Later in the forenoon Eilert returned home. He was alone, but he came up the path carrying one of the knapsacks--the larger one. He was in a furious temper, and kept saying they'd better not try it on him--no, they'd just better not. Of course it was the bill again. "She'll probably have a good deal of this sort of trouble," I thought to myself, "but no doubt she'll get used to it, and take it as nonchalantly as it should be taken. There are worse things." But the fact remains that it was I that upset them, I that had driven them away without their clothes; perhaps they had really expected some money to be sent here--who knows? I got hold of Eilert. How big was the bill? What, was that all? "Good heavens! Here you are, here's your money; now row across to them at once with their clothes!" But it all proved in vain, for the strangers had gone; they had arrived just in time for the boat, and were aboard it at that very moment. Well, there was no help for it. "Here's their address," says Eilert. "We can send the clothes next Thursday; that's the next trip the boat goes south again." I took down the address, but I was most ungracious to Eilert. Why couldn't he have kept the other knapsack--why this particular one? Eilert replied that it was true the gentleman had offered him the other one, but he could see from the outside that it was not so good as this one. And I should remember that the money the missis had paid him hadn't covered more than the bill for one of them. So it was only reasonable that he should take the fullest knapsack. As a matter of fact, he had behaved very well, and that was the truth. Because when she gave him the larger knapsack, and wrote the address, she had scolded, but he had kept quiet, and said not another word. And anyway, nobody had better try it on him--they'd better not, or he'd know the reason why! Eilert shook a long-armed fist at the sky. When he had eaten, drunk his coffee, and rested for a while, he was not so lively and talkative as on the previous day. He had been brooding and speculating ever since last summer, when the motor traffic started, and did I think it would be a good idea for him to hire three grown men, too, and build a much bigger house than Olaus's? So he had caught it, too--the great, modern Norwegian disease! The knapsack was back in her room again; yes, these were her clothes; I recognized her blouses, her skirts and her shoes. I hardly looked at them, of course; just unpacked them, folded them neatly, and put them back in the bag again; because no doubt Eilert had had them all out in a heap. This was really my only reason for unpacking them. XXIX Once more I was run into a party of English, the last for this year.