“I don’t know about that,” replied the youth.  “All I do know is, that Joel can’t get home before to-morrow, and he sent me here to deliver the letter.”

“It is important then?”

“I should judge so.”

“Hand it here,” said Dame Hansen, in a tone that betrayed keen anxiety.

“Here it is, clean and not wrinkled in the least.  But the letter is not for you.”

Dame Hansen seemed to breathe more freely.

“Then who is it for?” she asked.

“For your daughter.”

“For me!” cried Hulda.  “It is a letter from Ole!  I am sure it is—­a letter that came by way of Christiania.  My brother did not want me to be kept waiting.”

Hulda had snatched the letter from the boy’s hand, and now taking it to the table upon which her mother had deposited the candle, she examined the address.

“Yes, it is from him.  It is certainly from him!  Heaven grant that he writes to announce the speedy return of the ’Viking’!”

“Won’t you come in?” said Dame Hansen, turning to the boy.

“Only for a minute.  I must get back home to-night, for I am to go with a kariol to-morrow morning.”

“Very well.  Tell Joel, from me, that I expect to go to Moel to-morrow, and that he must wait for me there.”

“To-morrow evening?”

“No; to-morrow morning, and he must not leave Moel until he sees me.  We will return to Dal together.”

“Very well, Dame Hansen.”

“Won’t you take a drop of brandevin?”

“With pleasure.”

The boy approached the table, and Dame Hansen handed him a glass of the beverage which is such a powerful protection against the evening fogs.  It is needless to say that he drained the glass, then,

“God-aften!” he said.

“God-aften, my son!”

This is the Norwegian good-night.  It was simply spoken, without even an inclination of the head, and the lad instantly departed, without seeming to mind in the least the long walk that he had before him.  The sound of his footsteps soon died away beneath the trees that border the swiftly flowing river.

Hulda still stood gazing at Ole’s letter.  Think of it!  This frail envelope must have crossed the broad ocean to reach her, the broad ocean in which the rivers of western Norway lose themselves.  She examined the different postmarks.  Though mailed on the 15th of March, the missive had not reached Dal until the 15th of April.  Why! a month had already elapsed since the letter was written!  How many things might have happened in a month on the shores of Newfoundland!  Was it not still winter, the dangerous season of equinoxes?  Are not these fishing banks the most dangerous in the world, swept by terrible gales from the North Pole?  A perilous and arduous vocation was this business of fishing which Ole followed!  And if he followed it was it not that she, his betrothed, whom he was to marry on his return, might reap the benefits?