KNUT NORBY drove home through the still night with Marit and Ingeborg,
as the other two stayed on for the dancing. A golden moon had risen
above the hills in the east, and shone upon the waving corn-fields and
the calm fjord. It was such good weather just now for the crops that
it promised to be a good harvest; and as Knut sat there he was filled
with a gentle peace, and felt a desire to thank God.
As they passed the churchyard, he looked in involuntarily. Who could
tell how soon he might be lying there? It was better to make good use
of the time while one had it. Lars Kleven lay there now--he who so
wanted to lie quiet in his grave. Well, God grant he might have peace!
And there lay the dairy-maid in her freshly-made grave, and was
perhaps dreaming now in the early morning that she had to get up to go
to the cows.
A warm wind sighed on the leafy slopes, and brought a scent of
fermenting hay from the lofts about. Mountain and lake lay in a great
calm peace.
"Thank God!" said Ingeborg, looking up at the stars; and they all
three sat with the same feeling, and words were unnecessary.
When at length they drove into the yard, Knut saw that the flag was
still up; the servants had forgotten to take it down. But Norby did
not get angry now; he could take it down himself.
When he called for some one to take the horse, no one came.
"Have they all gone to bed?" said Marit, a little out of humour.
"Oh well," said Norby, "it's not much to be wondered at; they have to
be up in the morning." And he began to unharness the horse himself.
When at length he came up to the bedroom, Marit already lay yawning in
bed, but Norby began to pace up and down the floor, with his thumbs
hooked into the armholes of his waistcoat. He was in far too good
humour to go to bed at once.
"Ah well," said Marit quietly, "this can be an example to others, and
encourage people to be patient and enduring."
"Yes," said Norby, stopping at the window, where he could see the
fjord in the moonlight, "the main thing is to act honourably and
uprightly." In a little while he said: "I don't know how it is, but I
seem to have been away from Norby for a long time, and only to have
properly come home again now."
"Dear me, yes!" yawned Marit. "But it has been a hard time."
Norby still looked out over the lake in the moonlight. "There must
have been some purpose in it all," he said. "I may often have acted
with too great severity, but now I think it will be better for every
one in the district. I shall do my part, at any rate."
His wife did not answer: presumably she was too tired.
When at last Norby got into bed, he folded his hands and said a couple
of verses of a hymn. He felt so near to God; and the respect and
sympathy of the whole district now shone into his conscience, but he
would thank God for it all.
"But there is one thing I can't understand," he thought after a while,
"and that is how people can stand like Wangen with a calm face and lie
in court. God help those who have no more conscience than to do it!"
Printed by BALLANTYNE & CO. LIMITED
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Transcriber's Note
This transcription is based on two sets of images posted by the
HathiTrust Digital Library. The first, digitized by Google from a copy
made available by the University of Minnesota, is available at:
https://hdl.handle.net/2027/umn.31951001153970w
The second, digitized by the Internet Archive from a copy made
available by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is
available at:
https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uiuo.ark:/13960/t7fq9th7f
Images of this copy are also available through the Internet Archive:
https://archive.org/details/poweroflie00boje
Note that the scans of the copy from the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign do not include the introduction by Hall Craine.
The following changes were made to the printed text:
-- p. 2: "I shall soon be keeping nalf the parish," he
thought.--Changed "nalf" to "half".
-- p. 45: she turned and threw her arms about, his neck.--Deleted the
comma after "about".
-- p. 100: He had at first, therefore, half unconciously
wished--Changed "unconciously" to "unconsciously".
-- p. 100: whether they called themselves farmers or
mercnants--Changed "mercnants" to "merchants".
-- p. 120: 'But suppose sentence is passed on Wangen--Changed opening
single quotation mark to a double quotation mark.
-- p. 120: And he seated himself upon the edge of her bed. with the
light in his hand.--Deleted the period after "bed".
-- p. 136: And was Einar now going up to con- contradict her before
all these people?--Deleted "con-", which occurs at the end of a line.
-- p. 177: "Talk hold of my hand, Henry!"--Changed "Talk" to "Take".
-- p. 192: "Here it s Karen!"--Changed to "Here it is, Karen!"
-- p. 219: a little way up the the table--Deleted the second "the".
-- p. 230: Mountain and lake lay in a great calm peace--Added a period
to the end of the sentence.
Inconsistencies such as the two different spellings of "mustn't"
and the inconsistent italicization of "sæter" have been preserved.