r, I suppose?" Lars Peter's eyes shone; he
had never been to a dinner party himself.

"Ay, that it will--they do things pretty well up there. He's a good
sort, the inn-keeper."

"Some think so; others don't. It all depends how you look at him.
You'd better not tell them you're my brother--it'll do you no good
to have poor relations down here."

Johannes laughed: "I've told the inn-keeper--he spoke well of you.
You were his best fisherman, he said."

"Really, did he say that?" Lars Peter flushed with pride.

"But a bit close, he said. You thought codfish could talk reason."

"Well, now--what the devil did he mean by it? What nonsense! Of
course codfish can't speak!"

"I don't know. But he's a clever man--he might have been one of the
learned sort."

"You're getting on well, I hear," said Lars Peter, to change the
subject. "Is it true you're half engaged to a farmer's daughter?"

Johannes smiled, stroking his woman-like mouth, where a small
mustache was visible. "There's a deal of gossip about," was all he
said.

"If only you keep her--and don't have the same bad luck that I had.
I had a sweetheart who was a farmer's daughter, but she died before
we were married."

"Is that true, Father?" broke out Ditte, proud of her father's
standing.

* * * * *

"What do you think of him, my girl?" asked Lars Peter, when his
brother had gone. "Picked up a bit, hasn't he?"

"Ay, he looks grand," admitted Ditte. "But I don't like him all the
same."

"You're so hard to please." Lars Peter was offended. "Other folks
seem to like him. He'll marry well."

"Ay, that may be. It's because he's got black hair--we women are mad
on that. But I don't think he's good."

CHAPTER XII

DAILY TROUBLES

It was getting on towards Christmas, a couple of months after they
had come to the hamlet, when one day Lars Peter was mad enough to
quarrel with the inn-keeper. He was not even drunk and it was a
thing unheard of in the hamlet for a sober man to give the
inn-keeper a piece of his mind. But he had been more than stupid,
every one agreed, and he himself too.

It was over the nag. Lars Peter could not get used to seeing the
horse work for others, and it cut him to the heart that it should
have to work so hard. It angered him, too, to be idle himself, in
spite of the inn-keeper's promises--and there were many other things
besides. One day he declared that Klavs should come home, and he
woul