At that—only think! Karsten pitched into Petter and then they began to fight in the back of the wagon.
"Are you Tartars both of you?" said I, and took a tight grip in the back of Karsten's jacket. "Don't you jump out of your skin now! If you fly at people this way as you are always doing, you shall trot back to Goodfields alone!"
"He—he is just as much of a cabbage-head as I am," mumbled Karsten, but he didn't dare to say another word, for after all, he has to respect me, you see.
Then I suggested that we should eat some of our luncheon. It's so pleasant to eat out-of-doors!
We were high, high up on the mountain, where we could see nothing but forests and mountains, a whole sea of dark, thick pine forests, and just mountains and mountains and mountains. There we drank toasts to Norway, to the summer, and to each other, and sang: "Ja, vi elsker dette landet," our national song, you know, and had an awfully jolly time.
But up there it was so still, so still! Nothing but gray-brown moor and dwarf birches, and willows and ice-cold mountain brooks. Far over across the moor we could see the road like a narrow gray ribbon in the monotonous brown. Far west were the snow-capped peaks, sharp, jagged and blue, and with great snow-drifts. It was very beautiful, unspeakably strange and still. We all grew silent.
"Ugh! I wouldn't be alone here for a good deal," said Andrine.
"I would just as soon be here in pitch darkness—if I only had my knife with me," said Karsten.
At that instant a ptarmigan flew up right at the side of the road, and Karsten came near falling backwards out of the cart and measuring his length on the ground.
You may be sure we all made fun of him then.