"I know it sounds dreadfully prosaic; but I believe we should all be better for some food. I am famished. Do go and ask that nice woman if we can have breakfast, Alan."
The old Peise-stue in which they were sitting was a typical old Norwegian room, with its quaint painted furniture, its sideboard adorned with inscriptions, its Peise in the corner, fitted up in true old fashion with a shelf on the top, which was furnished with carved and painted jugs and bowls. There was, of course, a recess in the wall for the Langeleik, and a queer little cupboard for the housewife's keys. Old carved and painted mangles (manglebret), marriage gifts to several generations, hung on the walls. The Kubbe-stul,[P] made from a solid block of wood, stood in the corner. At any other time Katharine and Knutty would have been deeply interested in seeing this characteristic old place. But now they scarcely noticed it. They sat together looking at nothing, and awaiting in silence the boy's return.
He came back with a different expression on his face.
"It's all right," he said. "We can have breakfast. I'm awfully hungry too."
"So am I," said Tante; and in a few minutes the servant, in her pretty costume of red bodice, white sleeves, and black skirt edged with green, served them a good meal of trout, fladbröd, and admirable flödemelk (milk with cream).
"Ripping, isn't it?" Katharine said, nodding approvingly to Alan.
"Ripping," he answered, always so glad and proud of her camaraderie.
"And now you'll go back to the Gaard," she went on, "and I believe you will find your father waiting for you there, Alan. This was a false alarm of danger, and I cannot think there is any more trouble in store."
"Do you really think that?" they both said to her.
"Yes," she answered, touched beyond words by their pathetic dependence on her. "I believe he will come down from the mountains, and that you will find him safe and sound."