"Good bye," said Margit at the Clergyman's door. It was a Sunday evening in advancing summer-time; the Clergyman had returned from church, and Margit had been sitting with him till now, when it was seven o'clock. "Good bye, Margit," said the Clergyman. She hurried down the door-steps and into the yard; for she had seen Eli BÖen playing there with her brother and the Clergyman's son.

"Good evening," said Margit, stopping; "and God bless you all."

"Good evening," answered Eli. She blushed crimson and wanted to leave off the game; the boys begged her to keep on, but she persuaded them to let her go for that evening.

"I almost think I know you," said Margit.

"Very likely."

"Isn't it Eli BÖen?"

Yes, it was.

"Dear me! you're Eli BÖen; yes, now I see you're like your mother."

Eli's auburn hair had come unfastened, and hung down over her neck and shoulders; she was hot and as red as a cherry, her bosom fluttered up and down, and she could scarcely speak, but laughed because she was so out of breath.

"Well, young folks should be merry," said Margit, feeling happy as she looked at her. "P'r'aps you don't know me?"

If Margit had not been her senior, Eli would probably have asked her name, but now she only said she did not remember having seen her before.

"No; I dare say not: old folks don't go out much. But my son, p'r'aps you know a little—Arne Kampen; I'm his mother," said Margit, with a stolen glance at Eli, who suddenly looked grave and breathed slowly. "I'm pretty sure he worked at BÖen once."

Yes, Eli thought he did.

"It's a fine evening; we turned our hay this morning, and got it in before I came away; it's good weather indeed for everything."

"There will be a good hay-harvest this year," Eli suggested.

"Yes, you may well say that; everything's getting on well at BÖen, I suppose?"

"We have got in all our hay."

"Oh, yes, I dare say you have; your folks work well, and they have plenty of help. Are you going home to-night?"

No, she was not.

"Couldn't you go a little way with me? I so seldom have anybody to talk to; and it will be all the same to you, I suppose?"

Eli excused herself, saying she had not her jacket on.

"Well, it's a shame to ask such a thing the first time of seeing anybody; but one must put up with old folks' ways."

Eli said she would go; she would only fetch her jacket first.

It was a close-fitting jacket, which when fastened looked like a dress with a bodice; but now she fastened only two of the lower hooks, because she was so hot. Her fine linen bodice had a little turned-down collar, and was fastened with a silver stud in the shape of a bird with spread wings. Just such a one, Nils, the tailor, wore the first time Margit danced with him.

"A pretty stud," she said, looking at it.

"Mother gave it me."

"Ah, I thought so," Margit said, helping her with the jacket.

They walked onwards over the fields. The hay was lying in heaps; and Margit took up a handful, smelled it, and thought it was very good. She asked about the cattle at the parsonage, and this led her to ask also about the live stock at BÖen, and then she told how much they had at Kampen. "The farm has improved very much these last few years, and it can still be made twice as large. He keeps twelve milch-cows now, and he could keep several more, but he reads so many books and manages according to them, and so he will have the cows fed in such a first-rate way."

Eli, as might be expected, said nothing to all this; and Margit then asked her age. She was above twenty.

"Have you helped in the house-work? Not much, I dare say—you look so spruce."

Yes, she had helped a good deal, especially of late.

"Well, it's best to use one's self to do a little of everything; when one gets a large house of one's own, there's a great deal to be done. But, of course, when one finds good help already in the house before her, why, it doesn't matter so much."

Now Eli thought she must go back; for they had gone a long way beyond the grounds of the parsonage.

"It still wants some hours to sunset; it would be kind it you would chat a little longer with me." And Eli went on. Then Margit began to talk about Arne. "I don't know if you know much of him. He could teach you something about everything, he could; dear me, what a deal he has read!"

Eli owned she knew he had read a great deal.

"Yes; and that's only the least thing that can be said of him; but the way he has behaved to his mother all his days, that's something more, that is. If the old saying is true, that he who's good to his mother is good to his wife, the one Arne chooses won't have much to complain of."

Eli asked why they had painted the house before them with grey paint.

"Ah, I suppose they had no other; I only wish Arne may sometime be rewarded for all his kindness to his mother. When he has a wife, she ought to be kind-hearted as well as a good scholar. What are you looking for, child?"

"I only dropped a little twig I had."

"Dear me! I think of a many things, you may be sure, while I sit alone in yonder wood. If ever he takes home a wife who brings blessings to house and man, then I know many a poor soul will be glad that day."

They were both silent, and walked on without looking at each other; but soon Eli stopped.

"What's the matter?"

"One of my shoe-strings has come down."

Margit waited a long while till at last the string was tied.

"He has such queer ways," she began again; "he got cowed while he was a child, and so he has got into the way of thinking over everything by himself, and those sort of folks haven't courage to come forward."

Now Eli must indeed go back, but Margit said that Kampen was only half a mile off; indeed, not so far, and that Eli must see it, as too she was so near. But Eli thought it would be late that day.

"There'll be sure to be somebody to bring you home."

"No, no," Eli answered quickly, and would go back.

"Arne's not at home, it's true," said Margit; "but there's sure to be somebody else about;" and Eli had now less objection to it.

"If only I shall not be too late," she said.

"Yes, if we stand here much longer talking about it, it may be too late, I dare say." And they went on. "Being brought up at the Clergyman's, you've read a great deal, I dare say?"

Yes, she had.

"It'll be of good use when you have a husband who knows less."

No; that, Eli thought she would never have.

"Well, no; p'r'aps, after all, it isn't the best thing; but still folks about here haven't much learning."

Eli asked if it was Kampen, she could see straight before her.

"No; that's Gransetren, the next place to the wood; when we come farther up you'll see Kampen. It's a pleasant place to live at, is Kampen, you may be sure; it seems a little out of the way, it's true; but that doesn't matter much, after all."

Eli asked what made the smoke that rose from the wood.

"It comes from a houseman's cottage, belonging to Kampen: a man named Opplands-Knut lives there. He went about lonely till Arne gave him that piece of land to clear. Poor Arne! he knows what it is to be lonely."

Soon they came far enough to see Kampen. "Is that Kampen?" asked Eli, standing still and pointing.

"Yes, it is," said the mother; and she, too, stood still. The sun shone full in their faces, and they shaded their eyes as they looked down over the plain. In the middle of it stood the red-painted house with its white window-frames; rich green cornfields lay between the pale new-mown meadows, where some of the hay was already set in stacks; near the cow-house, all was life and stir; the cows, sheep and goats were coming home; their bells tinkled, the dogs barked, and the milkmaids called; while high above all, rose the grand tune of the waterfall from the ravine. The farther Eli went, the more this filled her ears, till at last it seemed quite awful to her; it whizzed and roared through her head, her heart throbbed violently, and she became bewildered and dizzy, and then felt so subdued that she unconsciously began to walk with such small timid steps that Margit begged her to come on a little faster. She started. "I never heard anything like that fall," she said; "I'm quite frightened."

"You'll soon get used to it; and at last you'll even miss it."

"Do you think so?"

"Well, you'll see." And Margit smiled.

"Come, now, we'll first look at the cattle," she said, turning downwards from the road, into the path. "Those trees on each side, Nils planted; he wanted to have everything nice, did Nils; and so does Arne; look, there's the garden he has laid out."

"Oh, how pretty!" exclaimed Eli, going quickly towards the garden fence.

"We'll look at that by-and-by," said Margit; "now we must go over to look at the creatures before they're locked in—" But Eli did not hear, for all her mind was turned to the garden. She stood looking at it till Margit called her once more; as she came along, she gave a furtive glance through the windows; but she could see no one inside.

They both went upon the barn steps and looked down at the cows, as they passed lowing into the cattle-house. Margit named them one by one to Eli, and told her how much milk each gave, and which would calve in the summer, and which would not. The sheep were counted and penned in; they were of a large foreign breed, raised from two lambs which Arne had got from the South. "He aims at all such things," said Margit, "though one wouldn't think it of him." Then they went into the barn, and looked at some hay which had been brought in, and Eli had to smell it; "for such hay isn't to be found everywhere," Margit said. She pointed from the barn-hatch to the fields, and told what kind of seed was sown on them, and how much of each kind. "No less than three fields are new-cleared, and now, this first year, they're set with potatoes, just for the sake of the ground; over there, too, the land's new-cleared, but I suppose that soil's different, for there he has sown barley; but then he has strewed burnt turf over it for manure, for he attends to all such things. Well, she that comes here will find things in good order, I'm sure." Now they went out towards the dwelling-house; and Eli, who had answered nothing to all that Margit had told her about other things, when they passed the garden asked if she might go into it; and when she got leave to go, she begged to pick a flower or two. Away in one corner was a little garden-seat; she went over and sat down upon it—perhaps only to try it, for she rose directly.

"Now we must make haste, else we shall be too late," said Margit, as she stood at the house-door. Then they went in. Margit asked if Eli would not take some refreshment, as this was the first time she had been at Kampen; but Eli turned red and quickly refused. Then they looked round the room, which was the one Arne and the mother generally used in the day-time; it was not very large, but cosy and pleasant, with windows looking out on the road. There were a clock and a stove; and on the wall hung Nils' fiddle, old and dark, but with new strings; beside it hung some guns belonging to Arne, English fishing-tackle and other rare things, which the mother took down and showed to Eli, who looked at them and touched them. The room was without painting, for this Arne did not like; neither was there any in the large pretty room which looked towards the ravine, with the green mountains on the other side, and the blue peaks in the background. But the two smaller rooms in the wing were both painted; for in them the mother would live when she became old, and Arne brought a wife into the house: Margit was very fond of painting, and so in these rooms the ceilings were painted with roses, and her name was painted on the cupboards, the bedsteads, and on all reasonable and unreasonable places; for it was Arne himself who had done it. They went into the kitchen, the store-room, and the bake-house; and now they had only to go into the up-stairs rooms; "all the best things were there," the mother said.

These were comfortable rooms, corresponding with those below, but they were new and not yet taken into use, save one which looked towards the ravine. In them hung and stood all sorts of household things not in every-day use. Here hung a lot of fur coverlets and other bedclothes; and the mother took hold of them and lifted them; so did Eli, who looked at all of them with pleasure, examined some of them twice, and asked questions about them, growing all the while more interested.

"Now we'll find the key of Arne's room," said the mother, taking it from under a chest where it was hidden. They went into the room; it looked towards the ravine; and once more the awful booming of the waterfall met their ears, for the window was open. They could see the spray rising between the cliffs, but not the fall itself, save in one place farther up, where a huge fragment of rock had fallen into it just where the torrent came in full force to take its last leap into the depths below. The upper side of this fragment was covered with fresh sod; and a few pine-cones had dug themselves into it, and had grown up to trees, rooted into the crevices. The wind had shaken and twisted them; and the fall had dashed against them, so that they had not a sprig lower than eight feet from their roots: they were gnarled and bent; yet they stood, rising high between the rocky walls. When Eli looked out from the window, these trees first caught her eye; next, she saw the snowy peaks rising far beyond behind the green mountains. Then her eyes passed over the quiet fertile fields back to the room; and the first thing she saw there was a large bookshelf. There were so many books on it that she scarcely believed the Clergyman had more. Beneath it was a cupboard, where Arne kept his money. The mother said money had been left to them twice already, and if everything went right they would have some more. "But, after all, money's not the best thing in the world; he may get what's better still," she added.

There were many little things in the cupboard which were amusing to see, and Eli looked at them all, happy as a child. Then the mother showed her a large chest where Arne's clothes lay, and they, too, were taken out and looked at. Margit patted Eli on the shoulder. "I've never seen you till to-day, and yet I'm already so fond of you, my child," she said, looking affectionately into her eyes. Eli had scarcely time to feel a little bashful, before Margit pulled her by the hand and said in a low voice, "Look at that little red chest; there's something very choice in that, you may be sure."

Eli glanced towards the chest: it was a little square one, which she thought she would very much like to have.

"He doesn't want me to know what's in that chest," the mother whispered; "and he always hides the key." She went to some clothes that hung on the wall, took down a velvet waistcoat, looked in the pocket, and there found the key.

"Now come and look," she whispered; and they went gently, and knelt down before the chest. As soon as the mother opened it, so sweet an odor met them that Eli clapped her hands even before she had seen anything. On the top was spread a handkerchief, which the mother took away. "Here, look," she whispered, taking out a fine black silk neckerchief such as men do not wear. "It looks just as if it was meant for a girl," the mother said. Eli spread it upon her lap and looked at it, but did not say a word. "Here's one more," the mother said. Eli could not help taking it up; and then the mother insisted upon trying it on her, though Eli drew back and held her head down. She did not know what she would not have given for such a neckerchief; but she thought of something more than that. They folded them up again, but slowly.

"Now, look here," the mother said, taking out some handsome ribands. "Everything seems as if it was for a girl." Eli blushed crimson, but she said nothing. "There's some more things yet," said the mother, taking out some fine black cloth for a dress; "it's fine, I dare say," she added, holding it up to the light. Eli's hands trembled, her chest heaved, she felt the blood rushing to her head, and she would fain have turned away, but that she could not well do.

"He has bought something every time he has been to town," continued the mother. Eli could scarcely bear it any longer; she looked from one thing to another in the chest, and then again at the cloth, and her face burned. The next thing the mother took out was wrapped in paper; they unwrapped it, and found a small pair of shoes. Anything like them, they had never seen, and the mother wondered how they could be made. Eli said nothing; but when she touched the shoes her fingers left warm marks on them. "I'm hot, I think," she whispered. The mother put all the things carefully together.

"Doesn't it seem just as if he had bought them all, one after another, for somebody he was afraid to give them to?" she said, looking at Eli. "He has kept them here in this chest—so long." She laid them all in the chest again, just as they were before. "Now we'll see what's here in the compartment," she said, opening the lid carefully, as if she were now going to show Eli something specially beautiful.

When Eli looked she saw first a broad buckle for a waistband, next, two gold rings tied together, and a hymn-book bound in velvet and with silver clasps; but then she saw nothing more, for on the silver of the book she had seen graven in small letters, "Eli Baardsdatter BÖen."

The mother wished her to look at something else; she got no answer, but saw tear after tear dropping down upon the silk neckerchief and spreading over it. She put down the sylgje[5] which she had in her hand, shut the lid, turned round and drew Eli to her. Then the daughter wept upon her breast, and the mother wept over her, without either of them saying any more.

A little while after, Eli walked by herself in the garden, while the mother was in the kitchen preparing something nice for supper; for now Arne would soon be at home. Then she came out in the garden to Eli, who sat tracing names on the sand with a stick. When she saw Margit, she smoothed the sand down over them, looked up and smiled; but she had been weeping.

"There's nothing to cry about, my child," said Margit, caressing her; "supper's ready now; and here comes Arne," she added, as a black figure appeared on the road between the shrubs.

Eli stole in, and the mother followed her. The supper-table was nicely spread with dried meat, cakes and cream porridge; Eli did not look at it, however, but went away to a corner near the clock and sat down on a chair close to the wall, trembling at every sound. The mother stood by the table. Firm steps were heard on the flagstones, and a short, light step in the passage, the door was gently opened, and Arne came in.

The first thing he saw was Eli in the corner; he left hold on the door and stood still. This made Eli feel yet more confused; she rose, but then felt sorry she had done so, and turned aside towards the wall.

"Are you here?" said Arne, blushing crimson.

She held her hand before her face, as one does when the sun shines into the eyes. "How did you come here?" he asked, advancing a few steps.

She put her hand down again, and turned a little towards him, but then bent her head and burst into tears.

"Why do you weep, Eli?" he asked, coming to her. She did not answer, but wept still more.

"God bless you, Eli!" he said, laying his arm round her. She leant her head upon his breast, and he whispered something down to her; she did not answer, but clasped her hands round his neck.

They stood thus for a long while; and not a sound was heard, save that of the fall which still gave its eternal warning, though distant and subdued. Then some one over against the table was heard weeping; Arne looked up: it was the mother; but he had not noticed her till then. "Now, I'm sure you won't go away from me, Arne," she said, coming across the floor to him; and she wept much, but it did her good, she said.

Later, when they had supped and said good-bye to the mother, Eli and Arne walked together along the road to the parsonage. It was one of those light summer nights when all things seem to whisper and crowd together, as if in fear. Even he who has from childhood been accustomed to such nights, feels strangely influenced by them, and goes about as if expecting something to happen: light is there, but not life. Often the sky is tinged with blood-red, and looks out between the pale clouds like an eye that has watched. One seems to hear a whispering all around, but it comes only from one's own brain, which is over-excited. Man shrinks, feels his own littleness, and thinks of his God.

Those two who were walking here also kept close to each other; they felt as if they had too much happiness, and they feared it might be taken from them.

"I can hardly believe it," Arne said.

"I feel almost the same," said Eli, looking dreamily before her.

"Yet it's true," he said, laying stress on each word; "now I am no longer going about only thinking; for once I have done something."

He paused a few moments, and then laughed, but not gladly. "No, it was not I," he said; "it was mother who did it."

He seemed to have continued this thought, for after a while he said, "Up to this day I have done nothing; not taken my part in anything. I have looked on ... and listened."

He went on a little farther, and then said warmly, "God be thanked that I have got through in this way; ... now people will not have to see many things which would not have been as they ought...." Then after a while he added, "But if some one had not helped me, perhaps I should have gone on alone for ever." He was silent.

"What do you think father will say, dear?" asked Eli, who had been busy with her own thoughts.

"I am going over to BÖen early to-morrow morning," said Arne;—"that, at any rate, I must do myself," he added, determining he would now be cheerful and brave, and never think of sad things again; no, never! "And, Eli, it was you who found my song in the nut-wood?" She laughed. "And the tune I had made it for, you got hold of, too."

"I took the one which suited it," she said, looking down. He smiled joyfully and bent his face down to hers. "But the other song you did not know?"

"Which?" she asked looking up....

"Eli ... you mustn't be angry with me ... but one day this spring ... yes, I couldn't help it, I heard you singing on the parsonage-hill."

She blushed and looked down, but then she laughed. "Then, after all, you have been served just right," she said.

"What do you mean?"

"Well—it was; nay, it wasn't my fault; it was your mother ... well ... another time...."

"Nay; tell it me now."

She would not;—then he stopped and exclaimed, "Surely, you haven't been up-stairs?" He was so grave that she felt frightened, and looked down.

"Mother has perhaps found the key to that little chest?" he added in a gentle tone.

She hesitated, looked up and smiled, but it seemed as if only to keep back her tears; then he laid his arm round her neck and drew her still closer to him. He trembled, lights seemed flickering before his eyes, his head burned, he bent over her and his lips sought hers, but could hardly find them; he staggered, withdrew his arm, and turned aside, afraid to look at her. The clouds had taken such strange shapes; there was one straight before him which looked like a goat with two great horns, and standing on its hind legs; and there was the nose of an old woman with her hair tangled; and there was the picture of a big man, which was set slantwise, and then was suddenly rent.... But just over the mountain the sky was blue and clear; the cliff stood gloomy, while the lake lay quietly beneath it, afraid to move; pale and misty it lay, forsaken both by sun and moon, but the wood went down to it, full of love just as before. Some birds woke and twittered half in sleep; answers came over from one copse and then from another, but there was no danger at hand, and they slept once more ... there was peace all around. Arne felt its blessedness lying over him as it lay over the evening.

"Thou great, thou Almighty God!" he said, so that he heard the words himself, and he folded his hands, but went a little before Eli that she might not see it.