And this was his father!
"So that's how you look, my boy? Not very big for your age--nearly
sixteen now, aren't you? Do they give you enough to eat?"
"Yes," said Peer, with conviction.
The pair walked down together, towards the grey cottage by the fjord.
Suddenly the man stopped, and looked at it through half-shut eyes.
"Is that where you've been living all these years?"
"Yes."
"In that little hut there?"
"Yes. That's the place--Troen they call it."
"Why, that wall there bulges so, I should think the whole affair would
collapse soon."
Peer tried to laugh at this, but felt something like a lump in his
throat. It hurt to hear fine folks talk like that of father and mother's
little house.
There was a great flurry when the strange gentleman appeared in the
doorway. The old wife was kneading away at the dough for a cake, the
front of her all white with flour; the old man sat with his spectacles
on, patching a shoe, and the two girls sprang up from their spinning
wheels. "Well, here I am. My name's Holm," said the traveller, looking
round and smiling. "Mercy on us! the Captain his own self," murmured the
old woman, wiping her hands on her skirt.
He was an affable gentleman, and soon set them all at their ease. He sat
down in the seat of honour, drumming with his fingers on the table, and
talking easily as if quite at home. One of the girls had been in service
for a while in a Consul's family in the town, and knew the ways of
gentlefolk, and she fetched a bowl of milk and offered it with a curtsy
and a: "Will the Captain please to take some milk?" "Thanks, thanks,"
said the visitor.
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