ill-slope, close under the crest, and near by a long
low house with a steep slate roof, the sort of place where the district
officers used to live in old days. "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. Now it seemed to have
wakened up again. Footsteps went in and out, and the stairs creaked once
more under the tread of feet, small, pattering, exploring feet, and
big feet going about on grown-up errands. There was movement in every
corner: a rattle of pots and pans in the kitchen; fires blazed up, and
smoke began to rise from the chimney; people passing by outside looked
up at it and saw that the dead old house had come to life again.

Peer was weak still after his illness, but he could help a little with
the unpacking. It took very little, though, to make him out of breath
and giddy, and there was a sledge-hammer continually thumping somewhere
in the back of his head. Suppose--suppose, after all, the change here
does you no good? You are at the last stage. You've managed to borrow
the money to keep you all here for a year. And then