“You are in a hurry with this marriage, Mattsson,” said the clergyman.

“Oh yes, it is best to get it done soon.”

“Could you not just as well give up the whole thing?  You are no longer young, Mattsson.”

The clergyman must not be too surprised.  He knew well enough that he was too old, but he was obliged to be married.  There was no help for it.

So he came again week after week for a half year, until at last the permission came.

During all that time old Mattsson was a persecuted man.  Round the green drying-place, where the brown fish-nets were hung out, along the cemented walls by the harbor, at the fish-tables in the market, where cod and crabs were sold, and far out in the sound among the shoals of herring, raged a storm of wonder and laughter.

“So he is going to be married, he, Mattsson, who ran away from his own wedding!”

Neither bride nor groom were spared.

But the worst thing for him was that no one could laugh more at the whole thing than he himself.  No one could find it more ridiculous.  His mother’s portrait was driving him mad.

***

It was the afternoon of the first time of asking.  Old Mattsson, still pursued by talk and wonderings, went out on the long breakwater as far as the whitewashed lighthouse, in order to be alone.  He found his betrothed there.  She sat and wept.

He asked her whether she would have liked some one else better.  She sat and pried little bits of mortar from the lighthouse wall and threw them into the water, answering nothing at first.

“Was there nobody you liked?”

“Oh no, of course not.”

It is very beautiful out by the lighthouse.  The clear water of the sound laps about it.  The low-lying shore, the little uniform houses of the fishing-village, and the distant town are all shining in wonderful beauty.  Out of the soft mist that hovers on the western horizon a fishing-boat comes gliding now and again.  Tacking boldly, it steers towards the harbor.  The water roars gaily past its bow as it shoots in through the narrow harbor entrance.  The sail drops silently at the same moment.  The fishermen swing their hats in joyous greeting, and on the bottom of the boat lies the glittering spoil.

A boat came into the harbor while old Mattsson stood out by the lighthouse.  A young man sitting at the tiller lifted his hat and nodded to the girl.  The old man saw that her eyes were shining.

“Well,” he thought, “have you fallen in love with the handsomest young fellow in the fishing-village?  Yes, you will never get him.  You may just as well marry me as wait for him.”

He saw that he could not escape his mother’s picture.  If the girl had cared for any one whom there was any possibility of getting, he would have had a good motive to be rid of the whole business.  But now it was useless to set her free.

***