Then Randi said: "Well, I suppose you have travelled far? you have learnt a good deal I can hear."--"Yes, hitherto I have been either reading or travelling; but now I mean to settle down to work."--"Well, well; that is the way:--some go out and get light and wisdom; others remain at home." And Lars added: "It is often hard to make a living at home; if we help one forward, whom we hope may be of service to us, he goes and leaves us."--"There are different callings; each must follow his own," said the dean.--"And the Lord sums up our work," said Odegaard; "my father's labours will yet tend hither again, if God will."--"Well, I suppose they will;" said Randi sadly; "but it is often hard to wait."
They departed; the dean placed himself in one window, and Odegaard in the other to look after them, as they went over the mountain; the young man went last. Odegaard learnt that he was from the town, where he had begun with several things, but had always some misunderstanding with the people. He thought himself called to be something great, an apostle in sooth; but strangely enough he remained up at the hamlet of Odegaard,--some thought from love to Else. He was a passionate soul, who had passed through many disappointments, and had many more to come.
They were now to be seen on the mountain; the roof of the barn hid them no longer. They laboured on, the trees hid them, they came forth again, ever higher and higher. There was no track in the deep snow, the trees were the way-marks in the waste, and far away to the side the snow mountains indicated the direction of their home.
In from the dining room sounded a lively prelude, and then:
"My song I give to the spring,
Though she scarce is on the wing,
My song I give to the spring,
As longing on longing laid.
So the two unite their aid
To lure and tice the sun,
That old winter overcome,
May slip a choir of brooks;--
Then with their merry looks
They'll chase him out of the air
With the perfume of flowers rare,--
My song I give to the spring."
XI.
[RECONCILIATION.]
From that day the dean was very little with his family; for one thing, he was occupied with Christmas, and for another, he had not arrived at any conclusion, whether or not the drama was lawful for the Christian; if Petra but showed herself, he fell into a revery.
While the dean therefore was sitting in his study either with his sermons or some work on Christian ethics before him, Odegaard was with the ladies, whom he was constantly comparing. Petra was versatile, never alike; he who would follow her, must study as in a book. Signe, on the contrary, was so winning in her unvarying cordiality, her movements were never unexpected; they were the reflection of her being. Petra's voice had all colours, sharp and mild, and every intermediate grade. Signe's possessed a peculiar harmony, but was not changing--except to the father, who understood to distinguish its tones. Petra was with one at a time; if she were with more, it was to observe, certainly not to help. Signe had an eye to all and everybody, and divided her attention without its being observed. If Odegaard spoke about Signe with Petra, he heard a hopeless lover's complaint; but if he talked about Petra with Signe, the words were very few. The girls often talked together, and without constraint; but it was only upon indifferent subjects.
To Signe, Odegaard owed a debt of gratitude; for it was to her he owed, what he called his "new self." The first letter he received from her in his great distress, was like a gentle touch upon his forehead. So carefully she told how Petra had come to them, misunderstood and persecuted, so delicately she added, that the accident of her arrival might be the guidance of God, "that nothing should be rent in pieces;" it sounded like a distant horn in the forest, as one stands and wonders which direction to take.