“What would you have, sir?” asked old Peder, who sat smoking at his elbow. “Are there not eleven couple? Oddo told me there were eleven couple; and I think I counted so many pairs of feet as they passed.”
“Let me see:—yes, you are right, Peder; there are eleven couples.”
“And what would you have more, sir? In this young man’s father’s time—”
“Rolf’s father’s?”
“No, sir,—Erlingsen’s. Ah! I forgot that Erlingsen may not seem to you, or any stranger, to be young, but Ulla and I have been used to call him so, and I fear I always shall, as I shall never see the furrows in his face. It will be always smooth and young to me. My Ulla says there is nothing to be sorry for in that, and she does not object to my thinking so of her face. But, as I was saying, in the elder Erlingsen’s time we thought we did well when we set up nine couples at Yule: and since then, the Holbergs and Thores have each made out a new farm within ten miles, and we are accustomed to be rather proud of our eleven couples. Indeed, I once knew it twelve, when they got me to stand up with little Henrica,—the pretty little girl whose grave lies behind, just under the rock. But I suppose there is no question but there are finer doings at Tronyem.”
“Of course—of course,” said the young clergyman. “But there are many youths in Tronyem that would be glad of so pretty a partner as M. Erlingsen has, if she would not look so frightened.”
“Pretty she is,” said Peder. “As I remember her complexion, it looks as if it was made by the reflection of our snows in its own clearness. And when you do get a full look into her eyes, how like the summer sky they are—as deep as the heavens in a midsummer noon! Did you say she looks frightened, sir?”
“Yes. When does she not? Some ghost from the grave has scared her, I suppose; or some spirit that has no grave to lie still in, perhaps. It is a great fault in her that she has so little faith. I never met with such a case. I hardly know how to conduct it. I must begin with the people about her,—abolish their superstitions,—and then there may be a chance for her. Meanwhile I have but a poor account to give to the bishop (Note 2) of the religion of the district.”
“Did you say, sir, that Erica wants faith? It seems to me that I never knew any one who had so much.”
“You think so because there is no idea in this region of what faith is. A prodigious work indeed my bishop has given me to do. He himself cannot be aware what it is, till I send him my report. One might suppose that Christianity had never been heard of here, by the absurd credulity one meets with in the best houses,—the multitude of good and evil spirits one hears of at every turn. I will blow them all to the winds presently. I will root out every superstition in a circle of twenty miles.”