Long and tiresome was the exercise, but it terminated suddenly, for the sound of a horn blast came loudly through the open door.
"Dinner!" exclaimed Lars. "Oh, Ned, the son of Webb, all we are ready to eat. I am ever glad to hear the sound of that crooked horn. Let us go."
Whatever was Ned's reply in Norwegian, his inner thought was, "I'm as ready as he is."
[CHAPTER V.]
THE WAR SUMMONS.
"There!" thought Ned, as he reëntered the great central hall of Vebba's house. "One of those other buildings that are stuck on to this is their kitchen."
He saw several of the women coming in with dishes through an open doorway near him, and he stepped forward for a look at the place from which they came. He saw no cooking stove or range, but there was a charcoal fire in the middle of the floor. Around this were the cooks with kettles, gridirons, and saucepans of entirely familiar shapes. There was no smoke, and instead of it there was an unpleasant smell of burning charcoal. He noticed particularly that some of the cooking utensils had a brassy look, and he soon afterward discovered that his new friends knew how to do a great many things with copper and bronze as well as with iron and steel.
Almost everybody was now hastening toward the dinner-table on the dais. If, under ordinary circumstances, noon might be the dinner-hour, upon this occasion there was a variation. Not only the fishermen of the family, but several other persons, had but just arrived, and this late meal was to be something of an affair.