hymn, and they widen out the vaulted roof into the dome of heaven;
while light and song and worshippers melt together and soar upwards
toward the infinite spaces.

Peer was thinking all the time: I don't care if I'm rich as rich, I WILL
be a priest. And then perhaps with all my money I can build a church
that no one ever saw the like of. And the first couple I'll marry there
shall be Martin Bruvold and little sister Louise--if only he'll have
her. Just wait and see!

A few days later he wrote to his father, asking if he might come into
town now and go to school. A long time passed, and then at last a letter
came in a strange hand-writing, and all the grown folks at Troen came
together again to read it. But what was their amazement when they read:

"You will possibly have learned by now from the newspapers that your
benefactor, Colonel Holm, has met his death by a fall from a horse. I
must therefore request you to call on me personally at your earliest
convenience, as I have several matters to settle with you. Yours
faithfully, J. Grundt, Senior Master."

They stood and looked at one another.

Peer was crying--chiefly, it must be admitted, at the thought of having
to bid good-bye to all the Troen folks and the two cows, and the calf,
and the grey cat. He might have to go right on to Christiania, no later
than to-morrow--to go to school there; and when he came back--why, very
likely the old mother might not be there any more.

So all three of them were heavy-hearted, when the pock-marked good-wife,
and the bow-legged old man, came down with him to the pier. And soon he
was standing on the deck of the fjord steamer, gazing at the two figures
growing smaller and smaller on the shore. And then one hut after another
in the little hamlet disappeared behind the ness--Troen itself was
gone now--and the hills and the woods where he had cut ring staves
and searched for stray cattle--swiftly all known things drew away and
vanished, until at last the whole parish was gone, and his childhood
over.

Chapter III

As evening fell, he saw a multitude of lights spread out on every side
far ahead in the darkness. And next, with his little wooden chest on his
shoulder, he was finding his way up through the streets by the quay to
a lodging-house for country folk, which he knew from former visits, when
he had come to the town with the Lofoten boats.

Next morning, clad in his country homespun, he marched up along River
Street