Chapter VII
“Hei, Merle; We’re going to have distinguished visitors—where in the world have you got to!” Peer hurried through the rooms with an open telegram in his hand, and at last came upon his wife in the nursery. “Oh, is it here you are?”
“Yes—but you shout so, I could hear you all through the house. Who is it that’s coming?”
“Ferdinand Holm and Klaus Brock. Coming to the christening after all. Great Caesar!—what do you say to that, Merle?”
Merle was pale, and her cheeks a little sunken. Two years more had passed, and she had her second child now on her knee—a little boy with big wondering eyes.
“How fine for you, Peer!” she said, and went on undressing the child.
“Yes; but isn’t it splendid of them to set off and come all that way, just because I asked them? By Jove, we must look sharp and get the place smartened up a bit.”
And sure enough the whole place was soon turned upside-down—cartloads of sand coming in for the garden walks and the courtyard, and painters hard at work repainting the houses. And poor Merle knew very well that there would be serious trouble if anything should be amiss with the entertainment indoors.
At last came the hot August day when the flags were hoisted in honour of the expected guests. Once more the hum of mowing machines and hay-rakes came from the hill-slopes, and the air was so still that the columns of smoke from the chimneys of the town rose straight into the air. Peer had risen early, to have a last look round, inspecting everything critically, from the summer dress Merle was to wear down to the horses in the stable, groomed till their coats shone again. Merle understood. He had been a fisher-boy beside the well-dressed son of the doctor, and something meaner yet in relation to the distinguished Holm family. And there was still so much of the boy in him that he wanted to show now at his very best.
A crowd of inquisitive idlers had gathered down on the steamboat landing when the boat swung in and lay by the pier. The pair of bays in the Loreng carriage stood tossing their heads and twitching and stamping as the flies tormented them; but at last they got their passengers and were given their heads, setting off with a wild bound or two that scattered those who had pressed too near. But in the carriage they could see the two strangers and the engineer, all three laughing and gesticulating, and talking all at once. And in a few moments they vanished in a cloud of dust, whirling away beside the calm waters of the fjord.