He is away a moment, and comes back dressed, and with his father’s food basket over his shoulder.  As they go out, there is their father standing outside.  “So you’re going all that way, seems?” says Isak.

“Ay,” answered Eleseus; “but I’ll be coming back again.”

“I’ll not be keeping you now—­there’s little time,” mumbles the old man, and turns away.  “Good luck,” he croaks out in a strange voice, and goes off all hurriedly.

The two brothers walk down the road; a little way gone, they sit down to eat; Eleseus is hungry, can hardly eat enough.  ’Tis a fine spring night, and the black grouse at play on the hilltops; the homely sound makes the emigrant lose courage for a moment. “’Tis a fine night,” says he.  “You better turn back now, Sivert,” says he.

“H’m,” says Sivert, and goes on with him.

They pass by Storborg, by Breidablik, and the sound follows them all the way from the hills here and there; ’tis no military music like in the towns, nay, but voices—­a proclamation:  Spring has come.  Then suddenly the first chirp of a bird is heard from a treetop, waking others, and a calling and answering on every side; more than a song, it is a hymn of praise.  The emigrant feels home-sick already, maybe, something weak and helpless in him; he is going off to America, and none could be more fitted to go than he.

“You turn back now, Sivert,” says he.

“Ay, well,” says his brother.  “If you’d rather.”

They sit down at the edge of the wood, and see the village just below them, the store and the quay, Brede’s old lodging-house; some men are moving about by the steamer, getting ready.

“Well, no time to stay sitting here,” says Eleseus, getting up again.

“Fancy you going all that way,” says Sivert.

And Eleseus answers:  “But I’ll be coming back again.  And I’ll have a better sort of trunk that journey.”

As they say good-bye, Sivert thrusts something into his brother’s hand, a bit of something wrapped in paper.  “What is it?” asks Eleseus.

“Don’t forget to write often,” says Sivert.  And so he goes.

Eleseus opens the paper and looks; ’tis the gold piece, twenty-five Kroner in gold.  “Here, don’t!” he calls out.  “You mustn’t do that!”

Sivert walks on.

Walks on a little, then turns round and sits down again at the edge of the wood.  More folk astir now down by the steamer; passengers going on board, Eleseus going on board; the boat pushes off from the side and rows away.  And Eleseus is gone to America.

He never came back.

Chapter XII