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I must therefore request you to call on me personally at your earliest convenience, as I have several matters to settle with you. Yours faithfully, J. Grundt, Senior Master." They stood and looked at one another. 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.
And away out on the farthest headland, the lonely star of the coast light over the grey sea. On such an evening Peer came down from the hills just in time to see a gentleman in a carriole turn off from the highway and take the by-road down towards Troen.
Boys are never so busy as when they are up to some piece of mischief, and evidently the pair had business of this sort in hand. Peer Troen, fair-haired and sallow-faced, was pushing a wheelbarrow; his companion, Martin Bruvold, a dark youth with freckles, carried a tub. And both talked mysteriously in whispers, casting anxious glances out over the water. Peer Troen was, of course, the ringleader.
Sometimes it helped him a little to think of the old mother at Troen, or of the church at home, where the vaulted roof had soared so high over the swelling organ-notes, and all the faces had looked so beautiful. But the evening prayer was no longer what it had been for him. There was no grey-haired bishop any more sitting at the top of the ladder he was to climb.
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.
He felt he would like to go back to Troen first of all, and talk things over with the old father and mother; they would be sorry for him there, and say "Poor boy," and pray for him but after a day or two, he knew, they would begin to glance at him at meals, and remember that there was no one to pay for him now, and that times were hard. No, that was no refuge for him now.
'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!
Next day Peer's father went away. He stood there, ready to start, in the living-room at Troen, stiff felt hat and overcoat and all, and said, in a tone like the sheriff's when he gives out a public notice at the church door: "And, by the way, you're to have the boy confirmed this year." "Yes, to be sure we will," the old mother hastened to say.
And for weeks afterwards the four scamps' exploit was the talk of the village, so that they felt there was not much fear of their getting the thrashing they deserved when the men came home. When Peer, as quite a little fellow, had been sent to live with the old couple at Troen, he had already passed several times from one adopted home to another, though this he did not remember.
Life, my young friend, life has troubles that must be faced. What is the name of the farm, or house, where you have lived up to now?" "T Troen." "Troen a very good name indeed. Then from to-day on you will call yourself Peer Troen." "Y-yes, sir." "And if any one should ask about your father, remember that you are bound in honour and conscience not to mention your benefactor's name." "Y-yes."
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