"Nay, he didn't say much. Now you must wait a little, and I'll get some more clothes on and go down with you."
"'Tis not worth while; you go and lie down."
"Ho, are you frightened of the dark that I mustn't go away?" says
Sivert, trying a moment to be cheerful.
He is away a moment, and comes back dressed, and with his father's food basket over his shoulder. As they go out, there is their father standing outside. "So you're going all that way, seems?" says Isak.
"Ay," answered Eleseus; "but I'll be coming back again."
"I'll not be keeping you now—there's little time," mumbles the old man, and turns away. "Good luck," he croaks out in a strange voice, and goes off all hurriedly.
The two brothers walk down the road; a little way gone, they sit down to eat; Eleseus is hungry, can hardly eat enough. 'Tis a fine spring night, and the black grouse at play on the hilltops; the homely sound makes the emigrant lose courage for a moment. "'Tis a fine night," says he. "You better turn back now, Sivert," says he.
"H'm," says Sivert, and goes on with him.
They pass by Storborg, by Breidablik, and the sound follows them all the way from the hills here and there; 'tis no military music like in the towns, nay, but voices—a proclamation: Spring has come. Then suddenly the first chirp of a bird is heard from a treetop, waking others, and a calling and answering on every side; more than a song, it is a hymn of praise. The emigrant feels home-sick already, maybe, something weak and helpless in him; he is going off to America, and none could be more fitted to go than he.
"You turn back now, Sivert," says he.