I have been staying here a couple of days; Petter has come home, but had nothing to tell.

“Is all well at ?vreb??”

“Ay, there’s nothing wrong that I know of.”

“Did you see them all before you left? The Captain, Fruen?”

“Yes.”

“Nobody ill?”

“No. Why, who should there be?”

“Well, Falkenberg said something about he’d hurt his hand. But I suppose it’s all right now, then.”

There was little comfort in this home, though they seemed to be quite well off. Petter’s father was deputy to the Storting, and had taken to sitting reading the papers of an evening. Eh, reading and reading — the whole house suffered under it, and the daughters were bored to death. When Petter came home the entire family set to work reckoning out whether he had gotten his full pay, and if he had lain sick at ?vreb? for the full time allowed him by law, or “provided by statute,” as his father, the deputy, put it. Yesterday, when I happened to break a window — a little pane that cost next to nothing — there was no end of whispering about it, and unfriendly glances at me from all sides; so today I went up to the store and bought a new pane, and fixed it in properly with putty. Then said the deputy: “You needn’t have taken all that trouble over a pane of glass.”

To tell the truth, it was not only for that I had been up to the store; I also bought a couple of bottles of wine, to show I did not care so much for the price of a pane of glass or so. Also, I bought a sewing-machine, to give the girls when I went away. We could drink the wine this evening; tomorrow would be Sunday, and we should all have time to lie abed. But on Monday morning I would start off again.

Things turned out otherwise, however. The two girls had been up in the loft, sniffing at my sack; both the wine and the sewing-machine had put fancies into their heads; they imagined all sorts of things, and began throwing out hints. Wait a bit, thought I to myself; my time will come!

In the evening I sit with the family in the parlour, talking. We have just finished supper, and the master of the house had put on his spectacles to read the papers. Then some one coughs outside. “There’s some one coming in,” I say. The girls exchange glances and go out. A little after they open the door and show in two young men. “Come in and sit down,” says the wife.

It struck me just then that these two peasant lads had been invited on the strength of my wine, and that they were sweethearts with the girls. Smart young creatures — eighteen, nineteen years old, and already up to anything. Well, if they reckoned on that wine now, they’d be mistaken! Not a drop. . . .

There was some talking of the weather; how it was no better than could be looked for that time of year, but a pity the wet had stopped the ploughing. There was no sort of life in this talk, and one of the girls turned to me and said I was very quiet this evening. How could it be?

“Maybe because I’m going away,” I answered. “I’ve a good long way to go between now and Monday morning.”

“Then perhaps we ought to have a parting glass tonight?”

There was some giggling at this, as a well-deserved thrust at me for keeping back the wine that miserly fashion. But I did not know these girls, and cared nothing for them, otherwise I had acted differently.

“What do you mean?” I asked. I’ve bought three bottles of wine that I’ve to take with me to a certain place.”

“And you’re going to carry it all that way?” asked the girl, amid much laughter. “As if there were never a store on the road.”

“Fr?kenen forgets that it’s Sunday tomorrow, and the stores on the road will be shut,” said I.

The laugh died away, but I could see the company was no more kindly disposed towards me now for speaking straight out. I turned to the wife, and asked coldly how much I owed her for the time I had stayed.

But surely there was n............