The captain only went with her and looked on with half moistened eyes, and when they came in again Inger-Johanna got the bottle from the sideboard, and gave each of them out there a dram in honor of her return.
The supper-table was waiting in the sitting-room on a freshly laid cloth—red mountain trout and her favorite dish, strawberries and cream.
They must not think of waking her, so tired as she was last night, father had said.
And therefore Thea had sat outside of the threshold from half-past six, waiting to hear any noise, so that she could rush in with the tray and little cakes, for Inger-Johanna was to have her coffee in bed.
Jörgen kept her company, taken up with studying the singular lock on her trunk, and then with scanning the light, delicate patent leather shoes. He rubbed them on his forehead and his nose, after having moistened them with his breath.
Now she was waking up in there, and open flew the door for Jörgen, Thea, and Pasop, and afterwards Torbjörg with the cup of coffee.
Yes, she was at home now.
The fragrance of the hay came in through the open window, and she heard them driving the rumbling loads into the barn.
And when she saw, from the window, the long narrow lake in the valley down below, and all the mountain peaks which lifted themselves so precipitously up towards the heavens over the light fog on the other side, she understood some of her mother's feeling that here it was cramped, and that it was two hundred long miles to the city. But then it was so fragrant and beautiful—and then, she was really home at Gilje.
She must go out and lie in the hay, and let Jörgen hold the buck that was inclined to butt, so she could get past, and then look at his workshop and the secret hunting gun he was making out of the barrel and lock of an old army gun.