But perhaps Mrs. Brede was not always so calm as she seemed. One evening when she went down to the men's hut and asked Solem to do her a service, I saw that her face was strange and covered with blushes. Would Solem come to her room and repair a window-blind that had fallen down? It was late in the evening, and the lady seemed to have been in bed already, and to have risen again. Solem did not appear very willing. Suddenly their eyes met, and clung for a moment. Yes, certainly, of course he would come.... What an iron face he had, and what a rogue he was! Mrs. Brede departed. But a moment later she returned to say that she had changed her mind. Never mind, thank you, she would fix the blind in position herself. XI An occasional tourist came or went, Solem accompanied him across the fjeld, and he was gone. But where were all the foreigners this year? Bennett's and Cook's conducted tours, the hordes that would "do" the mountain peaks of Norway--where were they? At last two solitary Englishmen turned up. They were middle-aged, unshaven and ill-groomed altogether, two engineers or something of that sort, but quite as speechless and uncivil as the grandest of the traveling British clowns. "Guide! Guide!" they called. "You the guide?" Nothing about them was any different from what we had grown to expect; these two traveled brainlessly and solemnly to the mountain tops, were in a hurry, had a purpose, behaved as though they were running to catch a doctor. Solem went with them to the top and down the other side, and they offered him a fifty-_öre_ bit. Solem held out the palm of his hand, he told me afterwards, for he thought they would put more in it, but nothing came of that. So he created a disturbance--Solem has grown spoiled and insolent from all his idling with tourists. _"Mehr,_ more," said he. No, they would not. Solem flung the coin on the ground and struck his hands together repeatedly. This had the required effect, and one _krone_ made its appearance. But on Solem's taking the noble lord by the shoulder and exerting a little pressure, two _kroner_ were at last forthcoming. At length a conducted party arrived. Many tongues, both sexes, huntsmen, fishermen, dogs, mountaineers, porters. There was a tremendous commotion at the farm; the flag was run up, Paul bent double under all the orders he received, and Josephine ran, flew at every call. Mrs. Brede had to give up her sitting room to three English ladies, and the rest of us were crowded together as close as possible. I, for my part, was to be allowed to keep my bed because of my settled age; but I said, "By no means, let this English solicitor or whatever he is have my bed; what does it matter for a night!" Then I went out.