“It is I!  Here I am!”

A little patience was all that was needed now, for everything was in readiness, and Siegfrid needed only a word to appear before them in all her splendor.

The 16th and 17th passed, and still no Ole, nor did the postman bring any letter from Newfoundland.

“There is no cause for anxiety, little sister,” Joel said, again and again.  “A sailing-vessel is always subject to delays.  It is a long way from St. Pierre-Miquelon to Bergen.  How I wish the ‘Viking’ were a steamer and I the engine.  How I would drive along against wind and tide, even if I should burst my boiler on coming into port.”

He said all this because he saw very plainly that Hulda’s uneasiness was increasing from day to day.

Just at this time, too, the weather was very bad in the Telemark.  Violent gales swept the high table-lands, and these winds, which blew from the west, came from America.

“They ought to have hastened the arrival of the ‘Viking,’” the young girl repeated again and again.

“Yes, little sister,” replied Joel; “but they are so strong that they may have hindered its progress, and compelled it to face the gale.  People can’t always do as they like upon the sea.”

“So you are not uneasy, Joel?”

“No, Hulda, no.  It is annoying, of course, but these delays are very common.  No; I am not uneasy, for there is really not the slightest cause for anxiety.”

On the 19th a traveler arrived at the inn, and asked for a guide to conduct him over the mountains to the Hardanger, and though Joel did not like the idea of leaving Hulda, he could not refuse his services.  He would only be absent forty-eight hours at the longest, and he felt confident that he should find Ole at Dal on his return, though, to tell the truth, the kind-hearted youth was beginning to feel very uneasy.  Still, he started off early the next morning, though with a heavy heart, we must admit.

On the following day, at precisely one o’clock, a loud rap resounded at the door of the inn.

“It is Ole!” cried Hulda.

She ran to the door.

There, in a kariol, sat a man enveloped in a traveling-cloak, a man whose face was unknown to her.

CHAPTER VI.

“Is this Dame Hansen’s inn?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” answered Hulda.

“Is Dame Hansen at home?”

“No; but she will soon return, and if you wish to speak to her—­”

“I do not.  There is nothing I want to say to her.”

“Would you like a room?”

“Yes; the best in the house.”

“Shall we prepare dinner for you?”

“As soon as possible, and see to it that everything is of the very best quality.”

These remarks were exchanged between Hulda and the traveler before the latter had alighted from the kariol, in which he had journeyed to the heart of the Telemark across the forests, lakes, and valleys of Central Norway.