"Tusend, tusend tak!" she said. She rang the bell, and then pointed to the old woman and then to her own heart. She attempted some Norwegian words of explanation, too, most of them wrong—which added to the merriment. The Sorenskriver translated them.
"When I ring the bell, I shall think of you."
A few minutes later Katharine, Alan, and Clifford were sitting on the great blocks of stone outside the saeter-enclosure, when Alan said:
"Hullo! Here are two people coming up the road—two ladies. They have alpenstocks. What bosh! Any baby could get up here."
"Probably they are on their way to some real climbing," Clifford said. "You know the Norwegian women walk and climb a great deal in the summer. I always think of little Hilda Wangel in Ibsen's 'Master-builder' when I see them with their stocks and knapsacks. You remember she came straight from the mountains to the Master-builder's office—'the young generation knocking, knocking at the door.' Ah, and that reminds me about Ibsen's 'Peer Gynt.' We must not leave the Gudbrandsdal without making a pilgrimage to Peer Gynt's home. Jens has been telling me about it. That ought to be our next outing. Will you come?"
"I am ready for anything," Katharine answered.
"Hullo!" said Alan; "English voices. We ought to get up and wave a Union-Jack."
The voices came nearer and nearer. Katharine heard that same hard, metallic tone which had distressed her on the previous evening. She was distressed now. She looked from father to son and son to father. They had not yet recognised that voice. But they understood instinctively that some disturbing element had come into their atmosphere. They stood up. Katharine rose. They were on either side of her. The next moment Mrs Stanhope and her companion appeared on the top of the ridge, and stood face to face with them. For one brief moment they were all too much astonished to utter even an exclamation of surprise. They merely looked at each other.
Then Mrs Stanhope stepped forward, and held out her hand to Alan. She ignored the presence of Clifford and Katharine, and made straight for the boy.
"Alan," she said in her kindest way, "who would have thought to find you up here?"