"Three years ago he did that for our eldest son, and bitterly we were weeping then. I go about thinking of that now."
Then Tante and Mor Inga took a little stroll away from the others, outside the gate and down the road towards the great cowhouse. Part of this road, too, had been planted with tall fir-branches, so that Bedstefar would pass under the archway and through an avenue of green until he reached the outer white gate, which was the entrance to the Gaard enclosure. And here Mor Inga and Tante lingered, whilst the proud Norwegian heart gave vent to its sadness, and the kindly Danish heart beat in understanding sympathy, and the dead son's dog Jeppe came and whined softly in token that he too was mourning in remembrance of the past.
So the night, the bright Norwegian night, beginning to realise that its brightness was being threatened, seeing that the birches were counting their yellow leaves, even as we, no longer young and not yet old, count our grey hairs, this summer night passed almost imperceptibly into morning, and the activities of the next day began early.
Bedstemor, reinstated in her former rôle of leading lady of the Gaard, was in a state of feverish excitement. She was dressed in black, and wore over her bodice a fine black silk shawl one hundred years old. Her head was encased in a sort of black silk night-cap, edged with old white lace: so that her pretty face was framed in white. A slight flush on her cheeks made her look strangely youthful. She sat in the porch waiting to receive the guests; and by special request of Mor Inga and Solli himself, Tante, Gerda, and Katharine sat there too. They felt awkward at first, knowing themselves to be there in the capacity of sightseers rather than that of mourners; but Bedstemor's cheerful spirits put them at their ease. She was much interested in Katharine's dress-material, feeling the texture and comparing it with her own.
"It is very good," she said thoughtfully, "but not so good as mine!"
All the same, that dress-material worried her; she fingered it several times, nodded mysteriously, and seemed lost in thought; whether about Bedstefar or the dress-material, no one could of course decide. But, later, she spoke of some wreaths which had been sent, and she said quaintly:
"Min mand did not want any flowers. But it does not matter much what he wanted. He won't know, stakkar, will he?"
At last the guests began to arrive, some in carioles, some in stol-kjaerres, and some few in ordinary carriages. They all brought funeral-cakes in large painted baskets. As each conveyance drove up into the courtyard, one of the daughters, either Ragnhild, or Ingeborg, or Helga, went out to meet it, greeted the guests, and bore away the cake into the kitchen. It seemed to be the etiquette that the cake should be received in person by one of the family. The horses, most of them the knowing little Norwegian yellow Nordfjord pony, or else the somewhat bigger Gudbrandsdal black horse, were unharnessed and led away by the cotters. The guests advanced awkwardly to the porch, greeted Bedstemor, and turned to the strangers shyly, but were at once reassured by Tante's genial bearing and Katharine's friendly smile. Gerda, too, was at her best, and was feeling so cheerful that Tante feared she was going to break into song. Quaint, strange-looking people crossed that threshold, shook hands with every one in the porch, and passed into the house to find Bedstemor, who had disappeared into the hall, and was seated in a corner drinking port wine with an old friend. Wine and coffee were served at once, as a sign of welcome to the Gaard. The flag, which had been lowered to half-mast since Bedstefar's death, was now hoisted full-mast to welcome the guests to the proud Solli homestead. The women, some of them beautiful in feature, were ungraceful in form and bearing; they dressed no longer in the picturesque Gudbrandsdal costume, but were all clothed in ill-fitting black dresses, with no remnant of the picturesque anywhere: queenly-looking women, some of them born, one would think, to be mothers of Vikings; and most of them with proud pedigrees which would excite envy in many a royal breast: shy and awkward, most of them, even with each other. The men had perhaps a little more savoir faire, but it was easy to see that they all led lonely lives, and were part and parcel of that lonely land on which Nature has set a seal of mystic melancholy. Some of the men were fine fellows, but none as handsome as Solli, Karl, and Jens; but the Solli tribe had long been celebrated for their good looks, and old Bedstefar in his time had been voted the best-looking man in the whole of the Gudbrandsdal. The guests were nearly all Bönder (landowners), representing the best blood in the valley; most of them having the largest Gaards, and the best-decorated pews in the churches of the different districts. Then there was the Lensmand (bailiff), a weird old man, rather feeble of gait, but acute in wit. He seemed much taken with Katharine, and came several times to shake hands with her, pretending to be a newcomer each time. But he had to keep more in the background when his superior officer, the Foged (under-magistrate), appeared on the scene. This gentleman was, of course, a local personage, and he brought a very large wreath and wore an important black satin waistcoat. There was also the doctor, Distriktslaege[R] Larsen, famous for his rough ways and disagreeable temper, but also for his skill in mending broken arms and legs during the "ski" season. He seemed rather scornful of the whole scene, but not of the port wine. And there was a Tandlaege[S] (dentist), from Christiania, a nephew of the Sollis, who wore a very long black frock-coat and the most fashionable pointed boots. He was their representative man of the world and fashion, and they prized him greatly. There were yet two other precious persons—a member of the Storthing,[T] Bedstemor's nephew, and his wife, rather a fine lady, who at first kept herself in 'splendid isolation,' but soon forgot that she was a Storthingsmand's wife with a Parisian dress, and threw her lot in with her un-Parisian-clothed relations. She was a little suspicious of the Englishwoman, perceiving indeed a formidable rival in well-cut garments; but directly Katharine and she began to speak to each other in an ingenious mixture of German and broken English, suspicions gave way to approbation, and she said to her husband:
"Surely the English cannot be such brutes if this is a specimen of them?"
"Pyt!" he said scornfully. "They are barbarians and brutes, all of them."