of
white breakers foaming against the sky. But surely he had seen all this
before?

Ah! now he knew; it was the Lofoten Sea over again--with its white
foam-crested combers and long-drawn, heavy-breathing swell--a rolling
ocean turned to rock. Peer halted a moment leaning on his stick, and
his eyes half-closed. Could he not feel that same ocean-swell rising
and sinking in his own being? Did not the same waves surge through
the centuries, carrying the generations away with them upon great
wanderings? And in daily life the wave rolls us along in the old
familiar rhythm, and not one in ten thousand lifts his head above it to
ask: whither and why! Even now just such a little wave has hold of
him, taking him--whither and why? Well, the coming days might show;
meanwhile, there beyond was the sea of stone rolling its eternal cadence
under the endless sky.

He wiped his forehead and turned and went his way.

But what is that far off in the north-east? three sisters in white
shawls, lifting their heads to heaven--that must be Rondane. And see how
the evening sun is kindling the white peaks to purple and gold.

Puh!--only one more hill now, and here is the top at last. And there
ahead lie the great uplands, with marsh and mound and gleaming tarns.
Ah, what a relief! What wonder that his step grows lighter and quicker?
Before he knows it he is singing aloud in mere gaiety of heart. Ah, dear
God, what if after all it were not too late to be young!

A saeter. A little hut, standing on a patch of green, with split-stick
fence and a long cow-house of rough planks--it must be a saeter! And
listen--isn't that a girl singing? Peer slipped softly through the gate
and stood listening against the wall of the byre. "Shap, shap, shap,"
went the streams of milk against the pail. It must be a fairy sitting
milking in there. Then came the voice:

Oh, Sunday eve, oh, Sunday eve,
Ever wast thou my dearest eve!

"Shap, shap, shap!" went the milk once more in the pail--and suddenly
Peer joined in:

Oh bright, oh gentle Sunday eve--
Wilt ever be my dearest eve!

The milking stopped, a cowbell tinkled as the cow turned her inquiring
face, and a girl's light-brown head of hair was thrust out of the
doorway--soon followed by the girl herself, slender, eighteen,
red-cheeked, fresh and smiling.

"Good evening," said Peer, stretching out his hand.

The girl looked at him for a moment, then cast a glance at her