A gala day in town and harbour. Thunder of cannon and flutter of flags, flags and cannon--and laughter!
At first the bridal party looked at each other with horror; by ones and twos they made their way out of the church, but the laughter outside was infectious; when they got home and read the Spectator, they laughed too.
The Town Bailiff himself laughed!
Up the avenue walked Nora and Rendalen. The cannon thundered, and they turned round and looked at the flags flying in the town and in the harbour--and laughed. Karl Vangen hurried past them on his long legs; Tora was at Niels Hansen's. She was terribly exhausted, but calm; he was going to fetch the carriage--and off he went. No less than fifteen girls passed them at once, going up to Fru Rendalen; another large group was following them. They did not walk, they raced, and were quickly past.
A little later Fru Rendalen came out on to the steps to meet her son and Nora: they were just the opposite of every one else; they stopped every moment. Now, just when she wanted them so much. How could they forget her?
All at once she pulled off her spectacles and wiped them. Then put them on slowly.
Rendalen said, as he walked along the avenue, that there had been a great deal which was one-sided and obscure, too much of a fixed idea in his first lecture, and that there was a great deal in his development as well, which was but half accomplished. Still, "life is a school, and first and foremost concerns schoolmasters." He did not say this in so many words, he had not the least need for anything so stiff and cold. To speak the plain truth, while they involuntarily flew the flags down below for the success of his life's aim, he walked along here and paid his court--to her with the "flickering" hair. It seemed to her that she was quite unworthy, and she brushed a swarm of flies from her eyes. But it was so absolutely impossible not to wish, and so----
They agreed about many, many, many things. The first was that if one has confidence in a work, that confidence helps in its development; the second was, that when there are two it goes on twice as quickly, or it may be that the last was the first, and the first the last. They really were not accountable.
But fifteen girls were up on the tower at once; they wanted to hoist one flag to-day which would tell no lie, and also for a reason which was without deception. They called down to ask leave; Rendalen was at the foot of the steps, he laughed up to them. Nora had sprung away from him--up the steps to Fru Rendalen. She pressed closely, oh, so closely, to her--apparently to put her spectacles on better.
"No, no," called Rendalen up to the girls on the tower; "not to-day--for Milla's sake, but we will do so very soon."