Peer was crying--chiefly, it must be admitted, at the thought of having
to bid good-bye to all the Troen folks and the two cows, and the calf,
and the grey cat. He might have to go right on to Christiania, no later
than to-morrow--to go to school there; and when he came back--why, very
likely the old mother might not be there any more.

So all three of them were heavy-hearted, when the pock-marked good-wife,
and the bow-legged old man, came down with him to the pier. And soon he
was standing on the deck of the fjord steamer, gazing at the two figures
growing smaller and smaller on the shore. And then one hut after another
in the little hamlet disappeared behind the ness--Troen itself was
gone now--and the hills and the woods where he had cut ring staves
and searched for stray cattle--swiftly all known things drew away and
vanished, until at last the whole parish was gone, and his childhood
over.



Chapter III


As evening fell, he saw a multitude of lights spread out on every side
far ahead in the darkness. And next, with his little wooden chest on his
shoulder, he was finding his way up through the streets by the quay to
a lodging-house for country folk, which he knew from former visits, when
he had come to the town with the Lofoten boats.

Next morning, clad in his country homespun, he marched up along River
Street, over the bridge, and up the hill to the villa quarter, where he