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Updated: June 9, 2025
O God! he! Some one had knocked, it could be no other than he! She was up now, barefooted; she, so feeble for the last few days, had sprung up as nimbly as a kitten, with her arms outstretched to wind round her darling. Of course the Léopoldine had arrived at night, and anchored in Pors-Even Bay, and he had rushed home; she arranged all this in her mind with the swiftness of lightning.
Kling ... eling ... say the cow bells far up on the hillside, coming nearer and nearer; the cattle are coming home for the night. Fifteen head of them, and five-and-forty sheep and goats besides; threescore in all. There go the women out with their milk-pails, carried on yokes from the shoulder: Leopoldine, Jensine, and little Rebecca. All three barefooted.
Little Leopoldine was asking for something to eat. Oh, the pretty little creature; a ladybird up on a cart! She talked with a sing in her voice, with a strange accent, as she had learned in Trondhjem. Inger had to translate now and again.
The departures for Iceland had begun the day before, and with each tide there was a fresh fleet off. On this particular morning, fifteen vessels were to start with the Leopoldine, and the wives or mothers of the sailors were all present at the getting under sail.
Did the two menfolk imagine the child was blind? Ay, young folk were young folk as they had ever been, thirty, forty years ago, but worse than ever now. "Why, that's as it may be," said Isak, when they spoke of the matter. "But here's the spring come, and Jensine gone, and who's to manage the summer work?" "Leopoldine and I can do the haymaking," said Inger.
Sivert could dance, and Leopoldine too; a kind of dancing peculiar to the spot, growth of the new-cleared soil; a dance with energy and swing: schottische, mazurka, waltz and polka in one. And could not Leopoldine deck herself out and fall in love and dream by daylight all awake? Ay, as well as any other!
Sivert answered straight out at once: "I meant, if you don't care to stay with us, why, we must manage without." And a long while after, said Jensine: "Well, there's Leopoldine, she's big now, and fit and all to do my work, seems." Ay, 'twas a sorrowful journey. A man walks up the way through the hills.
Sivert and Leopoldine stayed behind to look after the place. Then they rowed in a boat across the lake, and that was a deal easier than before, when they had had to walk round all the way. But half-way across, as Inger unfastened her dress to nurse the child, Isak noticed something bright hung in a string round her neck; whatever it might be.
It happened to be Fante Floury, the wife of the second mate of the Leopoldine. She understood immediately what Gaud was doing there; it was useless to dissemble with her. At first each woman stood speechless before the other. They were angry and almost hated each other for having met with a like sentiment of apprehension.
Eleseus and Sivert were fast asleep in the little chamber, undisturbed by all the noise outside; little Leopoldine was up, looking on wonderingly at her mother as she danced. Isak was out in the fields all the time; he had gone off directly after supper, and when he came home to go to bed, some one offered him a bottle. He drank a little, and sat watching the dancing, with Leopoldine on his lap.
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