Peer sent for some wine, and in half an hour the two were firm allies.
Uthoug junior's life-story to date was quickly told. He had run away
from home because his father had refused to let him go on the stage--had
found on trial that in these days there weren't enough theatres to go
round--then had set up in business for himself, and now had a general
agency for the sale of English tweeds. "Freedom, freedom," was his idea;
"lots of elbow-room--room to turn about in--without with your leave or
by your leave to father or anyone! Your health!"

A week later the street outside Lorentz D. Uthoug's house in Ringeby was
densely crowded with people, all gazing up at the long rows of lighted
windows. There was feasting to-night in the great man's house. About
midnight a carriage drove up to the door. "That's the bridegroom's,"
whispered a bystander. "He got those horses from Denmark!"

The street door opened, and a white figure, thickly cloaked, appeared
on the steps. "The bride!" whispered the crowd. Then a slender man in
a dark overcoat and silk hat. "The bridegroom!" And as the pair passed
out, "Hip-hip-hip--" went the voice of the general agent for English
tweeds, and the hurrahs came with a will.

The carriage moved off, and Peer sat, with his arm round his bride,
driving his horses at a sharp trot out along the fjord. Out towards his
home, towards his palace, towards a new and untried future.

Chapter V

A little shaggy, grey-bearded old man stood chopping and sawing in
the wood-shed at Loreng. He had been there longer than anyone could
remember. One master left, another took his place--what was that to
the little man? Didn't the one need firewood--and didn't the other need
firewood just the same? In the evening he crept up to his den in the
loft of the servants' wing; at meal-times he sat himself down in the
last seat at the kitchen-table, and it seemed to him that there was
always food to be had. Nowadays the master's name was Holm--an engineer
he was--and the little man blinked at him with his eyes, and went on
chopping in the shed. If they came and told him he was not wanted and
must go--why, thank heaven, he was stone deaf, as everyone knew. Thud,
thud, went his axe in the shed; and the others about the place were so
used to it that they heeded it no more than the ticking of a clock upon
the wall.

In the kitchen of the big house two girls stood by the window peeping
out into the garden and giggling.