The worthy Sören Pedersen was much shocked that the God of the Jews had not gained the victory over the chariots of iron.
In the same book of Moses, continued Kristen Larssen, it is written, "Thou shalt not kill," but it is written too that the Lord constantly gave orders to kill. So there are contradictions.
This was altogether new to Sören Pedersen, and yet he knew his Bible by heart. He was anxious to know the rights of it, and at every religious meeting he demanded explanations. At last he had no less than a hundred contradictory questions to inquire into; it was no longer possible to keep the peace. Half of them went into fits of laughter, the other half got angry. It ended by his being turned out of the meetings, both he and Aase. "I don't know," said Dr. Kent, "whether I may tell you how your brother-in-law, with his own hands, turned out Sören Pedersen and his wife Aase--out of the meeting-house! They had sat themselves down there before anyone else, and they would not move. Your brother-in-law is very strong, but Sören Pedersen held on, until it struck the minister that he would take Aase first, and then they both pulled away at her as if she were a stick of firewood."
Kallem and Ragni roared with laughter at this.
"I myself have witnessed one of the encounters," said Dr. Kent. "The minister was holding an examination at the school; I am one of the school committee. Sören Pedersen and his wife, Aase, were present, and everyone suspected there would be mischief. 'God cannot lie,' said the minister. Then Sören Pedersen rose up and said: 'It is written, that the Lord gave unto the prophets a spirit of lying.' Again Sören Pedersen had to depart."
The scenery through which they were driving, as they listened to all these amusing anecdotes, was an elevated, sunny plain divided by large and small ridges of woodland--or contrariwise, a wood divided by cultivated fields. The farms were all well built, the fields fertile, the road varied, first through woods, across fields, hills, and undulating over brooks and streams. There were heaps of stones in the most unexpected places, and paths and roads in all directions. Anyone coming from the prairies of America and the regularity of Central Europe, would be put in good spirits by all this variety. The same dazzling sunshine as yesterday, the same strong scent from meadow and wood--and such a display of flowers, such singing of birds; hark, that was the cuckoo!
It was not long till midsummer's day, and the vegetation was thereafter; Ragni was enchanted with the luxuriance of it all. Botany was her favourite branch of study, and the contrast between the flora she had studied, and that of the country here, interested her greatly. She asked if there were many places in Norway where barberry and columbine grew wild? Dr. Kent thought that they must have been brought into the country a long time ago; probably by the monks from the cloister down yonder.
As they passed again from the meadow into a narrow strip of wood, principally fir-trees, she saw the linnæa for the third time; she could not sit still in the carriage any longer; they all got out.
It had just begun to open its bell-shaped pink flowers; its spicy fragrance filled the wood; Ragni at once began her little whisperings to it; if only she were allowed to be alone now--for six years they had not seen each other, or, indeed, as it was spring when she started, it was six years and a half. She gathered and lifted up some of them, and her eye fell on a "pyrola uniflora" bending low in melancholy solitude; Kallem had just found the same; she asked him what it was called in Norwegian? He asked Kent if it was not St. Olaf's candlestick--he asked as an apothecary, and received an answer from a herbarium.
Ragni went further and further away from them both. The scent of the flower as she gathered it seemed to attract her still further in; it was sent to entice her on. So she went further, but kept a little behind--away from the others. She heard them talking; one hears so distinctly in the wood; she heard too a pair of startled birds. But here at hand was nothing but the rustling of her own footsteps through the grass and moss. She found one single wood-sorrel in flower, a last loiterer. It looked so out of sorts midst all its clover-like leaves; did it know its companions had left it?