Just then Ole Persen, the mattress-maker, arrived at the Gaard on his annual round to repair the mattresses or make up new ones from the year's accumulation of wool. Ole was the newsbringer of that part of the Gudbrandsdal, and, for a mattress-maker, was considered to be rather reliable. He would therefore have been quite useless on the staff of an Anglo-Saxon evening newspaper. He brought the news that over at Berg, about ten miles away, an Englishman had been struck dead by the lightning, and his body had been brought down from the mountains to the nearest Skyds-station (posting-station). Ole said that the people over there were sure he was an Englishman, and the doctor had said that the letters in his pocket were all from England. Ole had not seen him; but they had told him that the dead stranger was a tall thin man, with thin, clean-shaven face.
Mor Inga and Solli looked grave.
"Art thou sure he was an Englishman, Ole?" Mor Inga asked abruptly.
"I can only tell thee what they said," answered Ole. "The doctor declared only an Englishman would have so much money in his pocket."
Then Mor Inga told Knutty exactly what she had heard, neither more nor less.
"It may not be our Englishman," Mor Inga said gently, "but——"
And then Knutty told the others, first Gerda and Katharine.
"It may not be our Englishman," Knutty said, looking at them bravely, "but——"
She told Alan.
"Kjaere," she said, "it may not be your dear father, but——"