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They were willing to do all they could to oblige: they would row twenty miles without resting, with pleasure; but they would not brave Nipen, nor any other demon, for any consideration. "How far off is it, Oddo?" asked Peder. "Two miles, grandfather. Can you and I manage it by ourselves, think you?" "Ay, surely, if we can land these friends of ours.
I declare to you that the boat was gone, in a twinkling, by magic, and I heard the cry of the spirit that took it." "What was the cry like?" asked Oddo, gravely. "Where were you that you were not spirited away with the boat?" asked his mistress.
"'Tis the very place," said Peder, putting new strength into his old arm. Oddo rowed stoutly too for some way, and then he stopped to ask on what side the remains of a birch ladder used to hang down, as Peder had often told him. "On the north side; but there is no use in looking for that, my boy. That birch ladder must have rotted away with frost and wet long and long ago."
They had not, however, gone far before the well-known skill of Katla, in optical delusion occurred to them, and they resolved on a second and stricter search. Upon their return they found Katla in the outer apartment, who seemed to be shearing the hair of a tame kid, but was in reality cutting the locks of her son Oddo.
In the porch she found Oddo, eating something which caused him to make faces. Though it was in the open air, there was a strong smell of camphor, and of something else less pleasant. "What are you doing, Oddo?" asked Erica: the question which Oddo was asked every day of his life.
In such a case, there would be nothing for it but a race a race for which Erica and Oddo held themselves prepared, without any mutual explanation; for they dared not speak. The faintest whisper would have crept over the smooth water to the ears in the larger boat. One thing was certain that something must happen presently.
Thus encouraged, the citizens engaged Count Oddo the son of Braccio, and united with him, for directing the operations of the war, Niccolo Piccinino, a pupil of his father's, and one of the most celebrated of all who had served under him. To these they added other leaders, and remounted some of those who had lost their horses in the late defeat.
There was no sign of any spirit being angry at present: but Oddo thought Nipen would certainly be angry at finding so very small a piece of cake. It might be better to let the ale stand by itself, and Nipen would perhaps suppose that Madame Erlingsen's stock of groceries had fallen short; at least, that it was in some way inconvenient to make the cake on the present occasion.
Rolf's hearty laugh was silent; perhaps for ever. Oddo was an inmate still, but Oddo was much altered of late, and who could wonder? Though the boy was strangely unbelieving about some things, he could not but feel how wonders and misfortunes had crowded upon one another since the night of his defiance of Nipen. From the hour of Hund's return, the boy had hardly been heard to speak.
"One would think," continued the lady, when she returned from watching Erica and Oddo disappear in the dusk "one would think Erica had never known fear. Her step is as firm and her eye as clear as if she had never trembled in the course of her life."
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