"Kjaere, don't wave the banner; for pity's sake, don't wave the banner," Tante said. "Who is respectable, I should like to know? I am sure I am not, and you are not. That is to say, we may be respectable in one direction; but that does not make up the sum-total. There, go and think that over, and be sure and keep your ankle bad; and if you see Alan, tell him to follow me to the cowhouse, for I want him to do something for me."
And so it came to pass that Clifford and Katharine were able to steal off alone to Peer Gynt's stue. They had tried several times during the funeral-feasting to escape from the company; but Mor Inga liked to have all the guests around her, and it would have seemed uncourteous if any of them had deliberately withdrawn themselves. But now they were free to go where they wished without breaking through the strict Norwegian peasant etiquette. They had long since planned this Peer Gynt expedition. It was Bedstemor who originally suggested it to Clifford. She was always saying that he must go to Peer Gynt's stue; and her persistence led him to believe that there really was some old house in the district which local tradition claimed to be Peer Gynt's childhood's home; where, as in Ibsen's wonderful poem, he, a wild, idle, selfish fellow from early years upwards, lived with his mother Ãse. Clifford had not been able to find out to his entire satisfaction whether or not this particular stue had been known as Peer Gynt's house before the publication of Ibsen's poem. Bedstemor had always known it as such, and gave most minute instructions for finding it. The old Gaardmand with whom Knutty had flirted said he had always known it as Peer Gynt's actual home; and even old Kari, when questioned, said, "Ja, Peer Gynt lived up over there." Bedstemor had a few vague stories to tell about Peer Gynt, and she ended up with, "Ja, ja, he was a wild fellow, who did wild things, and saw and heard wonderful things."
So apparently Peer Gynt was a real person who had had his home somewhere in this part of the great Gudbrandsdal; and Ibsen had probably caught up some of the stories about the real man, and woven them into the network of his hero's character. But, as Knutty said, the only thing which really mattered was the indisputable fact that Ibsen had placed the scene of three acts of his poem in the Gudbrandsdal and the mountains round about, and that they—herself, Clifford, Katharine, every one of them—were there in the very atmosphere, mental and physical, of the great poem itself.
"And the stue stands for an idea if not for a fact," she said, "like Hamlet's grave in my belovèd Elsinore. Go and enjoy; and forget, for once, to be accurate."
He thought of Knutty's words as he and Katharine left the Gaard and began to climb down the steep hillside on their way to the valley; for Peer Gynt's home was perched on another mountain-ridge, and they had first to descend from their own heights, gain the valley, walk along by the glacier-river, and pass by the old brown church before they came to the steep path which would lead them up to their goal. He said to himself:
"Yes, Peer Gynt's stue stands for an idea in more senses than one. Day after day, when I have not been able to open my heart to her, I have thought that perhaps I should be able to break through my silence on our pilgrimage to Peer Gynt's stue."
The morning was fair and fresh; summer was passing; there was a touch of crispness in the air which suggested frost and 'iron nights,' dreaded by the peasants before the harvest should have been gathered in. Katharine and Clifford kept to the course of the stream, which was a quick, though a steep, way down to the saw-mill, beautifully situated near a foss of the glacier-river, the roar and rush of which they heard up at the Solli Gaard. There was a bridge across this river, and they stood there watching the tumbling mass of water, and recalling the morning when they had passed over to the other side on their way to the Saeters. The little Landhandleri across the bridge was being besieged by no less than four customers. Their carioles were fastened to a long rail outside the queer little shop which contained everything mortal man could want, from rough butter-boxes and long china pipes to dried cod and overalls.
"I never see these places without thinking of the isolated shops dumped down in lonely districts out in the west of America," Katharine said. "Some of them were kept by Norwegians too."
"They have had their training in isolation here, you see," Clifford said, "and so go out knowing how to cater for isolated people. And they make a small fortune quickly and return. At least some of them return, those in whom the love of country outweighs everything else in life."