began to get the upper hand of those birds of prey 
+ravening in his head.  Presents for the children, presents that 
+father had made himself--the picture made light and warmth in his 
+mind.  Drive ahead then.
+
+When it came to making the iron ribbons for the sleigh runners he 
+had to go across to the smithy; and there stood a cottar at work 
+roughing horseshoes.  Red glowing iron once more, and steel.  The 
+clang of hammer on anvil seemed to tear his ears; yet it drew him 
+on too.  It was long since last he heard that sound.  And there 
+were memories.
+
+"Want this welded, Jens?  Where's the borax?  Look here, this is 
+the way of it."
+
+"Might ha' been born and bred a smith," said Jens, as he watched 
+the deft and easy hammer-strokes.
+
+Christmas Eve came, and the grey farm-pony dragged up a big wooden 
+case to the door.  Peer opened it and carried in the things--a 
+whole heap of good things for Christmas from the Ringeby relations.
+
+He bit his lips when he saw all the bags piled up on the kitchen 
+table.  There had been a time not long ago when Merle and he had 
+loaded up a sledge at the Loreng storehouse and driven off with 
+Christmas gifts to all the poor folk round.  It was part of the 
+season's fun for them.  And now--now they must even be glad to 
+receive presents themselves.
+
+"Merle--have WE nothing we can give away this year?"
+
+"I don't know.  What do you think?"
+
+"A poor man's Christmas it'll be with a vengeance--if we're only to 
+take presents, and haven't the least little thing to give away."
+
+Merle sighed.  "We must hope it won't happen to us again," she 
+said.
+
+"I won't have it happen to us now," he said, pacing up and down.  
+"There's that poor devil of a joiner down at Moen, with 
+consumption.  I'm going down there with a bit of a parcel to chuck 
+in at his door, if I have to take your shift and the shirt off my 
+back.  You know yourself it won't be any Christmas at all, if we 
+don't do something."
+
+"Well--if you like.  I'll see if we can't find something among the 
+children's clothes that they can do without."
+
+The end of it was that Merle levied toll on all the parcels from 
+home, both rice and raisins and cakes, and made up little packets 
+of them to send round by him.  That was Merle's way; let her alone 
+and she would hit upon something.
+
+The snow creaked and crackled underfoot as Peer went off on his 
+errand.  A starry sky and a biting wind, and light upon light from 
+the windows of the farms scattered over the dark hillsides.  High 
+above all, against the sky, there was one little gleam that might 
+be a cottage window, or might be a star.
+
+Peer was flushed and freshened up when he came back into the warmth 
+of the room.  And a chorus of joyful shouts was raised when Merle 
+announced to the children:  "Father's going to bath you all to-
+night."
+
+The sawed-off end of a barrel was the bathing-tub, and Peer stood 
+in the kitchen with his sleeves rolled up, holding the naked little 
+bodies as they sprawled about in the steaming water.
+
+Mother was busy with something or other in the sitting-room.  But 
+it was a great secret, and the children were very mysterious about 
+it.  "No, no, you mustn't go in," they said to little Asta, who 
+went whimpering for her mother to the door.
+
+And later in the evening, when the Christmas-tree was lit up, and 
+the windows shone white with frost, there were great doings all 
+about the sitting room floor.  Louise got her ski on and 
+immediately fell on her face; Lorentz, astride of the new sleigh, 
+was shouting "Hi, hi!--clear the course there!", and over in a 
+corner sat little Asta, busy putting her baby to bed and singing it 
+to sleep.
+
+Husband and wife looked at each other and smiled.
+
+"What did I tell you?" said Merle.
+
+
+Slowly, with torturing slowness, the leaden-grey winter days creep 
+by.  For two hours in the middle of the day there is pale twilight--
+for two hours--then darkness again.  Through the long nights the 
+north wind howls funeral dirges--hu-u-u-u--and piles up the snow 
+into great drifts across the road, deep enough, almost, to smother 
+a sleigh and its driver.  The days and nights come and go, 
+monotonous, unchanged; the same icy grey daylight, and never a 
+human soul to speak to.  Across the valley a great solid mountain 
+wall hems you in, and you gaze at it till it nearly drives you mad.  
+If only one could bore a hole through it, and steal a glimpse of 
+the world beyond, or could climb up to the topmost ridge and for a 
+moment look far round to a wide horizon, and breathe freely once 
+more.
+
+At last one day the grey veil lifts a little.  A strip of blue sky 
+appears--and hearts grow lighter at the sight.  The snow peaks to 
+the south turn golden.  What?  Is it actually the sun?  And day by 
+day now a belt of gold grows broader, comes lower and lower on the 
+hillside, till the highest-lying farms are steeped in it and glow 
+red.  And at last one day the red flame reaches the Courthouse, and 
+shines in across the floor of the room where Merle is sitting by 
+the window patching the seat of a tiny pair of trousers.
+
+What life and cheer it brings with it!
+
+"Mother--here's the sun," cries Louise joyfully from the doorway.
+
+"Yes, child, I see it."
+
+But Louise has only looked in for a moment to beg some cake for 
+Lorentz and herself, and be off again on her ski to the hill-
+slopes.  "Thank you, mother--you're a darling!"  And with a slice 
+in each hand she dashes out, glowing with health and the cold air.
+
+If only Peer could glow with health again!  But though one day they 
+might persuade themselves that now--now at last he had turned the 
+corner--the next he would be lying tossing about in misery, and it 
+all seemed more hopeless than ever.  He had taken to the doctors' 
+medicines again--arsenic and iron and so forth--and the quiet and 
+fresh air they had prescribed were here in plenty; would nothing do 
+him any good?  There were not so many months of their year left 
+now.
+
+And then?  Another winter here?  And living on charity--ah me!  
+Merle shook her head and sighed.
+
+The time had come, too, when Louise should go to school.
+
+"Send the children over to me--all three of them, if you like," 
+wrote Aunt Marit from Bruseth.  No, thanks; Merle knew what that 
+meant.  Aunt Marit wanted to keep them for good.
+
+Lose her children--give away her children to others?  Was the day 
+to come when that burden, too, would be laid upon them?
+
+But schooling they must have; they must learn enough at least to 
+fit them to make a living when they grew up.  And if their own 
+parents could not afford them schooling, why--why then perhaps they 
+had no right to keep them?
+
+Merle sewed and sewed on, lifting her head now and again, so that 
+the sunlight fell on her face.
+
+How the snow shone--like purple under the red flood of sunlight.  
+After all, their troubles seemed a little easier to bear to-day.  
+It was as if something frozen in her heart were beginning to thaw.
+
+Louise was getting on well with her violin.  Perhaps one day the 
+child might go out into the world, and win the triumphs that her 
+mother had dreamed of in vain.
+
+There was a sound of hurried steps in the passage, and she started 
+and sat in suspense.  Would he come in raging, or in despair, or 
+had the pains in his head come back?  The door opened.
+
+"Merle!  I have it now.  By all the gods, little woman, something's 
+happened at last!"
+
+Merle half rose from her seat, but sank back again, gazing at his 
+face.
+
+"I've got it this time, Merle," he said again.  "And how on earth I 
+never hit on it before--when it's as simple as shelling peas!"
+
+He was stalking about the room now, with his hands in his pockets, 
+whistling.
+
+"But what is it, Peer?"
+
+"Why, you see, I was standing there chopping wood.  And all the 
+time swarms of mowing machines--nine million of them--were going in 
+my head, all with the grass sticking fast to the shears and 
+clogging them up.  I was in a cold sweat--I felt myself going 
+straight to hell--and then, in a flash--a flash of steel--it came 
+to me.  It means salvation for us, Merle, salvation."
+
+"Oh, do talk so that I can understand a little of what you're 
+saying."
+
+"Why, don't you see--all that's wanted is a small movable steel 
+brush above the shears, to flick away the grass and keep them 
+clear.  Hang it all, a child could see it.  By Jove, little woman, 
+it'll soon be changed times with us now."
+
+Merle laid her work down in her lap and let her hands fall.  If 
+this were true!
+
+"I'll have the machine up here, Merle.  Making the brushes and 
+fixing them on will be no trouble at all--I can do it in a day in 
+the smithy here."
+
+"What--you had better try!  You're just beginning to get a little 
+better, and you want to spoil it all again!"
+
+"I shall never get well, Merle, as long as I have that infernal 
+machine in my head balancing between world-success and fiasco.  It 
+presses on my brain like a leaden weight, I shall never have a 
+decent night's sleep till I get rid of it.  Oh, my great God--if 
+times were to change some day--even for us!  Well!  Do you think I 
+wouldn't get well when that day came!"
+
+This time she let him take her in his arms.  But when he had gone, 
+she sat still, watching the sun sink behind the snow-ranges, till 
+her eyes grew dim and her breath came heavily.
+
+A week later, when the sun was flaming on the white roofs, the grey 
+pony dragged a huge packing-case up to Raastad.  And the same day a 
+noise of hammer and file at work was heard in the smithy.
+
+What do a few sleepless nights matter now?  And they are sleepless 
+not so much from anxiety--for this time things go well--as because 
+of dreams.  And both of them dream.  They have bought back Loreng, 
+and they wander about through the great light rooms once more, and 
+all is peace and happiness.  All the evil days before are as a 
+nightmare that is past.  Once more they will be young, go out on 
+ski together, and dine together after, and drink champagne, and 
+look at each other with love in their eyes.  Once more--and many 
+times again.
+
+"Good-night, Merle."
+
+"Good-night, Peer, and sleep well."
+
+Day after day the hammering went on in the smithy.
+
+A few years back he could have finished the whole business in a 
+couple of days.  But now, half an hour's work was enough to tire 
+him out.  It is exhausting work to concentrate your thoughts upon a 
+single point, when your brain has long been used to play idly with 
+stray fancies as they came.  He found, too, that there were defects 
+to be put right in the parts he thought were complete before, and 
+he had no assistants now, no foundry to get castings from, he must 
+forge out each piece with his own hands, and with sorry tools.
+
+What did it matter?
+
+He began to discipline his brain, denying himself every superfluous 
+thought.  He drew dark curtains across every window in his 
+consciousness, save one--the machine.  After half an hour's work he 
+would go back to bed and rest--just close his eyes, and rest.  This 
+too was discipline.  Again he flooded all his mind with darkness, 
+darkness, to save his strength for the half-hour of work next day.
+
+Was Merle fearful and anxious?  At all events she said no word 
+about the work that so absorbed him.  He was excited enough as it 
+was.  And now when he was irritable and angry with the children, 
+she did not even look at him reproachfully.  They must bear it, 
+both she and the children--it would soon be all over now.
+
+In the clear moonlight nights, when the children were in bed, the 
+two would sometimes be seen wandering about together.  They went 
+with their arms about each other's waists, talking loudly, laughing 
+a great deal, and sometimes singing.  People going by on the road 
+would hear the laughter and singing, and think to themselves:  It's 
+either someone that's been drinking, or else that couple from the 
+Court-house.
+
+The spring drew on and the days grew lighter.
+
+
+But at the Hamar Agricultural Exhibition, where the machine was 
+tried, an American competitor was found to be just a little better.  
+Everyone thought it a queer business; for even if the idea hadn't 
+been directly stolen from Peer, there could be no doubt that his 
+machine had suggested it.  The principles adopted were the same in 
+both cases, but in the American machine there was just enough 
+improvement in carrying them out to make it doubtful whether it 
+would be any use going to law over the patent rights.  And besides--
+it's no light matter for a man with no money at his back to go to 
+law with a rich American firm.
+
+In the mighty race, with competitors the wide world over, to 
+produce the best machine, Peer had been on the very point of 
+winning.  Another man had climbed upon his chariot, and then, at 
+the last moment, jumped a few feet ahead, and had thereby won the 
+prize.
+
+So that the achievement in itself be good, the world does not 
+inquire too curiously whether it was honestly achieved.
+
+And there is no use starting a joint-stock company to exploit a new 
+machine when there is a better machine in the field.
+
+The steel had seized on Peer, and used him as a springboard.  But 
+the reward was destined for another.
+
+
+
+Chapter V
+
+
+Herr Uthoug Junior, Agent for English tweeds, stepped out of the 
+train one warm day in July, and stood for a moment on the station 
+platform looking about him.  Magnificent scenery, certainly.  And 
+this beautiful valley was where his sister had been living for more 
+than a year.  Splendid air--and yet somehow it didn't seem to have 
+done his brother-in-law much good.  Well, well!  And the neatly 
+dressed young gentleman set off on foot towards Raastad, asking his 
+way from time to time.  He wanted to take them by surprise.  There 
+had been a family council at Ringeby, and they had agreed that some 
+definite arrangement must be made for the future of the sister and 
+her husband, with whom things had gone so hopelessly wrong.
+
+As he turned up the by-road that led to the farm, he was aware of a 
+man in his shirt-sleeves, wheeling a barrow full of stones.  What?  
+He thought--could he be mistaken?  No--sure enough it was Peer 
+Holm--Peer Holm, loading up stones and wheeling them down the hill 
+as zealously as if he were paid for every step.
+
+The Agent was not the man for lamentations or condolences.  
+"Hullo!" he cried.  "Hard at it, aren't you?  You've taken to 
+farming, I see."
+
+Peer stood up straight, wiped his hands on his trousers, and came 
+towards him.  "Good heavens! how old he has grown!" thought Uthoug 
+to himself.  But aloud he said, "Well, you do look fit.  I'd hardly 
+have known you again."
+
+Merle caught sight of the pair from the kitchen window.  "Why, I do 
+believe--" she exclaimed, and came running out.  It was so long 
+since she had seen any of her people, that she forgot her dignity 
+and in a moment had her arms round her brother's neck, hugging him.
+
+No, certainly Uthoug junior had not come with lamentations and 
+condolences.  He had a bottle of good wine in his bag, and at 
+supper he filled the glasses and drank with them both, and talked 
+about theatres and variety shows, and gave imitations of well-known 
+actors, till he had set the two poor harassed creatures laughing.  
+They must need a little joy and laughter--ah! well he knew how they 
+must need it.
+
+But he knew, too, that Merle and Peer were on tenterhooks waiting 
+to know what the family had decided about their future.  The days 
+of their life here had been evil and sad, but they only hoped now 
+that they might be able to stay on.  If the help they had received 
+up to now were taken from them, they could neither afford to stay 
+here nor to go elsewhere.  What then could they do?  No wonder they 
+were anxious as they sat there.
+
+After supper he went out for a stroll with Peer, while Merle waited 
+at home in suspense.  She understood that their fate was being 
+settled as she waited.
+
+At last they returned--and to her astonishment they came in 
+laughing.
+
+Her brother said good-night, and kissed her on the forehead, and 
+patted her arm and was kindness itself.  She took him up to his 
+room, and would have liked to sit there a while and talk to him; 
+but she knew Peer had waited till they were alone to tell her the 
+news that concerned them so nearly.  "Good-night, then, Carsten," 
+she said to her brother, and went downstairs.
+
+And then at last she and Peer were sitting alone together, at her 
+work-table by the window.
+
+"Well?" said Merle.
+
+"The thing is this, Merle.  If we have courage to live at all, we 
+must look facts in the face as they are."
+
+"Yes, dear, but tell me . . ."
+
+"And the facts are that with my health as it now is I cannot 
+possibly get any employment.  It is certain that I cannot.  And as 
+that is the case, we may as well be here as anywhere else."
+
+"But can we stay on here, Peer?"
+
+"If you can bear to stay with a miserable bungler like me--that, of 
+course, is a question."
+
+"Answer me--can we stay here?"
+
+"Yes.  But it may be years, Merle, before I'm fit to work again--
+we've got to reckon with that.  And to live on charity year after 
+year is what I cannot and will not endure."
+
+"But what are we to do, then, Peer?  There seems to be no possible 
+way for me to earn any money."
+
+"I can try, at any rate," he answered, looking out of the window.
+
+"You?  Oh no, Peer.  Even if you could get work as a draughtsman, 
+you know quite well that your eyes would never stand . . ."
+
+"I can do blacksmith's work," he said.
+
+There was a pause.  Merle glanced at him involuntarily, as if she 
+could hardly believe her ears.  Could he be in earnest?  Was the 
+engineer of the Nile Barrage to sink into a country blacksmith?
+
+She sighed.  But she felt she must not dishearten him.  And at last 
+she said with an effort:  "It would help to pass the time, I 
+daresay.  And perhaps you would get into the way of sleeping 
+better."  She looked out of the window with tightly compressed 
+lips.
+
+"And if I do that, Merle, we can't stay on in this house.  In fact 
+a great box of a place like this is too big for us in any case--
+when you haven't even a maid to help you."
+
+"But do you know of any smaller house we could take?"
+
+"Yes, there's a little place for sale, with a rood or two of 
+ground.  If we had a cow and a pig, Merle--and a few fowls--and 
+could raise a bushel or two of corn--and if I could earn a few 
+shillings a week in the smithy--we wouldn't come on the parish, at 
+any rate.  I could manage the little jobs that I'd get--in fact, 
+pottering about at them would do me good.  What do you say?"
+
+Merle did not answer; her eyes were turned away, gazing fixedly out 
+of the window.
+
+"But there's another question--about you, Merle.  Are you willing 
+to sink along with me into a life like that?  I shall be all right.  
+I lived in just such a place when I was a boy.  But you!  Honestly, 
+Merle, I don't think I should ask it of you."  His voice began to 
+tremble; he pressed his lips together and his eyes avoided her 
+face.
+
+There was a pause.  "How about the money?" she said, at last.  "How 
+will you buy the place?"
+
+"Your brother has promised to arrange about a loan.  But I say 
+again, Merle--I shall not blame you in the least if you would 
+rather go and live with your aunt at Bruseth.  I fancy she'd be 
+glad to have you, and the children too."
+
+Again there was silence for a while.  Then she said:  "If there are 
+two decent rooms in the cottage, we could be comfortable enough.  
+And as you say, it would be easier to look after."
+
+Peer waited a little.  There was something in his throat that 
+prevented speech.  He understood now that it was to be taken for 
+granted, without words, that they should not part company.  And it 
+took him a little time to get over the discovery.
+
+Merle sat facing him, but her eyes were turned to the window as 
+before.  She had still the same beautiful dark eyebrows, but her 
+face was faded and worn, and there were streaks of grey in her 
+hair.
+
+At last he spoke again.  "And about the children, Merle."
+
+She started.  "The children--what about them?"  Had it come at 
+last, the thing she had gone in fear of so long?
+
+"Aunt Marit has sent word to ask if we will let your brother take 
+Louise over to stay with her."
+
+"No!" Merle flung out.  "No, Peer.  Surely you said no at once.  
+Surely you wouldn't let her go.  You know what it means, their 
+wanting to have her over there."
+
+"I know," he nodded.  "But there's another question: in Louise's 
+own interest, have we any right to say no?"
+
+"Peer," she cried, springing up and wringing her hands, "you 
+mustn't ask it of me.  You don't want to do it yourself.  Surely we 
+have not come to that--to begin sending--giving away--no, no, no!" 
+she moaned.  "Do you hear me, Peer?  I cannot do it."
+
+"As you please, Merle," he said, rising, and forcing himself to 
+speak calmly.  "We can think it over, at any rate, till your 
+brother leaves tomorrow.  There are two sides to the thing: one way 
+of it may hurt us now; the other way may be a very serious matter 
+for Louise, poor thing."
+
+Next morning, when it was time to wake the children, Peer and Merle 
+went into the nursery together.  They stopped by Louise's bed, and 
+stood looking down at her.  The child had grown a great deal since 
+they came to Raastad; she lay now with her nose buried in the 
+pillow and the fair hair hiding her cheek.  She slept so soundly 
+and securely.  This was home to her still; she was safer with 
+father and mother than anywhere else in the world.
+
+"Louise," said Merle, shaking her.  "Time to get up, dear."
+
+The child sat up, still half asleep, and looked wonderingly at the 
+two faces.  What was it?
+
+"Make haste and get dressed," said Peer.  "Fancy!  You're going off 
+with Uncle Carsten today, to see Aunt Marit at Bruseth.  What do 
+you say to that?"
+
+The little girl was wide awake in a moment, and hopped out of bed 
+at once to begin dressing.  But there was something in her parents' 
+faces which a little subdued her joy.
+
+That morning there was much whispering among the children.  The two 
+youngest looked with wondering eyes at their elder sister, who was 
+going away.  Little Lorentz gave her his horse as a keepsake, and 
+Asta gave her youngest doll.  And Merle went about trying to make 
+believe that Louise was only going on a short visit, and would soon 
+be coming back.
+
+By dinner-time they had packed a little trunk, and Louise, in her 
+best dress, was rushing about saying goodbye all round the farm, 
+the harvesters, whom she had helped to drive in the hay, coming in 
+for a specially affectionate farewell.  Her last visit was to 
+Musin, the grey horse, that was grazing tethered behind the smithy.  
+Musin was busy cropping the turf, but he just lifted his head and 
+looked at her--she plucked a handful of grass, and offered it, and 
+when he had disposed of that, she patted his muzzle, and he let her 
+cling round his neck for a moment.
+
+"I'll be sure to write," she cried out to no one in particular, as 
+she went back over the courtyard again.
+
+The train moved out of the station, taking with it Uthoug junior 
+and Louise, each waving from one of the windows of the compartment.
+
+And Peer and Merle were left on the platform, holding their two 
+youngest children by the hand.  They could still see a small hand 
+with a white handkerchief waving from the carriage window.  Then 
+the last carriage disappeared into the cutting, and the smoke and 
+the rumble of the train were all that was left.
+
+The four that were left behind stood still for a little while, but 
+they seemed to have moved unconsciously closer together than 
+before.
+
+
+
+Chapter VI
+
+
+Some way up from the high-road there stands a little one-storeyed 
+house with three small windows in a row, a cowshed on one side of 
+it and a smithy on the other.  When smoke rises from the smithy, 
+the neighbours say:  "The engineer must be a bit better to-day, 
+since he's at it in the smithy again.  If there's anything you want 
+done, you'd better take it to him.  He doesn't charge any more than 
+Jens up at Lia."
+
+Merle and Peer had been living here a couple of years.  Their lives 
+had gone on together, but there had come to be this difference 
+between them: Merle still looked constantly at her husband's face, 
+always hoping that he would get better, while he himself had no 
+longer any hope.  Even when the thump, thumping in his head was 
+quiet for a time, there was generally some trouble somewhere to 
+keep him on the rack, only he did not talk about it any more.  He 
+looked at his wife's face, and thought to himself:  "She is 
+changing more and more; and it is you that are to blame.  You have 
+poured out your own misery on her day and night.  It is time now 
+you tried to make some amends."  So had begun a struggle to keep 
+silence, to endure, if possible to laugh, even when he could have 
+found it in his heart to weep.  It was difficult enough, especially 
+at first, but each victory gained brought with it a certain 
+satisfaction which strengthened him to take up the struggle again.
+
+In this way, too, he learned to look on his fate more calmly.  His 
+humour grew lighter; it was as if he drew himself up and looked 
+misfortune in the eyes, saying:  "Yes, I know I am defenceless, and 
+you can plunge me deeper and deeper yet; but for all that, if I 
+choose to laugh you cannot hinder me."
+
+How much easier all things seemed, now that he looked no longer for 
+any good to come to him, and urged no claims against anyone either 
+in heaven or on earth.  But when he was tired out with his work at 
+the forge, there was a satisfaction in saying to his wife:  "No, 
+Merle, didn't I tell you I wouldn't have you carrying the water up?  
+Give me the bucket."  "You?--you look fit for it, don't you?"  
+"Hang it all, am I a man, or am I not?  Get back to your kitchen--
+that's the place for a woman."  So he carried water, and his mood 
+was the brighter for it, though he might feel at times as if his 
+back were breaking.  And sometimes, "I'm feeling lazy, to-day, 
+Merle," he would say.  "If you don't mind I'll stay in bed a bit 
+longer."  And she understood.  She knew from experience that these 
+were the days when his nightmare headache was upon him, and that it 
+was to spare her he called it laziness.
+
+They had a cow now, and a pig and some fowls.  It was not exactly 
+on the same scale as at Loreng, but it had the advantage that he 
+could manage it all himself.  Last year they had raised so many 
+potatoes that they had been able to sell a few bushels.  They did 
+not buy eggs any more--they sold them.  Peer carried them down 
+himself to the local dealer, sold them at market price, and bought 
+things they might need with the money.  Why not?  Merle did not 
+think it beneath her to wash and scrub and do the cooking.  True 
+enough, things had been different with them once, but it was only 
+Merle now who ever had moments of dreaming that the old days might 
+come back.  Otherwise, for both him and her it was as if they had 
+been washed ashore on a barren coast, and must try to live through 
+the grey days as best they could.
+
+It would happen once in a while that a mowing machine of the new 
+American type would be sent in by some farmer to the smithy for 
+repairs.  When this happened, Peer would shut his lips close, with 
+a queer expression, look at the machine for a moment, and swallow 
+something in his throat.  The man who had stolen this thing from 
+him and bettered it by a hairsbreadth was doubtless a millionaire 
+by now on the strength of it.
+
+It cost him something of an effort to take these repairs in hand, 
+but he bowed his head and set to.  Merle, poor girl, needed a pair 
+of shoes.
+
+At times, too, he would turn from the anvil and the darkness within 
+and come out into the doorway for a breath of air; and here he 
+would look out upon the day--the great broad empty day.
+
+A man with a sledge-hammer in his hands instinctively looks up at 
+the heavens.  He has inherited that instinct from his great 
+ancestor, who brought down fire and thought to men, and taught them 
+to rebel against God.
+
+Peer looked at the sky, and at the clouds, sweeping across it in a 
+meaningless turmoil.  Rebellion against someone up there?  But 
+heaven is empty.  There is no one to rebel against.
+
+But then all the injustice, the manifold iniquity!  Who is to sit 
+in judgment on it at the great day?
+
+Who?  No one.
+
+What?  Think of the millions of all kinds of martyrs, who died 
+under the bloodiest torments, yet innocent as babes at the breast--
+is there to be no day of reparation for them?
+
+None.
+
+But there must be a whole world-full of victims of injustice, whose 
+souls flit restlessly around, because they died under a weight of 
+undeserved shame--because they lost a battle in which the right was 
+theirs--because they suffered and strove for truth, but went down 
+because falsehood was the stronger.  Truth?  Right?  Is there no 
+one, then, who will one day give peace to the dead in their graves 
+and set things in their right places?  Is there no one?
+
+No one.
+
+The world rolls on its way.  Fate is blind, and God smiles while 
+Satan works his will upon Job.
+
+Hold your peace and grip your sledge-hammer, idiot.  If ever your 
+conscience should embrace the universe, that day the horror of it 
+would strike you dead.  Remember that you are a vertebrate animal, 
+and it is by mistake that you have developed a soul.
+
+Cling, clang.  The red sparks fly from the anvil.  Live out your 
+life as it is.
+
+But there began to dawn in him a strange longing to be united to 
+all those unfortunates whom fate had blindly crushed; to gather 
+them together, not to a common lamentation, but to a common 
+victory.  Not for vengeance, but for a song of praise.  Behold, 
+Thou eternal Omnipotence, how we requite Thy cruelty--we praise 
+life: see how much more godlike we are than Thou.
+
+A temple, a temple for the modern spirit of man, hungry for 
+eternity--not for the babbling of prayers, but for a hymn from 
+man's munificent heart sent pealing up to heaven.  Will it come--
+will it one day be built?
+
+
+One evening Peer came home from the post-office apparently in high 
+spirits.  "Hi, Merle, I've got a letter from the Bruseth lady."
+
+Merle glanced at Lorentz, who had instinctively come close to her, 
+and was looking at his father.
+
+"From Bruseth?  How is Louise getting on?" she asked.
+
+"You can see for yourself.  Here's the letter," said he.
+
+Merle read it through hurriedly, and glanced at Lorentz once more.
+
+That evening, after the children had gone to bed, the father and 
+mother sat up talking together in a low voice.
+
+And Merle had to admit that her husband was right.  It would be 
+selfish of them to keep the boy here, when he might be heir to 
+Bruseth some day if they let him go.
+
+Suppose he stayed and worked here under his father and learned to 
+be a smith?  The blacksmith's day is over--factories do all the 
+work now.
+
+And what schooling could he get away here in the country?  Aunt 
+Marit offered to send him to a good school.--And so the die was 
+cast for him too.
+
+But when they went with the boy to see him off at the station, the 
+mother's handkerchief was at her eyes all the time, do what she 
+would.
+
+And when they came home she had to lie down in bed, while Peer went 
+about the place, humming to himself, while he got ready a little 
+supper and brought it to her bedside.
+
+"I can't understand how you can take it so easily," she burst out.
+
+"No--no," he laughed a little oddly.  "The less said about that the 
+better, perhaps."
+
+But the next day it was Peer who said he felt lazy again and would 
+lie still a bit.  Merle looked at him and stroked his forehead.
+
+And the time went on.  They worked hard and constantly to make both 
+ends meet without help, and they were content to take things as 
+they came.  When the big dairy was started close by, he made a good 
+deal of money setting up the plant, but he was not above sharpening 
+a drill for the road-gangs either.  He was often to be seen going 
+down to the country store in a sleeved waistcoat with a knapsack on 
+his back.  He carried his head high, the close-trimmed beard was 
+shading over into white, his face often had the strained look that 
+comes from sleeplessness, but his step was light, and he still had 
+a joke for the girls whom he met.
+
+In summer, the neighbours would often see them shutting up the 
+house and starting off up the hill with knapsack and coffee-kettle 
+and with little Asta trotting between them.  They were gone, it 
+might be, to try and recapture some memory of old days, with coffee 
+in the open air by a picnic fire.
+
+In the autumn, when the great fields yellowed all the hillsides, 
+Peer and Merle had a little plot of their own that showed golden 
+too.  The dimensions of things had shrunk not a little for these 
+two.  A bushel of corn was much to them now.  It hit them hard if 
+their potato-patch yielded a couple of measures less than they had 
+reckoned on.  But the housewives from the farms near by would often 
+look in on Merle to see how bright and clean she kept her little 
+house; and now that she had no one to help her, she found time 
+herself to teach the peasant girls something of cooking and sewing.
+
+But one habit had grown upon her.  She would stand long and long by 
+the window looking down the valley to where the hills closed it in.  
+It was as if she were looking constantly for something to come in 
+sight, something that should bring them better days.  It was a kind 
+of Sunday for her to stand there and look and wait.
+
+And the time went on.
+
+
+
+Chapter VII
+
+
+DEAR KLAUS BROCK,
+
+I write to tell you of what has lately happened to us here, chiefly 
+in the hope that it may be some comfort to yourself.  For I have 
+discovered, dear friend, that this world-sorrow of ours is 
+something a man can get over, if only he will learn to see with 
+his own eyes and not with those of others.
+
+Most men would say things have steadily gone from bad to worse 
+with me, and certainly I shall not pretend to feel any love for 
+suffering in itself.  On the contrary, it hurts.  It does not 
+ennoble.  It rather brutalises, unless it becomes so great that it 
+embraces all things.  I was once Engineer in charge at the First 
+Cataract--now I am a blacksmith in a country parish.  And that 
+hurts.  I am cut off from reading because of my eyes, and from 
+intercourse with people whose society would be a pleasure because 
+there are no such people here.  All this hurts, even when you've 
+grown used to it--a good thing in itself it is not.  Many times I 
+have thought that we must have reached the very bottom of the 
+inclined plane of adversity, but always it proved to be only a 
+break.  The deepest deep was still to come.  You work on even when 
+your head feels like to split; you save up every pin, every match; 
+and yet the bread you eat often tastes of charity.  That hurts.  
+You give up hoping that things may be better some day; you give up 
+all hope, all dreams, all faith, all illusions--surely you have 
+come to the end of all things.  But no; the very roots of one's 
+being are still left; the most precious thing of all is still left.  
+What can that be, you ask?
+
+That is what I was going to tell you.
+
+The thing that happened came just when things were beginning to 
+look a little brighter for us.  For some time past my head had been 
+less troublesome, and I had got to work on a new harrow--steel 
+again; it never lets one rest--and you know what endless 
+possibilities a man sees in a thing like that.  Merle was working 
+with fresh courage.  What do you think of a wife like that? taking 
+up the cross of her own free will, to go on sharing the life of a 
+ruined man?  I hope you may meet a woman of her sort one day.  
+True, her hair is growing grey, and her face lined.  Her figure is 
+not so straight as once it was; her hands are red and broken.  And 
+yet all this has a soul of its own, a beauty of its own, in my 
+eyes, because I know that each wrinkle is a mark left by the time 
+when some new trouble came upon us, and found us together.  Then 
+one day she smiles, and her smile has grown strained and full of 
+sadness, but again it brings back to me times when both heaven and 
+earth breathed cold upon us and we drew closer to each other for 
+warmth.  Our happiness and our sufferings have moulded her into 
+what she now is.  The world may think perhaps that she is growing 
+old; to me she is only more beautiful than before.
+
+And now I am coming to what I was going to tell you.  You will 
+understand that it was not easy to send away the two children, and 
+it doesn't make things better to get letters from them constantly 
+begging us to let them come home again.  But we had still one 
+little girl left, little Asta, who was just five.  I wish you could 
+have seen her.  If you were a father and your tortured nerves had 
+often made you harsh and unreasonable with the two elder ones, you 
+would try--would you not?--to make it up in loving-kindness to the 
+one that was left.  Asta--isn't it pretty?  Imagine a sunburnt 
+little being with black hair, and her mother's beautiful eyebrows, 
+always busy with her dolls, or fetching in wood, or baking little 
+cakes of her own for father when mother's baking bread for us all, 
+chattering to the birds on the roof, or singing now and then, just 
+because some stray note of music has come into her head.  When 
+mother is busy scrubbing the floor, little Asta must needs get hold 
+of a wet rag behind her back and slop away at a chair, until she 
+has got herself in a terrible mess, and then she gets smacked, and 
+screams for a moment, but soon runs out and sings herself happy 
+again.  When you're at work in the smithy, there comes a sound of 
+little feet, and "Father, come to dinner"; and a little hand takes 
+hold of you and leads you to the door.  "Are you going to bath me 
+to-night, father?"  Or "Here's your napkin, father."  And though 
+there might be only potatoes and milk for dinner, she would eat as 
+if she were seated at the grandest banquet.  "Aren't potatoes and 
+milk your favourite dish, father?"  And she makes faces at you in 
+the eagerness of her questionings.  At night she slept in a box at 
+the foot of our bed, and when I was lying sleepless, it would often 
+happen that her light, peaceful breathing filled me too with peace; 
+and it was as if her little hand took mine and led me on to sleep 
+itself, to beautiful, divine sleep.
+
+And now, as I come to the thing that happened, I find it a little 
+hard to write--my hand begins to tremble.  But my hope is that 
+there may be some comfort in it for you too, as there has proved to 
+be for Merle and me in the end.
+
+Our next neighbours here were a brazier and his wife--poor folks, 
+like ourselves.  Soon after we first came I went over to have a 
+talk with him.  I found him a poor wizened little creature, 
+pottering about with his acids, and making a living as best as he 
+could, soldering and tinning kettles and pans.  "What do you want?" 
+he asked, looking askance at me; and as I went out, I heard him 
+bolt the door behind me.  Alas! he was afraid--afraid that I was 
+come to snatch his daily bread from him.  His wife was a big-boned 
+fleshy lump of a woman, insolent enough in her ways, though she had 
+just been in prison for criminal abetment in the case of a girl 
+that had got into trouble.
+
+One Sunday morning I was standing looking at some apple trees in 
+bloom in his garden.  One of them grew so close to the fence that 
+the branches hung over on my side, and I bent one down to smell the 
+blossom.  Then suddenly I heard a cry:  "Hi, Tiger! catch him!" and 
+the brazier's great wolf-dog came bounding down, ready to fly at my 
+throat.  I was lucky enough to get hold of its collar before it 
+could do me any harm, and I dragged it up to its owner, and told 
+him that if anything of the sort happened again I'd have the 
+sheriff's officer after him.  Then the music began.  He fairly let 
+himself go and told me what he thought of me.  "You hold your jaw, 
+you cursed pauper, coming here taking the bread out of honest 
+working people's mouths," and so on.  He hissed it out, flourishing 
+his arms about, and at last it seemed to me he was fumbling about 
+for a knife or something to throw at my head.  I couldn't help 
+laughing.  It was a scene in the grand style between two Great 
+Powers in the world-competition.
+
+A couple of days later I was standing at the forge, when I heard a 
+shriek from my wife.  I rushed out--what could be the matter?  
+Merle was down by the fence already, and all at once I saw what it 
+was--there was Asta, lying on the ground under the body of a great 
+beast.
+
+And then--  Well, Merle tells me it was I that tore the thing away 
+from the little bundle of clothes beneath it, and carried our 
+little girl home.
+
+A doctor is often a good refuge in trouble, but though he may sew 
+up a ragged tear in a child's throat ever so neatly, it doesn't 
+necessarily follow that it will help much.
+
+There was a mother, though, that would not let him go--that cried 
+and prayed and clung about him, begging him to try once more if 
+nothing could be done.  And when at last he was gone, she was 
+always for going after him again, and grovelled on the floor and 
+tore her hair--could not, would not, believe what she knew was 
+true.
+
+And that night a father and mother sat up together, staring 
+strangely in front of them.  The mother was quiet now.  The child 
+was laid out, decked and ready.  The father sat by the window, 
+looking out.  It was in May, and the night was grey.
+
+Now it was that I began to realise how every great sorrow leads us 
+farther and farther out on the promontory of existence.  I had come 
+to the outermost point now--there was no more.
+
+And I discovered too, dear friend, that these many years of 
+adversity had shaped me not in one but in various moulds, for I had 
+in me the stuff for several quite distinct persons, and now the 
+work was done, and they could break free from my being and go their 
+several ways.
+
+I saw a man rush out into the night, shaking his fist at heaven and 
+earth; a madman who refused to play his part in the farce any more, 
+and so rushed down towards the river.
+
+But I myself sat there still.
+
+And I saw another, a puny creature, let loose; a humble, ashen-grey 
+ascetic, that bent his head and bowed under the lash, and said:  
+"Thy will be done.  The Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away--"  A 
+pitiful being this, that stole out into the night and disappeared.
+
+But I myself sat there still.
+
+I sat alone on the promontory of existence, with the sun and the 
+stars gone out, and ice-cold emptiness above me, about me, and in 
+me, on every side.
+
+But then, my friend, by degrees it dawned on me that there was 
+still something left.  There was one little indomitable spark in 
+me, that began to glow all by itself--it was as if I were lifted 
+back to the first day of existence, and an eternal will rose up in 
+me, and said:  Let there be light!
+
+This will it was that by and by grew and grew in me, and made me 
+strong.
+
+I began to feel an unspeakable compassion for all men upon earth, 
+and yet in the last resort I was proud that I was one of them.
+
+I understood how blind fate can strip and plunder us of all, and 
+yet something will remain in us at the last, that nothing in heaven 
+or earth can vanquish.  Our bodies are doomed to die, and our 
+spirit to be extinguished, yet still we bear within us the spark, 
+the germ of an eternity of harmony and light both for the world and 
+for God.
+
+And I knew now that what I had hungered after in my best years was 
+neither knowledge, nor honour, nor riches; nor to be a priest or a 
+great creator in steel; no, friend, but to build temples; not 
+chapels for prayers or churches for wailing penitent sinners, but a 
+temple for the human spirit in its grandeur, where we could lift up 
+our souls in an anthem as a gift to heaven.
+
+I could never do this now.  Perhaps there was nothing that I could 
+do any more.  And yet it seemed to me as I sat there that I had 
+conquered.
+
+What happened then?  Well, there had been a terrible drought all 
+that spring--it is often so in this valley.  The eternal north wind 
+sent the dry mould sweeping in clouds over the whole countryside, 
+and we were threatened with one of our worst years of scarcity if 
+the rain didn't come.
+
+At last people ventured to sow their corn, but then the frosts set 
+in, and snow and sleet, and the seed froze in the earth.  My 
+neighbour the brazier had his patch of ground sown with barley--but 
+now he would have to sow it again, and where was he to get the 
+seed?  He went from farm to farm begging for some, but people hated 
+the sight of him after what had happened about Asta--no one would 
+lend him any, and he had no money to buy.  The boys on the roads 
+hooted after him, and some of the neighbours talked of driving him 
+out of the parish.
+
+I wasn't able to sleep much the next night either, and when the 
+clock struck two I got up.  "Where are you going?" asked Merle.  "I 
+want to see if we haven't a half-bushel of barley left," I said.  
+"Barley--what do you want with barley in the middle of the night?"  
+"I want to sow the brazier's plot with it," I said, "and it's best 
+to do it now, so that nobody will know it was me."
+
+She sat up and stared at me.  "What?  His--the--the brazier's?"
+
+"Yes," said I.  "It won't do us any good, you know, to see his bit 
+of field lying bare all summer."
+
+"Peer--where are you going?"
+
+"I've told you," said I, and went out.  But I knew that she was 
+dressing and meant to come too.
+
+It had rained during the night, and as I came out the air was soft 
+and easy to breathe.  The morning still lay in a grey half-light 
+with yellow gleams from the wind-clouds to the north.  The scent of 
+the budding birches was in the air, the magpies and starlings were 
+up and about, but not a human soul was to be seen; the farms were 
+asleep, the whole countryside was asleep.
+
+I took the grain in a basket, climbed over the neighbour's fence 
+and began to sow.  No sign of life in the house; the sheriff's 
+officer had come over and shot the dog the day before; no doubt the 
+brazier and his wife were lying sleeping, dreaming maybe of enemies 
+all around, trying their best to do them harm.
+
+Dear friend, is there any need to tell the rest?  Just think, 
+though, how one man may give away a kingdom, and it costs him 
+nothing, and another may give up a few handfuls of corn, and it 
+means to him not only all that he has, but a world of struggle and 
+passion before he can bring his soul to make that gift.  Do you 
+think that is nothing?  As for me--I did not do this for Christ's 
+sake, or because I loved my enemy; but because, standing upon the 
+ruins of my life, I felt a vast responsibility.  Mankind must 
+arise, and be better than the blind powers that order its ways; in 
+the midst of its sorrows it must take heed that the god-like does 
+not die.  The spark of eternity was once more aglow in me, and 
+said:  Let there be light.
+
+And more and more it came home to me that it is man himself that 
+must create the divine in heaven and on earth--that that is his 
+triumph over the dead omnipotence of the universe.  Therefore I 
+went out and sowed the corn in my enemy's field, that God might 
+exist.
+
+Ah, if you had known that moment!  It was as if the air about me 
+grew alive with voices.  It was as though all the unfortunates I 
+had seen and known were bearing me company; more and more they 
+came; the dead too were joined to us, an army from times past and 
+long ago.  Sister Louise was there, she played her hymn, and drew 
+the voices all together into a choir, the choir of the living and 
+the dead, the choir of all mankind.  See, here are we all, your 
+sisters and brothers.  Your fate is ours.  We are flung by the 
+indifferent law of the universe into a life that we cannot order as 
+we would; we are ravaged by injustice, by sickness and sorrow, by 
+fire and blood.  Even the happiest must die.  In his own home he is 
+but on a visit.  He never knows but that he may be gone tomorrow.  
+And yet man smiles and laughs in the face of his tragic fate.  In 
+the midst of his thraldom he has created the beautiful on earth; in 
+the midst of his torments he has had so much surplus energy of soul 
+that he has sent it radiating forth into the cold deeps of space 
+and warmed them with God.
+
+So marvellous art thou, O spirit of man!  So godlike in thy very 
+nature!  Thou dost reap death, and in return thou sowest the dream 
+of everlasting life.  In revenge for thine evil fate thou dost fill 
+the universe with an all-loving God.
+
+We bore our part in his creation, all we who now are dust; we who 
+sank down into the dark like flames gone out;--we wept, we exulted, 
+we felt the ecstasy and the agony, but each of us brought our ray 
+to the mighty sea of light, each of us, from the negro setting up 
+the first mark above the grave of his dead to the genius raising 
+the pillars of a temple towards heaven.  We bore our part, from the 
+poor mother praying beside a cradle, to the hosts that lifted their 
+songs of praise high up into boundless space.
+
+Honour to thee, O spirit of man.  Thou givest a soul to the world, 
+thou settest it a goal, thou art the hymn that lifts it into 
+harmony; therefore turn back into thyself, lift high thy head and 
+meet proudly the evil that comes to thee.  Adversity can crush 
+thee, death can blot thee out, yet art thou still unconquerable and 
+eternal.
+
+Dear friend, it was thus I felt.  And when the corn was sown, and I 
+went back, the sun was glancing over the shoulder of the hill.  
+There by the fence stood Merle, looking at me.  She had drawn a 
+kerchief forward over her brow, after the fashion of the peasant 
+women, so that her face was in shadow; but she smiled to me--as if 
+she, too, the stricken mother, had risen up from the ocean of her 
+suffering that here, in the daybreak, she might take her share in 
+the creating of God. . . .
+
+
+
+TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
+
+
+PRONUNCIATION OF PROPER NAMES
+
+
+For the convenience of readers a few points in which Norwegian 
+pronunciation differs from English are noted below:
+
+The vowels a, e, and i in the middle of words are pronounced much 
+as in Italian.
+
+aa = long o, as in "post" or "pole."
+
+e final is sounded, as in German; thus Louise, Merle, etc.
+
+d final is nearly always elided; thus Raastad = Rosta'.
+
+g before e or i is hard; thus Ringeby, not Rinjeby.
+
+j = the English y; thus Bojer = Boyer, Jens = Yens.
+
+l before another consonant is sounded; thus Holm, not Home.
+
+
+CURRENCY
+
+
+The unit of currency in Norway is the crown (krone), which in 
+normal conditions is worth something over thirteen pence, so that 
+about eighteen crowns go to the pound sterling.  Thus Peer Holm's 
+fortune in the Savings Bank represented about L100 in English 
+money, and a million crowns is equivalent to about $260,000 in 
+American money.
+
+To avoid encumbering the reader unnecessarily with the details of 
+Norwegian currency, small amounts have been represented in this 
+translation by their equivalents in English money.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg Etext of The Great Hunger, by Johan Bojer
+