In the same book of Moses, continued Kristen Larssen, it is written, "Thou shalt not kill," but it is written too that the Lord constantly gave orders to kill. So there are contradictions.

This was altogether new to Soren Pedersen, and yet he knew his Bible by heart. He was anxious to know the rights of it, and at every religious meeting he demanded explanations. At last he had no less than a hundred contradictory questions to inquire into; it was no longer possible to keep the peace. Half of them went into fits of laughter, the other half got angry. It ended by his being turned out of the meetings, both he and Aase. "I don't know," said Dr. Kent, "whether I may tell you how your brother-in-law, with his own hands, turned out Soren Pedersen and his wife Aase--out of the meeting-house! They had sat themselves down there before anyone else, and they would not move. Your brother-in-law is very strong, but Soren Pedersen held on, until it struck the minister that he would take Aase first, and then they both pulled away at her as if she were a stick of firewood."

Kallem and Ragni roared with laughter at this.

"I myself have witnessed one of the encounters," said Dr. Kent. "The minister was holding an examination at the school; I am one of the school committee. Soren Pedersen and his wife, Aase, were present, and everyone suspected there would be mischief. 'G.o.d cannot lie,' said the minister. Then Soren Pedersen rose up and said: 'It is written, that the Lord gave unto the prophets a spirit of lying.' Again Soren Pedersen had to depart."

The scenery through which they were driving, as they listened to all these amusing anecdotes, was an elevated, sunny plain divided by large and small ridges of woodland--or contrariwise, a wood divided by cultivated fields. The farms were all well built, the fields fertile, the road varied, first through woods, across fields, hills, and undulating over brooks and streams. There were heaps of stones in the most unexpected places, and paths and roads in all directions. Anyone coming from the prairies of America and the regularity of Central Europe, would be put in good spirits by all this variety. The same dazzling sunshine as yesterday, the same strong scent from meadow and wood--and such a display of flowers, such singing of birds; hark, that was the cuckoo!

It was not long till midsummer's day, and the vegetation was thereafter; Ragni was enchanted with the luxuriance of it all. Botany was her favourite branch of study, and the contrast between the flora she had studied, and that of the country here, interested her greatly.

She asked if there were many places in Norway where barberry and columbine grew wild? Dr. Kent thought that they must have been brought into the country a long time ago; probably by the monks from the cloister down yonder.

As they pa.s.sed again from the meadow into a narrow strip of wood, princ.i.p.ally fir-trees, she saw the linnaea for the third time; she could not sit still in the carriage any longer; they all got out.

It had just begun to open its bell-shaped pink flowers; its spicy fragrance filled the wood; Ragni at once began her little whisperings to it; if only she were allowed to be alone now--for six years they had not seen each other, or, indeed, as it was spring when she started, it was six years and a half. She gathered and lifted up some of them, and her eye fell on a "pyrola uniflora" bending low in melancholy solitude; Kallem had just found the same; she asked him what it was called in Norwegian? He asked Kent if it was not St. Olaf's candlestick--he asked as an apothecary, and received an answer from a herbarium.

Ragni went further and further away from them both. The scent of the flower as she gathered it seemed to attract her still further in; it was sent to entice her on. So she went further, but kept a little behind--away from the others. She heard them talking; one hears so distinctly in the wood; she heard too a pair of startled birds. But here at hand was nothing but the rustling of her own footsteps through the gra.s.s and moss. She found one single wood-sorrel in flower, a last loiterer. It looked so out of sorts midst all its clover-like leaves; did it know its companions had left it?

The flowers all told her to go on; indeed, both the linnaea, and the holy candlestick, and the wood-sorrel drew her on; the latter had stood so long waiting on purpose for that. And there was Ragni--in a large family gathering of star-flowers; they were all waiting to see her; no one else had trodden that way this year. Ragni knelt down among them and told them how she had come from so very far away, she told it all in flower-fashion, without words; speech was not necessary between them. How she had opened one door after the other to find her way back to Norway; each time she had opened one, there had been another beyond ... until at last she was with them all. As soon as she saw the linnaea she knew that she had reached the end. This was the innermost of all.

All great dangers from outside, direct from the sea, all that strength and cruelty, variable and busy, all this splendour and alarm, all impels us further and further in; right in here we must come to understand that everything does not fall in a thousand pieces. It is they who are in there who can control all.

"We have been waiting for you too. Here we keep the innermost secret."

"Oh, tell it to me!"

"Be kind to others."

"Indeed, I think that is the only thing I have a talent for. But if the others will not----"

"Let the others be as they will; but be you kind."

Then she understood, because she had gone so deep in. She understood now what had the greatest strength. The star-flowers.

"Ragni," shouted Kallem, in the distance, the wood resounded with his clear voice. "Yes!" Some of the family must go with her, she gathered them and took them up.

Then she hastened back again nearer to the road. On the edge of the wood stood an "actea"--it seemed to stand there just to show the way in, if she had got out of the carriage there. Now it wished to join the party. And just by the road, well hidden under the bank, was a whole party of lilies of the valley; where could her eyes have been? They knew well enough where she came from, for they, too, had been posted as sentinels to show the way in. They saw and understood one another directly; but that is always the way amongst those of the same family.

Some of them must go with her too.

"Ragni!" shouted Kallem.

"Yes, yes!" and she came out on to the road and saw how far behind she was.

The two men were standing by the carriage, talking; they were on the top of the bank, and Kallem's tall figure and the other's little slight one stood out clearly defined. Both of them had their hands full. As she hurried toward them she could hear Kallem discoursing; it was on a branch of black alder which he swung as he stood there; he repeated in German, a German botanist's delight over this stately poison-bearer which he had come across in Norway. Dr. Kent presented her with a "polygula amara;" he knew that the little blue flower would be new to her coming from America. She thanked him warmly. They got into the carriage and began at once arranging their treasures, and begged Ragni to choose what she liked; they had gone through a small bog; Kent had the flower of a bog-fir fastened in his coat, and they had both gathered everything, down to the very b.u.t.tercup, "that wild beast,"

said Ragni; she wouldn't have it; it was so "muddy" too.

"You are aesthetic in everything," said Kallem. She shot a glance at him, sweet as the scent of her flowers.

"Do you notice that we are quite alone on the road?" remarked Dr. Kent; he told them that everyone was at church, as old Pastor Meek was to preach a farewell sermon on this his fifty years jubilee day. When he was twenty years old he had become curate to his own father--that was in those times--and he had inherited the living. He was now seventy years old, and was going to start on a journey abroad with his grand-daughter. He must be a strong man? Yes, and led a healthy life; always on the move, always busy. He was the go-between here.

Go-between? Yes, each district must have one to intercede for science and for practical matters. Much of the prosperity of this district proceeds from him and has been pa.s.sed on to others. Then he is popular?

The most popular man of the neighbourhood. How is he "in the pulpit?"

"Well, he has stood there now fifty years and related anecdotes. At first this was made fun of, and there were some who thought it profanation; now there are several who have followed his example."

"What sort of anecdotes are they?"

The last one that Dr. Kent had heard was about a woman who had been thirty years in prison in St. Louis, in America, and who, although she was seventy years old, was the worst of all the prisoners. Once the prisoners had to be moved to another prison which was under the management of a woman who was a Quaker. The old woman refused to be moved; she resisted with all her strength, and at last they had to tie her in a chair and carry her away. As they arrived with her, the woman who had the management of the prison stood in the doorway and received the furious old creature. "Unloose her!" she said. "But is it safe?"

"Unloose her!" And they did so. As soon as the old woman was unbound, her new superintendent bent down over her, put her arm round her neck, and gave her a kiss of welcome as from one sister to another. Then the old woman fell on her knees and asked: "Do you really believe that there is some good in me?" From that time she invariably was quite obedient.

Here Kent and Kallem left the carriage; they had to turn up to a peasant's house a little way back from the road. There was a black dog lying in front of the gallery; he looked at the carriage and barked; but only once or twice, then he went down a few steps toward them, sniffed at them all round, and then went back and lay down.

There was no one else to be seen. The driver turned the horses and drove to one side. The two doctors went in to the patient, and Ragni walked up and down the yard. Through the window she could see an old man in bed and his old wife sitting beside him; she sang to him with trembling voice, and did not stop even when the door was opened behind her.

Ragni looked about her in the yard; then went and sat down on the store-house steps.

Nothing has such a quieting influence on one as a peasant's farm at rest. Not even the wood, for there is always a rustle or sound of something, and one must be on the look-out both sitting or lying down; nor yet the sea when it is quiet, for it never can be perfectly at rest; nor the meadow, for that swarms with life and we can see it too around us. But a peasant's farm which is not at work--the hens going about scratching and picking up food, make you feel comfortable, the dog lying down, and the cat that creeps stealthily a few paces, stops, then creeps on again, and the ploughs leaning up against the harrows, the grinding-stones standing dry, the carts with shafts down, the dinner-bell silent; everything that has been at work rests like you, and that which still moves about only adds to the general peace. Should you see a pig in the distance rooting up the ground, it is entirely occupied with that; or a horse champing and whisking away flies, that is its pleasure; should the little birds come and chirp their greeting to you, it increases the light-heartedness which is the foundation of all peace.

Suddenly, in the midst of this peaceful rest, the fright from that meeting with Josephine came over her. Was there nothing in her conscience that could accuse her? No, a thousand times, no! Not even her sister's children? No, for she could not even have lived for them under such circ.u.mstances. What then? What had she done? She had loved him. And why should she not do so?

The quiet was over; she went up above the house and found there two kinds of "orobus" not very far apart, first of all the bird-pea out on the meadow, and then one other in a cup with petals; she could not remember the name of the latter. As she went down the path again she found a splendid c.o.c.k's-comb and a third kind of violet; the others had already given her two kinds. What flowers there were! Look there! The loveliest veronica; ah, the head fell; but there is another, that will keep. Afterwards she heard that the fragile flower is called here "man's faith."

Again she went in to the farm-yard; through the window of the bed-room she saw Kallem with his ear pressed to the old man's chest. Dr. Kent soon came out and the wife with him; he screamed at her, but she heard almost nothing. Kallem looked so tall standing there in the door, now he came to join her. How she loved him.

They were sitting together in the evening in the doctor's work-room; it was now all arranged as it was to be, with the exception of the books.

Soren Pedersen, followed by his wife Aase, came in from the pa.s.sage through the dining-room; he looked cunning, she looked alarmed; they announced that the minister and his wife were just coming in at the gate!

Kallem saw that Ragni turned pale. As the others were present, however, he said nothing but: "Come along!" went into the drawing-room, and from thence out in the pa.s.sage to receive them.

The meeting was a stiff one. The minister begged they would excuse their coming so late, but it was the most convenient time for him, he had just come from evening service. They only came in to ask if Kallem and his wife would go home with them to supper? On Sundays a clergyman is seldom his own master before the evening.

His voice had still a little of the solemnity of a sermon in it, and there was a reflection of church in both countenance and manner.

Josephine stood and looked about her, in which her husband speedily followed her example.

He thought it all very snug and cosy, and the piano was a "splendid piece of furniture." As they were looking at it, Josephine opened her lips for the first time, and turning to Ragni, said quickly: "I hear you play so beautifully!"

"Oh----"

"Won't you play something for us?" The minister added: "Please do!"

Ragni looked at her husband--as one who is drowning looks for help.

"Ragni requires to be in the proper mood to be able to play," said he.

"Very likely she is tired," said the minister, excusing her; they sat down, the minister and Kallem opposite each other, Josephine on one side; Ragni remained standing.

"Of course you must both of you be tired," continued the minister; "you have been travelling now for so long, and then arranging the house here; I heard from Dr. Kent that you had very nearly finished?"

Yes, so they were; but they had had capital help from Soren Pedersen and his wife Aase. Ragni was afraid that those two were still in the dining-room, and hurried in to see; but they were gone, and were not in the doctor's room either.

The minister's face had a.s.sumed quite a fatherly expression. "We have been obliged to employ Soren Pedersen and his wife because the people we otherwise employ were not at liberty. But one ought not to give work to that kind of people."