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By the pile of wood in Kjersti Hoel's big kitchen Lisbeth Longfrock had her place on the long winter evenings. She studied and listened, and heard so many curious things talked about that it seemed as if the evenings were too short and the days too few, in spite of the long, dark Norwegian winter.
Then she looked up and their eyes met. At that both of them flushed a little, and he said hastily, "Good day, Lisbeth Longfrock." "Good day. Why, is it you, Peter, out for a walk?" They shook hands. "Yes; I thought it would be pleasant to have a look at the old places again; and since Jacob was coming up to visit you, I made up my mind to keep him company." "Is Jacob with you?"
Kjersti was not a bit displeased because Lisbeth Longfrock forgot to express her thanks as she started off with Crookhorn. Bearhunter followed the little girl and the goat a long distance up the road. He did not understand matters at all! It is not to be wondered at that Randi, too, was greatly surprised when she saw Crookhorn following after Lisbeth as the little girl approached the castle.
Next came the goats, hurrying along and trying to get ahead; then the sheep in a tight clump; and behind these, four great pigs and a few calves; while at the very end of the train came the under-milkmaid, and Lisbeth Longfrock with her lunch bag on her back.
Lisbeth Longfrock stood still for a moment, then made a deep courtesy under her long frock and said in a grown-up way, just as she had heard her mother say, "Good day, and God bless your work." Kjersti Hoel had to smile when she saw the little roly-poly bundle over by the door, talking in such a grown-up fashion.
At the top they looked back and then glanced a little dubiously at each other. Lisbeth Longfrock was still standing where they had left her, and she was crying! Lisbeth felt very small and forlorn as she stood there. She certainly did not want to do anything that Jacob would get a thrashing for.
Then Kjersti went over to the door of the sheep barn, opened that also, and counted the goats and sheep as they went in; and when Lisbeth Longfrock came following in their wake, Kjersti took her hand also and said, "Welcome home!" "But," faltered Lisbeth, "I have not brought Crookhorn back with me." "No, I see that you have not; and it is a good thing.
But, if you please, they would have to wait until she had finished her work. They were out extremely early to-day! However strange it may seem, Lisbeth Longfrock, soon after her arrival at Hoel Sæter, had become a prime favorite with the other herders. The day after her first painful experiences the boys, as proposed, had met her behind the hill, Peter first and then Ole.
Five summers had passed away since Lisbeth Longfrock first went up on the mountain; and no one who had not seen her during those years could have guessed that she had grown into the tall girl sitting by herself one Sunday on the stone which, so far back as any herder could remember, had been called the Pancake Stone, and which lay hidden away in a distant and lonely part of the mountain.
Behind the cows came the smaller animals, and, last of all, Lisbeth Longfrock with a stick in her hand, her birch-bark hat on her head, and her lunch bag on her back. Lisbeth turned and looked at the scene she was leaving. There lay the sæter, desolate now. The mountain, too, appeared lonely and forsaken.
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