Early in July the party assembled at night on board the coasting-steamer which was to take them to Bergen, the starting-point of the excursion proper. They were six ladies and four gentlemen. The eldest lady was the respected principal of the chief girls' school in the town—mother of one of the gentlemen and former instructress of three of the other ladies. She was the moral support of the party. Two of its members were on their honeymoon, and they were teased by the others the whole time. It was worth doing, for they were quick-witted, both of them, and gave as good as they got. Then there was a young merchant, who paid attention to two of the ladies, unable—so it was averred—to make up his mind which he liked best. The whole party, including the ladies in question, did their best to assist him in coming to a decision. The very first night on the coasting-steamer, a schoolmaster was christened "the forsaken one." All the others, with the exception of the old lady kept up a constant racket; no one slept. He alone could neither dance nor sing, and he was incapable of flirting; he could not even be flirted with, it put him out so terribly. The consequence was that all the ladies, even Mary, made love to "the forsaken one," simply to enjoy his misery.
The originator of most of the mischief that went on was Jörgen Thiis; teasing was his passion. His inventiveness in this domain was not always free from malice.
At first he himself was unmolested. But in course of time even "the forsaken one" ventured to attack him. His appetite, his inclination to tyrannise, and especially his role as Mary's humble servant, were made subjects of jest. Mary had the Krogs' keen eye for exaggeration in every shape, so she laughed along with the rest, even when it was at his submissiveness to her they were laughing. Jörgen was not in the least disturbed. He ate as much as ever, was as strict as ever in his capacity of leader, and continued, unmoved, to play the part of Mary's inventive, ever-ready squire.
The ship had its full complement of passengers, amongst them a number of foreigners; but Jörgen Thiis's merry party was the centre of attraction. Nature made such perpetual calls on the passengers' admiration that they were not in too close and constant contact with each other. It was as if they were attending some grand performance. One marvel followed the other. The length of the days, too, had its influence. Each night was shorter than the last, until there was none at all. They sailed on into unquenchable, inextinguishable light, and this produced a kind of intoxication. They drank, they danced, they sang; they were all equally highly strung. They proposed things which under other circumstances would have seemed impossible; here they were in keeping with the wildness of the landscape, the intoxication of the light. One day in a strong wind Mary lost her hat; two cavaliers jumped overboard after it. One of them was, of course, Jörgen Thiis. The minds of all were working at higher pressure than that of every day. Some of them became exhausted and slept whole days and nights. But most of them held out—at least as long as they were northward bound—Mary amongst the number.
Jörgen Thiis, with his persistent deference, in the end obliged all of them to treat Mary more or less as he did himself. Nor did anything occur the whole time to disturb this position of hers—thanks principally to her own carefully cultivated reserve of manner.
When they returned to the coasting-steamer, genuine gratitude prompted her to invite Jörgen Thiis to go home with her to Krogskogen. "I can't stand such a sudden break-up," she said.
He stayed for some days, delighted with the beauty and comfort of everything. Such art taste as he possessed lay chiefly in the direction of knick-knacks; he was devoted to foreign curios, and of these there was abundance. The rooms and their furniture and decorations were exactly to his taste. To Mrs. Dawes, who encouraged him to speak freely, he confided that the comfort and quiet disposed him amorously. He sat often and long at the piano extemporising; and it was always in an erotic strain.
He treated Mary with the same deference when they were alone as when they were in company with others. All the time she had known him he had not let fall a single word which could be interpreted as a preface to love-making, no, not even as the preface to a preface. And this she appreciated.
They wandered together through the woods and the fields. They rowed together to relations' houses to pay calls. Jörgen had the key to the bathing-house, where he went before any one else was up, and often again after their excursions.
Mary herself had become more sociable. Jörgen told her so.