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You shall see, by the care we take of your grandfather and Ulla, that we do not forget what you have done this night. If Nipen will only forgive, for the sake of this " "We were just in the nick of time," observed Oddo. "It was better than if we had been earlier." "I do not know," said Erica. "Here are their brandy-bottles, and many things besides. I had rather not have had to bring these away."
Just after midnight, they brought her word that the bishop had ordered every one but M. Kollsen away from the ridge. The schooner had peeped out from behind the promontory, and was stealing up with a soft west wind "A west wind!" exclaimed Erica. "Any fog?" "No, not a flake of mist. Neither you nor any one will say that Nipen is favourable to the enemy to-night, Erica."
His grandfather must be growing anxious; and he was not perfectly sure yet whether his guide might not be Nipen in Rolf's likeness, about to lead him to some hidden prison. "Give me your hand, Rolf," said the boy, bravely. It was a real, substantial, warm hand. "I don't wonder you doubt," said Rolf. "I can't look much like myself, unshaven, and shrunk, and haggard as my face must be."
The place where Nipen liked to find his offerings was at the end of the barn, below the gallery which ran round the outside of the building. There, in the summer, lay a plot of green grass, and in the winter a sheet of pure frozen snow.
"Indeed, there was no helping it, any more than one can help watching a storm-cloud as it comes up." "So it was dark and wrathful, was it, that ugly face of his? Well it might be, dear; well it might be!" "The worst was, worse than all his dark looks together, O, Ulla! the worst was his leap and cry of joy when he heard what Oddo had done, and that Nipen was made our enemy.
Those who went in sleighs took care that a heavy stone was fastened by a rope to the back of each carriage, that its bobbing and dancing on the road might keep off the wolves. Glad would they have been of any contrivance by which they might as certainly distance Nipen. Rolf then took a parting kiss from Erica in the porch, pushed Oddo on before, and followed with Peder.
"I tell you he leaped for joy that Nipen was offended. Here is some one coming," she exclaimed, starting from her seat, as a shadow flitted over the thick window-pane, and a hasty knock was heard at the door. "You are a coward, if ever there was one," said Ulla, smiling. "Hund never comes here, so you need not look so frightened.
"The wind must have just changed," said Oddo, pulling exhausting strokes, as the fog marched towards them over the water, like a solid and immeasurably lofty wall. "The wind must have gone right round in a minute." "To be sure, since you said what you did of Nipen," replied Erica, bitterly. Oddo made no answer, but he did what he could.
They were very civil would not accept Oddo's supper on any account would remain on the watch wished their friends would be persuaded; and, when they found all persuasion in vain, declared they would bear testimony to Erica, and as long as they should live, to the bravery of the old man and boy who thus threw away their lives in search of a comrade who had fallen a victim to Nipen.
"When I think of it all, I am so shocked, so ashamed!" "How ashamed?" "Nipen has been so favourable to us to-day, madam! not a breath of wind stirring all the morning, so that nobody was disappointed of coming! And then to serve it in this way! To rob it, and mock it, and brave it as we have done! So ungrateful! so very wrong!"
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