"I said we were to take it with us."
Away went the wife to the cart, and carried the bundle and other small things down into the boat. Then Baard rose, went up, and took down the chest himself.
But a girl with streaming hair, and a straw bonnet came running after the cart: it was the Clergyman's daughter. "Eli, Eli!" she cried while still at a distance.
"Mathilde, Mathilde," was answered; and the two girls ran towards each other. They met on the hill, embraced each other and wept. Then Mathilde took out something which she had set down on the grass: it was a bird in a cage.
"You shall have Narrifas," she said; "mamma wishes you to have it too; you shall have Narrifas ... you really shall—and then you'll think of me—and very often row over to me;" and again they wept much.
"Eli, come, Eli! don't keep standing there!" Arne heard the mother say from the shore below.
"But I'll go with you," said Mathilde.
"Oh, do, do!" and, with their arms round each other's neck, they ran down to the landing-place.
In a few minutes Arne saw the boat on the water, Eli standing high in the stern, holding the bird-cage, and waving her hand; while Mathilde sat alone on the stones of the landing-place weeping.
She remained sitting there watching the boat as long as it was on the water; and so did Arne. The distance across the lake to the red houses was but short; the boat soon passed into the dark shadows, and he saw it come ashore. Then he saw in the water the reflections of the three who had just landed, and in it he followed them on their way to the red houses till they reached the finest of them; there he saw them go in; the mother first, next, the father, and last, the daughter. But soon the daughter came out again, and seated herself before the storehouse; perhaps to look across to the parsonage, over which the sun was laying its last rays. But Mathilde had already gone, and it was only Arne who was sitting there looking at Eli in the water. "I wonder whether she sees me," he thought....