“Tell me,” continued the hunter, and looked to the side, as if seeking something, “you have been here for a couple of days, and I have been going about wondering about you, but up to the present didn’t come near you. You go and drift about so alone, why haven’t you looked in on us? And what in the world do you do to kill the time? For you haven’t any business in the neighborhood, have you?”
“No, I am staying here for pleasure.”
“There isn’t much of that here,” the stranger exclaimed and laughed, “don’t you shoot? Wouldn’t you like to come with me? Meanwhile I have to go down to the inn and get some small shot, and while you are getting ready, I can go over, and call down the blacksmith. Well! Will you join?”
“Yes, with pleasure.”
“Oh, by the way,—Thora! haven’t you seen a girl?” he jumped up on the embankment.
“Yes, there she is, she is my cousin, I can’t introduce you to her, but come along, let us follow her; we made a wager, now you can he the judge. She was to be in the cemetery with the dogs and I was to pass with gun and game-bag, but was not to call or to whistle, and if the dogs nevertheless went with me she would lose; now we will see.”
After a little while they overtook the lady; the hunter looked straight ahead, but could not help smiling; Mogens bowed when they passed. The dogs looked in surprise after the hunter and growled a bit; then they looked up at the lady and barked, she wanted to pat them, but indifferently they walked away from her and barked after the hunter. Step by step they drew further and further away from her, squinted at her, and then suddenly darted off after the hunter. And when they reached him, they were quite out of control; they jumped up on him and rushed off in every direction and back again.
“You lose,” he called out to her; she nodded smilingly, turned round and went on.
They hunted till late in the afternoon. Mogens and William got along famously and Mogens had to promise that he would come to the manor-house in the evening. This he did, and later he came almost every day, but in spite of all the cordial invitations he continued living at the inn.
Now came a restless period for Mogens. At first Thora’s proximity brought back to life all his sad and gloomy memories. Often he had suddenly to begin a conversation with one of the others or leave, so that his emotion might not completely master him. She was not at all like Camilla, and yet he heard and saw only Camilla. Thora was small, delicate, and slender, roused easily to laughter, easily to tears, and easily to enthusiasm. If for a longer time she spoke seriously with some one, it was not like a drawing near, but rather as if she disappeared within her own self. If some one explained something to her or developed an idea, her face, her whole figure expressed the most intimate trust and now and again, perhaps, also expectancy. William and his little sister did not treat her quite like a comrade, but yet not like a stranger either. The uncle and the aunt, the farm-hands, the maid-servants, and the peasants of the neighborhood all paid court to her, but very carefully, and almost timidly. In respect to her they were almost like a wanderer in the forest, who sees close beside him one of those tiny, graceful song-birds with very clear eyes and light, captivating movements. He is enraptured by this tiny, living creature, he would so much like to have it come closer and closer, but he does not care to move, scarcely to take breath, lest it may be frightened and fly away.