Part 14 (1/2)

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 G.o.d, 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 pa.s.sed 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 sh.o.r.e 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 fas.h.i.+ons--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 fis.h.i.+ng. 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 pa.s.sed. 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.