"The missis wants you to come right upstairs." "Oh? Very well, at once.... Well, see you later. You'll be stopping here, too, I expect?" He hurried up the stairs. Eilert and I followed to my room. * * * * * As a matter of fact, I went out again with Eilert at once. He had a great deal to tell me and explain to me, and I was not unwilling to listen to him then. Really, Eilert was not too bad, a fine fellow with four ragged, magnificent youngsters by his first wife, who had died two years before, and another child by his second wife. He must have forgotten, as he told me this, the yarn about the sick wife and the ailing children that he had spun for me last winter. The girl who had come down the stairs with the message from the "missis" was no servant, but Eilert's young wife. And she, too, was all right--strong and good, handy about the stables, and pregnant again. It all looks good to me, Eilert: your wife and everything you tell me about your family. No one will understand my strange contentment, then; I had been full of an obscure happiness from the moment I came to this house. Probably a mere coincidence, but that did not detract from my satisfactory state of mind; I was pleased with everything, and all things added to my cheerful frame of mind. There were some pigs by the barn, very affectionate pigs, because they were used to the children playing with them and kissing them and riding on their backs. And there was one of the goats, up on the roof of course, standing so far out along the edge that it was a wonder he didn't grow dizzy. Seagulls flew criss-cross over the fields, screaming their own language to one another, and being friends or enemies to the best of their ability. Down by the mouth of the river, just beneath the sunset, began the great road that winds up through the woods and the valley. There is something of the friendliness of a living being about such a forest road. Eilert was going out in his boat to fish haddock, and I went with him. Actually he should have been getting some meat for us; but he had promised the gentry from the city some fish, and fish was one of the gifts of God. Besides, if he lacked meat, he could always slaughter one of the pigs. There was a slight wind; but then we wanted some wind, Eilert said, as long as there was not too much of it. "Not reliable tonight though," he said, looking up into the sky; "the bigger the wind, the stronger the current." At first I was very brave, and sat on the thwart thinking of Eilert's French words: _travali, prekevary, sutinary, mankémang_, and many others. They've had a long way to travel, coming here by ancient routes via Bergen, and now they're common property. And then suddenly I lost all interest in French words, and felt extremely ill. It was much too windy, and we got no haddock. "Pity she's come up so quick," said Eilert; "let's try inshore for a while."