with planks and awaiting a breeze. Oyvind gazed across the water which
had borne him away and home again. There it stretched before him,
calm and smooth; some sea-birds flew over it, but made no noise, for it
was late. His father came walking up from the mill, paused on the
door-step, took a survey of all about him, as his son had done, then
went down to the water to take the boat in for the night. The mother
appeared at the side of the house, for she had been in the kitchen.
She raised her eyes toward the cliff as she crossed the farm-yard with
something for the hens, looked up again and began to hum. Oyvind sat
down to wait. The underbrush was so dense that he could not see very
far into the forest, but he listened to the slightest sound. For a
long time he heard nothing but the birds that flew up and cheated
him,--after a while a squirrel that was leaping from tree to tree. But
at length there was a rustling farther off; it ceased a moment, and
then began again. He rises, his heart throbs, the blood rushes to his
head; then something breaks through the brushes close by him; but it is
a large, shaggy dog, which, on seeing him, pauses on three legs without
stirring. It is the dog from the Upper Heidegards, and close behind
him another rustling is heard. The dog turns his head and wags his
tail; now Marit appears.

A bush caught her dress; she turned to free it, and so she was standing
when Oyvind saw her first. Her head was bare, her hair twisted up as
girls usually wear it in every-day attire; she had on a thick plaid
dress without sleeves, and nothing about the neck except a turned-down
linen collar. She had just stolen away from work in the fields, and
had not ventured on any change of dress. Now she looked up askance and
smiled; her white teeth shone, her eyes sparkled beneath the
half-closed lids. Thus she stood for a moment working with her
fingers, and then she came forward, growing rosier and rosier with each