"Is that the house we are to live
in?" she asked again. "Ay, that's it, right enough," said old Raastad,
and chirruped to his horses.
The woman looked long at the farm and sighed. So this was to be their
new home. They were to live here, far from all their friends. And
would it give him back his health, after all the doctors' medicines had
failed?
A Lapland dog met them at the gate and barked at them; a couple of pigs
came down the road, stopped and studied the new arrivals with profound
attention, then wheeled suddenly and galloped off among the houses.
The farmer's wife herself was waiting outside the Court-house, a tall
wrinkled woman with a black cap on her head. "Welcome," she said,
offering a rough and bony hand.
The house was one of large low-ceiled rooms, with big stoves that would
need a deal of firewood in winter. The furniture was a mixture of every
possible sort and style: a mahogany sofa, cupboards with painted roses
on the panels, chairs covered with "Old Norse" carving, and on the walls
appalling pictures of foreign royal families and of the Crucifixion.
"Good Heavens!" said Merle, as they went round the rooms alone: "how
shall we ever get used to all this?"
But just then Louise came rushing in, breathless with news.
"Mother--father--there are goats here!" And little Lorentz came toddling
in after her: "Goats, mother," he cried, stumbling over the doorstep.
The old house had stood empty and dead for years.
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