"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.