'You will not have her long with you,' I remarked.
'God help us! what do you mean?' asked the father; but a sort of self-satisfied smile showed me that he full well understood my meaning.
'I think,' I replied, 'that she is likely to have a great many wooers.'
'Oh!' muttered he, 'wooers are in plenty; but unless they are worth something, what is the use of talking of them? To come a wooing with a watch and silver-mounted pipe is nothing to the purpose--great cry and little wool--and faith!' he exclaimed, setting both his elbows on the table, and stooping to look out at the low windows, 'here comes one of them, a fellow who has just raised his head above the heather--one of those pedlars who travel about with a pair or two of stockings in their wallet as samples, forsooth. The cur-dog, he wants to play the sweetheart to my daughter, with his two miserable oxen, and his cow and a half! Yes, there he is, skulking along, the pauper!'
The object of these execrations, and the person on whom were bent looks as lowering as if he had been a thief, was now approaching the house, but was still far enough off for me to ask my host who he was, and to be told that he was the son of his nearest neighbour, who, however, lived at the distance of more than a mile; that his father possessed only a small farm, upon the security of which he owed the hosier 200 dollars; that the son, who had for some years hawked about woollen goods, had lately presumed to propose for the beautiful Cecilia, but had received a flat refusal.
Whilst I was listening to this little history, Cecilia herself came in; and her anxious and sorrowful looks, which wandered, by turns, between her father and the traveller without, enabled me to guess that she did not coincide in the old man's view of affairs. As soon as the young man entered by one door, she disappeared by another, not however, without casting on him a hurried, but kind and speaking glance. My host turned toward the new comer, grasped the table with both his hands, as if he found some support needful, and acknowledged the young man's 'God's peace be here,' and 'Good day,' with a dry 'Welcome.' The uninvited guest stood for a few moments while he cast his eyes slowly round the room, took a tobacco-pouch from one pocket and a tobacco-pipe from another, knocked it on the stove by his side and filled it again. All this was done leisurely, and in a kind of measured manner, while my host remained motionless, in the attitude he had assumed.
The stranger was a very handsome youth, a worthy son of our northern clime, where, though men are slow of growth, their frames become lofty and strong. He had light hair, blue eyes, fair complexion, ruddy cheeks, and a chin on whose downy smoothness the razor had not yet played, although its owner had numbered his twentieth year. His dress was not that of a common peasant, it was the costume generally adopted by tradesmen, but was much superior in its texture and its smartness to that of the rich hosier himself. He wore a frock coat, white trousers, a striped red vest, and a cotton cravat; he looked, at least, no unworthy suitor to the lovely Cecilia. His pleasant, open countenance pleased me: it was expressive of that enduring patience and power of unswerving perseverance, which form such prominent features in the Cimbric national character.
A long time elapsed before either of them would break silence; at length my host was the first to open his mouth, which he did by asking slowly, and in a cold and indifferent tone and manner, 'Whither bound to-day, Esben?'
The other answered, without at all hurrying himself, while he lighted his pipe leisurely, and took a long whiff, 'No farther to-day, but to-morrow I am off to Holstein.'
Thereupon there occurred another long pause, during which Esben looked at all the chairs one after another, took one, and finally sat down. At that moment the mother and daughter entered, and the young man nodded to them with such an unaltered and tranquil air, that I should have thought he was quite indifferent to the beautiful Cecilia, had I not known that love, in a breast such as his, might not be the less strong that it lay concealed; that it is not the blaze, which flashes and sparkles, but the steady fire that burns and warms the longest.