Looking at the speaker, “Isn’t he handsome?” she whispered to the gentleman who had taken her in. The sun was just sinking, and its last rays played upon the glass on the table, and made the tulips in the large bouquets glow.
Forks were laid down and faces turned towards the schoolmaster’s tall figure. His voice vibrated with emotion, and Fru Thora thought she had never heard him speak so beautifully as now when he was making a speech in honour of his old enemy. He called this dinner an event in the district. He held his glass in one hand, and with the other fingered his long beard, and looked at nothing in particular through his spectacles, while the sun threw a ray of light across his fine forehead.
This was an event, because he had never seen so many dissimilar people united in a common object, a common desire to do good. There were still Birkebeins and Baglers to divide people in this country; but this evening he seemed to read a message of spring in this festive meeting. Like Olaf at Stiklestad, he seemed to be looking out over the whole country with its blue hills and shining fjords, over farms and lands, and into the many minds; and he descried the day when all men would be united in a sabbath atmosphere, with hands joined in brotherhood, united in waging war against the powers of evil, united in helping those who had suffered wrong. “Whatever religion we profess, or party we belong to, we shall henceforward agree in considering that the human in man is higher than all difference of opinion; and when the human being, Norby, suffers persecution and derogation, as he has lately done, we hasten to him, enclose him in a chain of fraternity, and say: ‘Here are we, your brothers and sisters, Knut Norby; we will wash you clean. Here we are!’”
Scarcely a breath was heard during the impressive speech, until the sound of gentle weeping was heard a little way up the table. It was Fru Heggen, who always cried when her husband made a speech.
Gradually several faces turned from the speaker to the guests of the evening. Fru Norby sat with her eyes full of tears, and smiled; but Norby looked down, and modestly shook his head, as if to say, “You mustn’t say anything more, Heggen.”
When at length the speech came to an end, and the guests rose to drink with the guests of honour, the saw-mill owner roared: “Long live Norby and Fru Norby! Hip, hip!” And his abandonment to the spirit of the occasion was quickly followed, and the hurrahs rang.
Ingeborg sat and looked on with tears in her eyes. Her joy was unbounded, she thought how patiently her father had borne all the persecution; she thought of her prayers, and involuntarily looked upwards, saying to herself: “My God, I thank Thee for answering my prayers.” She seemed to see a host of good, protecting spirits, above the heads of her parents up there. Her mother looked at her; they both had tears in their eyes and smiled. They remembered the night when they dared not go to bed after the riots at Norby.
To Marit Norby it seemed now as if all evil, all suspicion were melting and must be wept out; and it felt so delightful that she could not help smiling all the time.
But worse was to come, when Fru Thora of Lidarende rose, after the knives and forks had clattered for a time, and made a speech in her honour. It was a woman’s and a mother’s heart beating with hers. Mention was made of her struggle to keep up her husband’s courage in adversity, even while she was nursing her son through a dangerous illness. It was a great deed, a woman’s heroic action, such as is seldom mentioned at festive entertainments, but is often, very often performed in secret.
No one had ever heard such eloquence in a woman. She stood there, slim, youthful in appearance despite her five and forty years, full of fire and warmth of feeling. Her hearers were astonished that this feeling did not overwhelm her and make her burst into tears; but she stood and smiled all the time, although her eyes were wet. Every one had to acknowledge that she was handsome, in her plain black dress and little white lace collar about her neck. It was no wonder that she showed feeling, for she was thinking all the time of her own son, the little Gunnar of Lidarende, who was in bed with whooping cough.